December 2025 Update

2025 Prediction Review

How did I do this time last year when I guessed predicted what was going to go on in 2025?

  • no-one will know what is going to happen. Someone, somewhere will have already predicted something correctly, but it’ll be more luck than judgement. That won’t stop them milking it.
  • the markets will go up and down
  • I’ll keep buying assets (assuming I still have a job)
  • the Donald will take charge of the USA
  • wars might start or stop
  • interest rates will change
  • inflation will change

I’d call that very impressive.

2026 Prediction

Everyone wants predictions, certainty, some form of guidance. The reality with predictions on a global level, especially with markets is pure guesswork. I’m not going to let that stop me though. Here goes.

  • no-one will know what is going to happen. Someone, somewhere will have already predicted something correctly, but it’ll be more luck than judgement. That won’t stop them milking it.
  • the markets will go up and down
  • I’ll keep buying assets (assuming I still have a job)
  • the Donald will become increasingly unpredictable as he becomes even older
  • wars will start or stop
  • interest rates will change
  • inflation will vary and continue to be discussed

The eagle eyed may note that this years predictions are similar to last. That’s because I have no idea what’s going to happen (and neither does anyone else) We humans love to think they can control the world. I’m probably more susceptible to most (being an engineer is my excuse), but I’m continually trying to teach myself that I just don’t. The answer is to try and train yourself to become comfortable with the unknown mishmash of randomness that is life. Roll with it. Relax, don’t panic. It’s a feature not a bug.

Many, many people are talking about the possibility of a stock market crash. They may be right or they may be wrong, I’m not qualified to say. What I know is that all the evidence says we can’t predict crashes, or time markets. Robert Schiller also thinks the market looks over priced: https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/-it-looks-like-a-peak---robert-shiller-s-cape-is-waving-the-caution-flag-004753218.html?guccounter=1. Just pretend this wasn’t written in 2014.

Monevator has written many words on this many times. Here’s his latest: https://monevator.com/investing-when-the-market-is-expensive/. If you’re not the type to read it all, neither am I, but I’ll summarise. Nobody knows, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. So what to do? Keep investing, make sure you’re sticking to some kind of sensible asset allocation for your situation. If the worst should happen, don’t sell and keep investing.

I say this as both someone who has been in the market since the late 90’s and have experienced a few turbulent times, but also as someone that realises it doesn’t get any easier. Each time it occurs there’s more at stake. A 20% downturn in 2000 wiped a handful of tanks of fuel off of my net worth. A 20% downturn now, would wipe the equivalent of a handful of years of living expenses off of my net worth. Lets hope I still brush it off as easily as I’ve managed in the past.

2026 Goals

I’m more of a ‘systems beat goals’ kind of guy (https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems). With that in mind, no goals, but some habits I’m going to continue or develop.

  • regular fitness, gym & cycling mainly. Over the last 2 years, I’ve been developing a regular gym habit, which I’ve built up to a solid 3 times a week habit. Cycling up to once a week. Cycling in the desert is weather dependent and not for the same reasons as the UK, but I’ll almost certainly be cycling in the UK in the summer.
  • investing a large percentage of my income. Simplify positions where possible.
  • invest in relationships, fighting the natural introvert temptation of spending too much time alone.

Interesting Watching

Slow Horses. After hearing at least five people mention it, I have started watching.

Quick summary: a group of ‘black sheep’ MI5 agents, led by the unwashed Lamb (Gary Oldman) banished to Slough House, an office on a London backstreet that looks like it hasn’t had any maintenance since 1977, get to navigate the tricky MI5/government political landscape.

I don’t watch many series but I hoovered up series one and am now making my way rapidly through series two.

Net Worth Comments

Some solid progress this year. High levels of contributions and strong global equities performance meant net worth increased by 20%. All-time equities/bonds performance is around 10% per year. I rebuilt some exposure to gold which has experienced very good performance. Bonds continue to be disappointing. My spreadsheet doesn’t calculate individual yearly performance, but I carried out some quick’n’dirty number fiddling and came up with 12.13% as an IRR. Global tracker performance is ~20%, shown below, so all things considered I’d give myself a solid 8/10.

The usual monthly graphs