2025 Market Review: Liberation Day, a Market Tantrum, and the Bull That Didn’t Care

If 2025 taught investors anything, it was this: markets are dramatic, but not sentimental.
This was a year of sharp shocks, faster recoveries, and a growing realisation that panic is usually expensive while patience, irritatingly, still pays. The defining moments came early, loud, and slightly uninvited.

Let’s rewind to the episode optimistically titled Liberation Day.

Liberation Day: When Liberation Felt a Lot Like Panic

“Liberation Day” sounded like a gift. The market opened it and immediately checked the receipt.

Instead of freedom, investors got tariffs,big ones, blunt ones, and unapologetically political. Supply chains rattled, trade assumptions wobbled, and equity markets responded in the only language they know when surprised: sell first, analyse later.

Volatility spiked. Cyclicals swooned. Commentators rediscovered the word “stagflation” with unsettling enthusiasm. For a few sessions, it felt like policy risk had reasserted itself as the main character.

And then, almost inconveniently, the market calmed down.

Why? Because once the shock passed, investors did what they always do when fear exhausts itself: they ran the numbers. Tariffs were inflationary, yes but also negotiable. Growth was dented, not destroyed. And most importantly, corporate balance sheets were sturdy enough to absorb discomfort.

Liberation Day didn’t liberate markets, it stress-tested them. And once the test was passed, confidence returned with interest.

The Bull Market: Unimpressed by Drama

The rally that followed was not polite. It was relentless.

This bull market had an unusual trait: it refused to panic twice. Every tariff-related wobble became a buying opportunity. Every macro scare was met with the same response, “show me the earnings.”

And earnings showed up.

AI stopped being a buzzword and started being a margin story. Productivity gains moved from conference slides to quarterly reports. The long-feared recession became that rarest of economic creatures: the one that never arrived.

Valuations stretched, as they always do when optimism gets comfortable, but this wasn’t blind exuberance. It was a market pricing durability, not perfection.
The bull didn’t charge it leaned forward and kept walking.

 

Gold and Silver: Panic First, Validation Later

If equities shrugged off Liberation Day eventually, precious metals did not wait around for reassurance.

Gold surged as tariffs reignited an old fear: that political risk travels faster than policy clarity. Central banks, already enthusiastic buyers, doubled down. Investors remembered that gold isn’t about crisis it’s about credibility. And credibility, once questioned, commands a premium.

Silver followed with less grace and more enthusiasm.

Industrial demand collided with monetary anxiety, and silver finally escaped its long-standing role as gold’s overlooked cousin. Tight supply, green infrastructure, and speculative momentum combined into a rally that was anything but subtle.

Gold made history.

Silver made noise.

Both made sense.

The Bigger Picture: A Market with a Short Fuse and a Long Memory

What defined 2025 wasn’t serenity, it was resilience.

Markets panicked when surprised.

Recovered when informed.

And rallied when convinced.

Investors didn’t ignore risks; they simply stopped letting them dominate portfolios. Trade tensions, debt burdens, and geopolitical uncertainty remained but they became variables, not verdicts.
Equities delivered growth.

Metals delivered trust.

Cash finally remembered it was meant to be deployed.

Final Thought: Drama Is Temporary, Trends Are Not

Liberation Day reminded us that markets hate uncertainty more than bad news. The bull rally proved that fundamentals still matter. Gold and silver confirmed that trust, once shaken, is never entirely restored only repriced.

2025 was noisy. Occasionally absurd. And surprisingly constructive.

The lesson?

Markets may panic on headlines but they invest in outcomes.

And in 2025, outcomes won.

Anyway, till next time, all of you trade safe!

By James Trescothick
Head of Market Research and Market Analysis

Risk Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Financial markets involve risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Always conduct your own research and seek professional advice before making investment decisions.