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By now pretty much every firm has weighed in on what they expect in markets next year (all but one: solid but less spectacular stock-market gains).
But a special credit goes to the team that put together the macro outlook at Nomura, which not only identified what it perceived to be the tail risks — that is, surprises in either direction — for markets in 2025 but also asked ChatGPT to do so. You can look at the two side-by-side. And for the really curious, MarketWatch went and asked other AI engines (and got fairly similar results) — here’s what Gemini and Command-R have to say.
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There’s a lot of common ground between AI and the humans, as they both brought geopolitics, cyber security, debt concerns, and tech issues to the fore. Perhaps because of recency bias, ChatGPT is fearful of what COVID brought — the pandemic itself and the related supply-chain disruptions. The Nomura team captures more Trump 2.0 concerns: trade wars, Fed hikes, possible loss of Fed independence.
The Nomura team puts both AI bust and boom as tail risks, which does feel about right. One added AI concern, not addressed by either robot or human here, is the scaling trouble that the chatbots of late have encountered — they aren’t getting smarter with more firepower.
It’s also noticeable how they looked at energy in completely different ways — ChatGPT is fearful of supply shock, while the Nomura team fears a glut.
The markets
Stock-market futures ES00 NQ00 rose. Bitcoin BTCUSD cooled a little after reaching over $106,000 during the weekend.
| Key asset performance | Last | 5d | 1m | YTD | 1y |
| S&P 500 | 6051.09 | -0.64% | 3.07% | 26.86% | 28.22% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 19,926.72 | 0.34% | 6.67% | 32.74% | 34.51% |
| 10-year Treasury | 4.387 | 18.40 | -3.40 | 50.61 | 44.81 |
| Gold | 2678.4 | -0.17% | 2.38% | 29.28% | 31.22% |
| Oil | 70.54 | 3.51% | 2.11% | -1.11% | -3.22% |
| Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points | |||||
The buzz
Axon Enterprise AXON, Palantir Technologies PLTR, and somewhat controversially MicroStrategy MSTR are joining the Nasdaq 100, replacing Illimuna ILMN, Super Micro Computer SMCI and Moderna MRNA. Super Micro hired Evercore to raise capital, according to a Bloomberg report.