Santa Claus showed up fashionably late to Wall Street this year, but he definitely brought presents. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) hit fresh all-time highs during the shortened Christmas week, setting up what looks like the index's third straight year of double-digit gains. Even more impressive? It's the sixth time in seven years the benchmark has delivered those kinds of returns.
Tech Stocks Lead the Charge Once Again
If this market story feels familiar, that's because it is. Technology stocks once again carried the market higher, with Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) putting together its best week since late October. The chipmaker got a nice boost from a fresh wave of deals centered around its next-generation artificial intelligence chips.
The headline announcement came Wednesday when AI chip startup Groq unveiled a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for its inference technology. The deal reportedly clocks in at around $20 billion, and analysts are calling it another brick in Nvidia's already-fortress-like competitive moat. When you're already dominant and still landing deals this size, you're doing something right.
Meanwhile, Micron Technology Inc. (MU) kept doing what it's been doing: rallying. The memory chip maker extended gains following its blockbuster quarterly earnings report, notching its fifth consecutive weekly gain and tenth in the past eleven weeks. When you're on that kind of streak, people start to notice.
And notice they should. Micron currently holds the title of second-best performer in the S&P 500 this year, with shares rocketing roughly 240% year to date. The only stock ahead of it? Western Digital Corp. (WDC), which takes the top spot among the index's 2025 gainers.
Tim Cook Buys the Dip, Detroit Has a Moment
In one of the more interesting individual stock stories of the week, Nike Inc. (NKE) made headlines after Apple CEO Tim Cook disclosed a $3 million purchase of the company's stock. Cook picked up 50,000 shares at $58.97 each, jumping in after Nike's sharp post-earnings selloff. The market liked what it saw—Nike shares responded by climbing about 5%.
There's something satisfying about watching one of the world's most successful CEOs buy the dip on a beaten-down consumer brand. It's the kind of move that makes retail investors feel slightly better about their own buy-the-dip strategies, even if Cook's $3 million represents a different slice of his net worth than most people's stock purchases.
Speaking of comebacks, Michigan-based automakers are having quite the year. General Motors Co. (GM) shares have climbed 55% year to date, while Ford Motor Co. (F) has posted a respectable 38% gain. For General Motors, this marks its best annual performance since the company returned to public markets in 2010 following its post-financial-crisis restructuring.
Not everyone in Detroit is celebrating equally, though. Stellantis N.V. (STLA) has lagged its peers considerably and is on track to close the year down roughly 13%. Sometimes the rising tide doesn't lift all boats.
Precious Metals Deliver Historic Returns
While stocks grabbed most of the attention, the real fireworks might have been happening in the commodities market. Precious metals are wrapping up what can only be described as an exceptional year.
Silver's rally has been nothing short of spectacular. Prices broke above $75 an ounce this week amid acute supply constraints in Asian markets. The metal has now posted a year-to-date gain above 150%, marking its strongest annual performance since 1979. Let that sink in for a moment—we're talking about the best year for silver in over four decades.
Silver wasn't alone in delivering eye-popping returns. Platinum, tracked by the Aberdeen Physical Platinum Shares ETF (PPLT), has surged roughly 170% this year. That's on track to be its best annual performance on record. Not just a good year, not just a great year—the best year ever recorded for the metal.
The precious metals rally defies some conventional wisdom about what happens when stock markets are hitting all-time highs. Typically, you'd expect investors to rotate out of safe-haven assets when risk appetite is strong. But this year, we've seen both equities and precious metals climbing in tandem, suggesting something more complex is happening beneath the surface. Whether it's concerns about long-term inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, or genuine supply constraints driving the metals higher, investors are clearly finding room in their portfolios for both growth and traditional stores of value.
As we head into the final trading days of 2025, the market is delivering the kind of year-end performance that makes for happy investors and challenging decisions about portfolio rebalancing. With the S&P 500 at record highs, tech stocks extending their dominance, and commodities delivering historic returns, it's been a year that rewarded both traditional equity exposure and alternative asset allocations.