Looking back at 2025, the US stock market, like a super-giant ship, sailed through storms and turbulent waves, venturing into new waters it had never set foot in before.
On one hand, the US tariff storm has stirred up huge waves, while on the other hand, the AI wave has spurred a capital frenzy. Coupled with multiple variables such as the Federal Reserve's monetary policy game and geopolitical risks, the market has witnessed a series of "feast" and "terrifying" moments.
From the epic stock market crash triggered by US President Trump wielding the tariff weapon, to the AI boom coupled with the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts pushing the total market capitalization of US stocks towards $70 trillion; from Nvidia... Oracle 's market capitalization historically surpassed $5 trillion. A trillion-dollar market capitalization is just a pipe dream; from the "big short" warning of an AI bubble risk to Wall Street investment banks collectively touting the S&P 500...
This article will take you through the ten most significant events that shook the US stock market in 2025. These events not only outline the ups and downs of the US stock market throughout the year, but also provide important insights for investors to explore potential opportunities in 2026.
1. Trump's tariff storm triggers an epic stock market crash: $6.6 trillion in market value evaporates in two days. In 2025, the US stock market experienced several impressive crashes due to a combination of factors, including tariff shocks and valuation concerns. The most severe crash occurred on April 3rd and 4th.
The US stock market lost a record $6.6 trillion in market capitalization in just two days, almost equivalent to the US government's entire annual fiscal expenditure. The S&P 500 index fell by a cumulative 10.53% over the two days, as did the Russell 2000 and Nasdaq indices. The composite index fell into a technical bear market on the 3rd and 4th respectively.
The trigger for this epic crash was US President Trump's executive order announcing so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on all trading partners, triggering a panic sell-off among investors. This collapse, dubbed the "Black 48 Hours" by Wall Street, not only exposed the vulnerability of US stocks under high valuations but also highlighted the destructive power of political variables on financial markets.
2. The AI boom, coupled with the Fed's interest rate cut cycle, propels the total market capitalization of US stocks towards $70 trillion.
In 2025, the AI revolution and the Federal Reserve's easing cycle will create a strong synergy, driving the total market capitalization of US stocks to continue to climb, currently approaching the $70 trillion mark. Funds are pouring into the technology sector, pushing the Nasdaq index up over 20% for the year (as of now), while the S&P 500 index has already hit 37 all-time closing highs this year.
According to the Wilshire 5000, the oldest total market index in the U.S. stock market, the current total market capitalization of U.S. stocks is approximately $68.22 trillion, nearly $10 trillion higher than the $58.88 trillion at the beginning of the year.
However, behind the euphoria, concerns are accumulating. Currently, the Buffett Indicator (total stock market capitalization/GDP), a measure of the overall valuation level and market bubble degree proposed by Warren Buffett, has risen to 223%, far exceeding Buffett's reasonable range of 70%-80%, and significantly higher than the peak during the dot-com bubble of 2000. Analysts warn that this $70 trillion feast may face severe challenges when liquidity recedes or AI profits fall short of expectations.
3. Making history! Nvidia, the "world's stock king," once had a market capitalization exceeding $5 trillion.
On October 29, 2025, the global capital market witnessed a historic moment – Nvidia, the “world’s stock king,” broke through the $5 trillion mark in market capitalization, becoming the first company in the world to achieve this milestone.
It took Nvidia only 113 days for its market capitalization to jump from $4 trillion to $5 trillion, while it took 410 days to go from $3 trillion to $4 trillion. This $5 trillion market capitalization already surpasses the total market capitalization of the stock markets in countries like the UK, France, and Germany.
The core driving force behind Nvidia's soaring market value This surge in computing power demand is driven by the global AI revolution. Nvidia, with its GPUs and CUDA ecosystem, has monopolized the AI chip market. It holds 80%-90% of the market share. The training and inference of large models heavily rely on large-scale computing power, and the core hardware carrier of computing power is the AI chip .
4. AI Ignites Storage Super Cycle: Three Giants Join Forces to Drive SanDisk's Stock Price Surge Becoming the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2025, with the global AI infrastructure construction entering a period of explosive growth, a "storage supercycle" has quietly begun. The training and inference of large AI models involve massive amounts of data processing, and the operation process is extremely sensitive to latency, which places extremely high demands on the capacity and throughput bandwidth of data storage systems.
Against this backdrop, the three major U.S. storage giants have seen their stock prices surge: Micron, which focuses on memory (primarily DRAM/HBM), has seen its stock price rise by 204% this year, and Western Digital , which focuses on hard drives (primarily HDDs), has also seen its stock price rise significantly. And Seagate Technology The stock prices rose by 287% and 243% respectively. SanDisk , which focuses on NAND flash memory (spun off from Western Digital in February this year), became the most dazzling star in this super cycle, becoming the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 with a year-to-date stock price increase of 560%.
The core logic behind this collective price surge lies in two aspects: firstly, AI servers have a much higher demand for storage capacity and bandwidth than ordinary servers; secondly, industry production capacity is shifting towards high-end storage products (such as HBM), squeezing out the production capacity of traditional storage products, thus triggering a price increase wave across the entire storage industry.
5. Silicon Valley giants are building AI data centers at a frenzy. Energy infrastructure stocks are frequently rising.
In 2025, Silicon Valley tech giants such as Meta, Google, and OpenAI will launch an "AI arms race," investing heavily in building AI data centers . Reports indicate that a 100-megawatt data center can power 100,000 homes, and new data centers under construction will consume even more.
The traditional US power grid struggles to handle such a dense energy load, leading to explosive growth in the energy infrastructure sector. Companies focused on advanced energy generation are riding this wave, with the outstanding stock performance of companies like Oklo and Bloom Energy directly attesting to this trend. Nuclear power technology company Oklo leverages its microreactor technology, while clean energy company Bloom Energy excels in its solid oxide fuel cells. The (SOFC) system has seen its stock price rise by nearly 300% this year.
These two companies, once considered "fringe energy players," are now shining brightly, indicating that Wall Street is beginning to redefine the logic of energy stocks: the end of AI is computing power, and the end of computing power is electricity. In the AI era, whoever controls stable, clean, and locally deployed electricity will become the ultimate winner of the AI economy.
6. Oracle's trillion-dollar market capitalization was just a pipe dream; Ellison briefly enjoyed being the richest man in the world.
On September 10th of this year, the stock price of Oracle, a long-established American technology giant, surged by more than 40% intraday, with its market value increasing by approximately $270 billion. This was the largest single-day increase in the company's history, briefly propelling its founder, Larry Ellison, to the top of the world's richest list, surpassing Elon Musk in net worth.
Oracle's stock surged that day because of its incredibly strong growth forecast for cloud services in its earnings report. The company stated that unconfirmed performance obligations (RPO) reached $455 billion at the end of August, a three-fold increase in just three months, and claimed that more "billions of dollars in deals" were under discussion, soon exceeding $500 billion.
However, this illusion ultimately couldn't withstand the scrutiny of reality. As a series of risks gradually surfaced, including negative free cash flow, massive debt, and excessive customer concentration, and as Oracle's credit default swap (CDS) prices soared to their highest levels since the financial crisis, investors panicked and sold off the stock. Since its September high, Oracle's stock price has cumulatively corrected by more than 40%.
Oracle's dramatic stock price fluctuations reveal a harsh reality: in the AI era, simply possessing core technologies is not enough; the real moat lies in profitable technological capabilities, and the market is beginning to test the AI narrative with tangible money-making ability.
7. The "Big Short" Returns: Targeting AI Bubble Risks and Attacking AI Darlings like Nvidia
In October of this year, Michael Burry, the investment guru who was the inspiration for the protagonist of the movie "The Big Short" and who accurately predicted the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis, returned to the public eye after two years of silence. He pointed the finger at AI "darlings" such as Nvidia, saying that the current AI craze has evolved into an irrational frenzy comparable to the Internet bubble.
He published multiple articles questioning Nvidia's chip lifespan, equity dilution, and "circular financing" among AI companies, claiming that Nvidia is like Cisco during the dot-com bubble. This is a harbinger of the bursting of the AI bubble, and points out that there is a catastrophic problem of oversupply and undersupply in the AI field.
According to documents disclosed in early November, Burry's hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, already held put options on key AI stocks such as Nvidia by the end of September. However, Burry recently announced that Scion Asset Management had acquired these put options from U.S. securities firms . The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revoked the registration and will no longer accept external funding.
Nvidia's market capitalization has exceeded the annual GDP of most countries in the world. Although its revenue and profits are still growing rapidly, when Bury exclaimed that "this is the most dangerous bubble in history," investors had to think: Can the value of a company really supersede the national economy?
8. From a 60% drop to an 80% rise, Intel, the long-established chip giant A strong comeback
From being mired in the predicament of outdated manufacturing processes and loss of market share in 2024, with its stock price plummeting by 60%, to a strong rebound of over 80% in 2025, the turnaround of the veteran chip giant Intel can be regarded as a model of "reversal of adversity".
Under the leadership of new CEO Chen Liwu, radical reforms have been launched, AI deployment has been accelerated, the 18A advanced process has been steadily advanced, and the acquisition of a stake by the US government and strategic investments from tech giants such as SoftBank and Nvidia have significantly improved the company's financial situation, all of which have contributed to Intel's sharp rebound in stock price this year.
Intel's comeback demonstrates the recovery potential of tech giants through technological accumulation and strategic adjustments, and provides a reference model for companies in distress to "make decisive changes, focus on their strengths, and proactively leverage external momentum during crises."
9. Medline, the IPO king of the year, raised $6.26 billion on Nasdaq.
On December 17, Medline, the US medical supplies giant, officially listed on Nasdaq. Its stock price surged over 41% on its first day of trading, closing at $41, giving it a market capitalization of $54 billion. Medline's IPO sold 216 million shares at $29 each, raising $6.26 billion, making it the largest IPO globally this year and the largest US IPO in four years.
Medline is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of medical consumables, specializing in medical gloves, surgical gowns, and other medical supplies. Its product portfolio exceeds 550,000 items, and its business covers various medical institutions in over 125 countries. The company's financial performance is characterized by sustained and steady revenue growth, strong profitability, and robust cash flow.
Medline's successful IPO not only boosted investors' optimistic expectations for the US IPO market in 2026, but also sent a signal: beyond the AI craze, mature physical enterprises with stable cash flow and verifiable profitability remain the "hot commodities" of the capital market.
10. Will the S&P 500 reach 8000 points next year? Wall Street investment banks are collectively bullish on the S&P 500.
Despite the US stock market currently being near historical highs, optimism on Wall Street remains high. As the year draws to a close, major investment banks have given 2026 target levels for the S&P 500 significantly higher than current levels (last Friday's close was 6834.5 points).
Citigroup has set a 2026 target of 7,700 for the S&P 500, and predicts that, in an optimistic scenario, the benchmark index could rise to 8,300. Oppenheimer and Deutsche Bank... Morgan Stanley Other institutions, such as UBS and Goldman Sachs , have also given positive outlooks for the market, targeting 8100, 8000, and 7800 points respectively. JPMorgan Chase Investment banks have given target prices of over 7,500 points; even Bank of America, the least optimistic among Wall Street's mainstream investment banks, believes that the S&P 500 will close at around 7,100 points in December next year.
The reasons behind the optimistic outlook include: the easing of liquidity brought about by the Fed's interest rate cuts, the accelerated growth of corporate profits driven by AI, the soft landing of the US economy, and the continuation of fiscal stimulus.
(Article source: CLS)
