Investors have always utilized gold as a hedge for uncertainty—and if you’ve been anywhere near a TV or newspaper over the last month, we don’t have to tell you that we have enough chaos to last us a lifetime right now. Amid geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East, a full-on trade war simmering, and Russia’s war with Ukraine showing no signs of ending, a world on fire has boosted the glittering metal to new heights.

Gold climbed roughly 26% in 2024—handily outpacing the broader stock market in its best year since 2010. The shiny metal jumped another 9.42% in just the past month alone, continuing its record-breaking winning streak.

Regular old retail investors aren’t the only ones scrambling for a hedge: Central banks worldwide have been splashing out on the precious metal like it's on supersale at Costco.

According to recent data from the World Gold Council released this week, central banks ramped up their gold purchasing to 1,045 metric tons in 2024—double the average amount they purchased in the ten-year period between 2011 and 2021. China, Poland, Turkey and India are some of the largest buyers.

The Street is bullish on gold

Analysts at major banks including JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs set their price targets for gold at $3,000 per ounce for this year back in December—almost 4% above its current price of $2,886 an ounce.

Thanks to a hot start in 2025, the bulls are growing in numbers. Just yesterday, UBS Americas CIO Solita Marcelli said the bank had raised its price target from $2,870 per ounce to $3,000.

“We think diversification and de-dollarization trends should lead to continued solid central bank demand in the coming years,” Marcelli wrote. “Moreover, an increasing US federal deficit and the worsening of its debt profile over the long run should also underpin gold’s attractiveness versus the US dollar.”

Don’t want to lug bars back from Costco?

Exchange-traded funds can give you direct exposure to gold—and other commodities—without actually owning it physically. The largest pure-play gold ETF on the market is the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD). The fund gained 27% in 2024 and is currently up 7.53% year to date.

Gold miner stocks such as Barrick Gold and Newmont Corp can also provide a different way to play this golden theme. While their performance has lagged the actual commodity since 2021, since these firms are obviously very involved in gold production, they tend to rise when there’s more demand for the metal.

However you choose to invest, this precious metal can provide much-needed safety from market volatility: “We continue to see gold as an effective portfolio hedge and diversifier, and believe an allocation of around 5% within a USD balanced portfolio is optimal. Direct exposure to the metal may dampen risk in portfolios,” wrote Marcelli.

Talk about a new golden age.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• Take-Two Interactive popped 14.03% after video game company reassured everyone that, yes, GTA 6 is still on track for a fall 2025 release.
• Expedia booked a ticket to big gains after it beat top and bottom line expectations and reinstated its dividend. Shares of the online travel agency climbed 17.27%.
• Uber shot 6.59% higher on the news that activist investor Bill Ackman has quietly been building a $2 billion stake in the ridesharing company.
• Cloudflare soared 17.76% after the cybersecurity company added a record number of paying customers last quarter, which helped boost profits above expectations.
• Doximity skyrocketed 35.99% thanks to the digital medical platform’s fantastic fiscal third quarter.
• Frontier Group Holdings might not acquire rival Spirit Airlines, but shareholders shouldn’t be worried after the discount airline’s impressive turnaround. Shares popped 15.45%.

What’s down

• Amazon beat sales and earnings expectations last quarter, but shareholders had higher hopes for the coming quarter. Shares sank 4.05%.
• Semiconductor manufacturer Marvell Technology is a key supplier for Amazon, but with investors worried about the e-commerce giant’s spending plans, shares dropped 7.23%.
• Nikola plummeted 41.12% following reports that the EV startup may be nearing bankruptcy.
• Nike was downgraded by Citi analysts following a meeting with new CEO Elliott Hill. They were clearly unimpressed. Shares fell 4.27%.
• Bill Holdings was stuck holding the bill after the payment platform beat earnings estimates but noted that a stronger dollar ate into its bottom line, pushing shares down 35.52%.
• Skechers management also referenced unfavorable exchange rates in their call today, but that wasn’t the only reason the shoe seller missed on top and bottom line estimates last quarter. Shares lost 12.68%.

We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again: Big tech has expensive taste.

Now that Amazon has reported its latest quarterly figures, we’ve got capital expenditures expectations from the biggest AI buyers on the block. Capex has risen dramatically over the past few quarters as these companies compete with one another to dominate the AI revolution, shelling out for cutting-edge tech to gain any advantage over one another.

Whether you think it’s a good idea for these companies to put all their eggs into one AI basket or not (and views on that are quickly changing), here is how much some of the biggest companies on the market are planning to spend in 2025.

Meta Platforms: Up to $65 billion this year, nearly 66% higher than the $39.2 billion it spent in 2024

Alphabet: $75 billion in 2025, up 43% from $52.5 billion in 2024

Microsoft: $80 billion this year, 44% higher than the $55.6 billion it spent last year

Amazon: $100 billion in 2025, up just over 20% from last year’s $83 billion

That puts this year’s capital expenditures at over $320 billion for these four tech titans, well above the $246 billion they spent in 2024 and a measly $151 billion in 2023.

And you thought you had a spending problem.

Pinterest soared 19.05% after the company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $1.15 billion—the first time sales have broken above a billion dollars, and an 18% increase year-over-year. The social platform is also growing nicely: Its daily active users reached an all-time high of 553 million, an 11% jump from the year prior. Its forward-looking guidance was reassuring, too: Q1 2025 sales are expected to come in between $837 million and $852 million, above analyst forecasts of $836 million.

e.l.f. Beauty isn’t looking too pretty—the cosmetics company fell 19.70% today after a disappointing quarter, which executives said was partially due to steep holiday discounts. While its revenue of $355 million beat analyst projections of $330 million, it reported earnings of $0.74, missing the $0.75 Wall Street expected. Executives also projected softer guidance, lowering full-year sales expectations from between $1.32 billion and $1.34 to between $1.3 billion and $1.31 billion.

Affirm Holdings jumped 21.81% after the buy now, pay later giant reported a stellar fourth quarter boosted by the holiday season. Earnings per share of $0.23 were far above the $0.15 loss analysts were expecting, while its revenue jumped 47% year over year to $866 million, outpacing the $807 million analysts projected. And that wasn’t all: The firm’s gross merchandise volume climbed above $10 billion, its highest ever.—LB

• Bad news: The US added 143,000 new jobs last month, below expectations of 169,000. The good news: The unemployment rate fell from 4.1% to 4%.
• The Softbank piggy bank is wide open: The Japanese investment group plans to pour $40 billion into OpenAI, surpassing Microsoft as the startup’s biggest investor.
• Tesla just wrapped up its worst week since the election as report after report highlight lower sales in markets around the globe.
• The carried interest loophole lets investment managers pay a 23.8% capital gains tax on income received as compensation instead of the usual income tax rates of up to 40.8% they would otherwise pay on wages. Donald Trump wants to change that.
• A Stradivarius violin made in 1714 sold for $11.25 million at Sotheby’s.
• Is a 60/40 portfolio still a good investment in 2025? In a volatile market like we’ve seen this year, it sure is.

A WILD week for markets has finally ended, and investors get to celebrate with the Super Bowl on Sunday. Luckily, all those wings will get a chance to digest on Monday since there are no economic reports that day, but things pick back up on Tuesday with the NFIB small business optimism index. Then on Wednesday we get a big one: CPI, followed by PPI on Thursday. And the week wraps up on Friday with US retail sales, as well as the capacity utilization and industrial production reports.

As for earnings, the announcements ratchet into a lower gear next week, but there are still plenty of companies to keep an eye on.

Monday: McDonald’s, ON Semiconductor, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and, ironically, Monday.com

Tuesday: Coca-Cola, Shopify, Super Micro Computer, DoorDash, BP plc, Lyft, Marriott International, Zillow, Autonation, Sunoco, and Kellogg.

Wednesday: CVS Health, Robinhood Markets, Reddit, Vertiv Holdings, Kraft Heinz, Barrick Gold, Dominion Energy, CME Group, and Dutch Bros.

Thursday: Sony Group, Coinbase, Datadog, Crocs, DraftKings, Palo Alto Networks, AirBnB, Honda Motor Co., Hertz, Hyatt Hotels, Wendy’s, US Foods, Molson Coors, Barclays, Wynn Resorts, and Roku.

Friday: Moderna, Enbridge, and Fortis.