2025: the anaesthesia of the markets between records and hidden fragilities
The year 2025 closes with the image of a suspended financial world: a sort of collective anaesthesia that accompanies the simultaneous records highs of equity indices and precious metals. After two years of recession fears, the apparent stability of markets hides a precarious equilibrium, supported by still expansionary policies and an almost hypnotic confidence in the ability of central banks to orchestrate a permanent soft landing. But, as the International Monetary Fund warns, a soft landing does not equate to stability: geopolitical shocks remain around the corner.
The average level of trade tariffs, which has returned to 17-18%, is beginning to filter into the real economy, while the replenishment of inventories at higher prices risks squeezing margins and weighing on employment in 2026. On the energy front, Trump attempts to keep oil prices low, using strategic reserves to counterbalance the inflationary effects of tariffs. A fragile balance reflecting the increasing politicization of global economic variables.
 | Monica Nardelli, Strategist, Cornèr Bank |
Dollar, dedollarization and debasement trade
In a context of trade wars, geopolitical blocs and sanctions, the dollar remains the dominant currency, but no longer undisputed. Weaponization of the American currency —from freezing Russian reserves to threatening new measures against China and Venezuela— has prompted many central banks to diversify their reserves into gold and local currencies.
The so-called debasement trade has emerged as a new paradigm: a race toward real assets –gold, precious metals, and Bitcoin– perceived as defence tools against the erosion of the purchasing power of fiat currencies and the increasingly relative independence of the Federal Reserve.
According to the World Gold Council, net central bank gold purchases exceeded 1,000 tonnes for the third consecutive year, with China and the Gulf countries at the forefront. A fact that marks the progressive erosion of American monetary dominance in favour of a multipolar logic.
Equities, AI bubble risk and family businesses
The other side of this collective anaesthesia is the potential bubble linked to artificial intelligence. Investments remain confined to a closed loop for now — Nvidia invests in OpenAI, OpenAI pays Oracle for cloud-services, and Oracle buys GPUs from Nvidia — generating circular growth that inflates valuations but still has limited effects on the real economy.
As long as AI spending remains concentrated in Big Tech, the macro multiplier is partial. The sustainability of evaluations will require a shift towards widespread industrial investment in 2026 and the consequent concrete adoption of new technologies by companies, with a view to improving productivity and margins. Otherwise, the risk is that we will have a déjà vu: a capital bubble that runs out before translating into actual growth.
In this context, portfolio diversification that includes strong and resilient companies with long-term operational management is essential to avoid excessive concentrations in young and promising sectors that are not risk-free. These include family-owned companies, which, thanks to their unique business models, respond well to these diversification needs.
Credit and bonds: the normalization of risk
On the bond front, spreads remain compressed, but signs of tension are increasing. Banking deregulation and reduced capital requirements in the United States should inject new liquidity, but at the cost of increased system vulnerability. Leverage and poor transparency in private credit (in the light of recent default cases) remain the weak points to be monitored carefully, along with any deterioration in corporate credit quality.
Commodities and trade wars
Strategic raw materials remain a battleground for geopolitics and instruments of diplomatic pressure: China uses refining permits as a negotiating lever, Congo considers restrictions on cobalt exports, Russia threatens new limits on palladium supplies.
These elements accentuate the volatility of green metals, which are essential for the energy transition, and require a geographical diversification of supply chains. The regionalization of trade, accelerated by US-China tensions, is redrawing the global industrial map: manufacturing is returning close to consumer markets, but with increasing costs and inefficiencies.
On the energy front, the slight fall in the price of oil helps to contain inflation, but the cost of energy-related raw materials could still take on a geopolitical role with potential coercive implications.
2026: reconstruction and return to reality
2026 opens under the sign of uncertainty but also of possibilities. If the war in Ukraine finds a definitive resolution, infrastructure and industrial reconstruction could become the new engine of global growth, driving demand for raw materials, technologies, and capital.
Central banks are in a revision phase: rates are gradually falling, but inflation is still sticky. The risk is of overconfidence in the permanence of cheap liquidity, in a context where public and private debt limit the room for manoeuvre. The real challenge next year will be a return to reality: turning easy money and AI euphoria into productivity and tangible investment. Only in this way can the global economy awaken from the anaesthesia that characterized a 2025 of apparent records and profound fragilities.
Biography
Since September 2023, Monica Nardelli has held the role of Strategist at Cornèr Bank. With over 30 years of experience in financial markets, she has held key positions at the Intesa Sanpaolo group, initially as Sales Analyst and Business Development in Italy and then as the Head of Discretionary Portfolio Management Office for Intesa Sanpaolo Suisse now Reyl Intesa Sanpaolo. She holds several degrees and certifications: a master degree in financial sciences from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, an AIAF Certification, an SIAT Certification, a Diploma in Geopolitics ISPI School, an SAQ CWMA Certified Wealth Management Advisor.