Outpoll Weekly Recap: Finance (December 22 – 28, 2025)
The final trading week of 2025 delivered a classic year-end cocktail of thin liquidity and outsized moves, leaving market strategists scrambling to update their 2026 playbooks. The headline act was the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Core PCE, which came in cooler than expected at 2.1% year-over-year, finally nudging into the central bank’s comfort zone. This dovish data point, arriving like a late Christmas gift, triggered a swift rally in rate-sensitive assets.Treasury yields, particularly on the short end of the curve, dropped sharply, with the two-year note shedding 15 basis points to trade at 3. 85%—its lowest level since last spring.The equity market’s reaction, however, was more nuanced than a simple risk-on surge. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq, a perennial beneficiary of lower discount rates, jumped 2.8%, the broader S&P 500’s 1. 5% gain was more measured, revealing underlying sector rotation.Defensive utilities and consumer staples underperformed, while financials wobbled on the compressed net interest margin outlook, illustrating that the market is already pricing in a new regime of modest, controlled cuts rather than a panic-driven easing cycle. This bifurcation suggests investors are heeding the Fed’s own cautious narrative; Chair Powell’s recent remarks emphasizing data-dependence have clearly tempered any irrational exuberance, keeping a lid on the so-called ‘everything rally’ we saw in prior easing cycles.Meanwhile, in prediction markets, contracts on the Fed’s first 2026 rate cut shifted dramatically, with the probability of a March move jumping from 35% to 68% by Thursday’s close. This repricing wasn’t confined to macro bets; corporate event markets were also buzzing.Shares of a major aerospace giant, Boeing, saw elevated volatility, but prediction contracts on ‘Boeing securing a new flagship order from Emirates by Q1 2026’ actually dipped 12 points to 45%, as traders weighed ongoing supply chain scrutiny against geopolitical tailwinds. In crypto, Bitcoin briefly reclaimed the $75,000 level on the inflation news, but its failure to hold above that psychological resistance—closing the week at $72,400—highlighted the asset’s continued sensitivity to traditional macro flows and the draining liquidity from altcoins. As we turn the page, the dominant question for Q1 is whether this ‘goldilocks’ scenario of cooling inflation without a sharp growth slowdown can be sustained, or if the market is simply enjoying the calm before the storm of earnings season and what will undoubtedly be a contentious election year.
