So I’ve been doing year in review for business+life, but for investment this would be the first one.
Anyway let me review the kind of thoughts and predictions I had at the beginning of the year, and how things have played out.
Predictions within a 1-year timeframe is near impossible anyway but it’s still a fun activity, plus it’s useful to try to learn from history.
2025 Investment P/L: +HK$+1.03M
It’s only Dec 25 today so still have a few days to go, maybe I’ll update again on Jan 1.
Anyway it’s been a good year. I wouldn’t have thought I could make HK$1M during the year.
Some played out even better than I thought, some didn’t. In any case the results came out okay.
US Equity
Quite a roller coaster ride this year.
Topped out toward the first month and that was when I plowed all of grandmas money HK$1.3M into the market too.
So was in the red by the time of liberation day, and it was a kind of scary time.
I think I was fairly confident that it will bounce back quickly though. In reality it V-shape recovered even quicker than I thought.
Glad I was able to bought some of the dip as well, especially TSLA and GOOGL which was beaten down the most.
All in all, a nice year for stocks. Unfortunately I didn’t make detailed sheets broken down by asset class until April so I don’t know exactly how much I made. I think it would have been close to $300k contributed from stocks, probably +20-30%.
2026 Prediction
I think 2026 should still be a positive year, with the tailwind that I will be outlining in the crypto section.
Tom Lee has an S&P target of 7700 which is about a 10% increase. I think that’s pretty reasonable.
My portfolio is high beta so maybe a +15% would be reasonable.
Gold
What a heck of a run for gold in 2025!!!
+70% for the year, which is like historically the best year in like the last 40 years I think.
Anyway definitely did not expect this. Just glad that I decided to put so much of the portfolio into gold.
The thesis is in tact although no one could’ve predicted this kind of wild move.
2026 Prediction
Some people think after such a crazy run it has to cool down.
I am thinking maybe not, since the underlying fundamental story that is driving the rally is still very much there (geopolitical tensions, nationalism, de-dollarization)
Anyway though another 70% year would be too wild maybe. I don’t really even know what to predict.
I would predict though that any drawdowns or corrections would be shallow, maybe -10% max. Probably range bound most of the time if history rhymes.
Maybe +20% for the year would be feasible. Just a wild guess.
Crypto
This one really surprised me to the downside.
As outlined back in March, there has been a lot of positive developments for BTC:
However perhaps the rally from 70k to 100k+ in 2024 was already front-running a lot of those tailwinds.
In any case it did stay above 100k for most of the year, and hit ATH multiple times at around 125k.
Unfortunately due to the Oct liquidation and selloff, it never recovered and its now range bound around 86-88k.
MSTR is even worse, ran down to a 0.93x diluted mnav multiple and <$160 stock price.
I think looking back this would be an amazing buying opportunity though. And I have for sure kept buying the dip all the way down.
I will still keep buying if it goes down more, but I did buy a lot during this long dip so also not in a hurry to just keep buying and buying if it’s range bounded like the past few weeks.
2026 Prediction
I think the expectation of the 4-year cycle is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy into creating the mini-bear during these 3 months.
The consensus narrative out there is probably that 2026 will be a bear year.
I don’t say this with 100% certainty anymore, but I think 2026 will be a bull year that surprise to the upside.
BTC and crypto in general feels pretty oversold, and I don’t see too much more supply coming in to say trample it down to 60-70k.
That price would also put a lot of people into a loss, and long-term holders won’t sell into losses, myself included.
Anyway I think the 4-year cycle is broken – fed is cutting rates, money printers running wild globally, M2 supply increasing; ISM is going into recovery, ETFs keep getting inflow, regulations are getting more clarity, adoption is continuing … all tailwinds pointing to a higher BTC.
So the fact that it didn’t rise this year just gives more room for it to rise next year.
My guess would be $150-200k by year end. MSTR should recover to at least 1.5-2x mnav which would put it at $600-1000 stock price.
Pretty wild calls but I am calling it. let’s see how it goes.
USDJPY
Not too surprising for this one.
Started out weak and got even weaker during the Trump tariff fiasco, but looking back it was a blessing.
I kept shorting the yen and I know fundamentally the yen is weaker than USD.
Everything played out according to my previous prediction. Weak USD, even weaker yen, rising USDJPY at the end of the day.
Of course made a shit ton based on the USDJPY gains, not to mention the cheap interest rate I am getting with the yen margin loans.
2026 Prediction
With net yen shorts during last year carry trade unwind, but net yen long at this point, interventions will become harder and Takaichi might want an even weaker yen anyway, so I think 2026 might be the year it finally breaks through 160.
Once it breaks through it should have hardly any resistance and might see 170 quickly.
Hardest to predict FX but just going to say USDJPY 170 by 2026 year end.