It was a scary good year for investors.

It was scary because the U.S. stock market plunged to several historic drops on worries about everything from President Donald Trump’s tariffs to interest rates to a possible bubble in artificial-intelligence technology. In the end, though, it was a great year for anyone with the stomach to stick through the swings.

S&P 500 index funds, which sit at the heart of many savers’ 401(k) accounts, returned more than 18% in 2025 through Dec. 11 and set a record high that day. It’s their third straight year of big returns.

Here’s a look at some of the surprises that shaped financial markets along the way:

Tariff tremors

Trump dropped the biggest surprise on “Liberation Day” in April, when he announced a sweeping set of tariffs that were more severe than investors expected.

It immediately triggered worries about a possible recession and spiking inflation. The S&P 500 plunged nearly 5% on April 3 for its worst day since the 2020 COVID crash. The very next day, it dropped 6% after China’s response raised fears of a tit-for-tat trade war.

The tariffs’ impact went beyond the stock market. The value of the U.S. dollar fell, and fear even shook the U.S. Treasury market, which is seen as perhaps the safest in existence.

Trump eventually put his tariffs on pause on April 9 after seeing the U.S. bond market get “queasy,” as he put it, which sent relief through Wall Street. Since then, Trump has negotiated agreements with countries to lower his proposed tariff rates on their imports, helping calm investors’ nerves.

Wall Street motored higher through a remarkably calm summer thanks to euphoria around artificial-intelligence technology and strong profit reports from companies. The market also got a boost from three cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve.

Trade worries can still cause havoc in markets, and Trump sent stocks spiraling as recently as October with threats of higher tariffs on China.

Trump and the Fed

Another surprise was how hard, and how personally, Trump lobbied to get the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

The Fed has traditionally operated separately from the rest of Washington, making its decisions on interest rates without having to bend to political whims. Such independence, the thinking goes, gives it freedom to make unpopular moves that are necessary for the economy’s long-term health.

Keeping interest rates high, for example, could slow the economy and frustrate politicians looking to please voters. But it could also be the medicine needed to get high inflation under control.

As inflation stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target, the central bank kept rates steady through August. This drew Trump’s ire — even though it was his own trade policies that were driving fears about inflation higher.

Trump continuously picked on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, even giving him the nickname “Too Late.” Their tense relationship reached a head in July when Trump, in front of cameras, accused Powell of mismanaging the costs of a renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Powell, in turn, shook his head.

Even though Wall Street loves lower rates, the personal attacks caused some queasiness in financial markets because of the possibility of a less independent Fed. Powell’s turn as Fed Chair is set to expire in May, and the wide expectation is that Trump will choose a replacement more likely to cut rates.

Good but not first

“America first” didn’t extend to global markets. Even as U.S. stocks soared to another double-digit gain, many foreign markets fared even better.

The technology frenzy that helped fuel gains for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite drove Korea’s KOSPI higher in 2025, enjoying its biggest gain in more than two decades. South Korea is a technology hub and companies including Samsung and SK Hynix surged amid the focus on artificial intelligence investments and advancements.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 had a double-digit gain for a third straight year. Besides the focus on AI and the technology sector, the gains were boosted in October and November following national elections and plans for a $135 billion stimulus package.

European markets also had a strong year. Germany’s DAX got a boost as the government announced plans to ramp up spending on infrastructure and defense, which could fuel economic growth in Europe’s largest economy.

The European Central Bank spent the first half of the year cutting interest rates, which helped give financial markets across Europe a boost. France’s CAC 40 was a laggard, up 10% as of Monday.

Crypto’s ups and downs

Even with a reputation for volatility, cryptocurrencies still managed to surprise market watchers.

Bitcoin dropped along with most other assets early in the year as Trump’s trade policies scared investors away from riskier investments.

The most widely used cryptocurrency roared back as the White House and Congress threw their support behind digital assets and the Trump family launched a number of crypto ventures. Retail investors joined in by pouring money into bitcoin ETFs, stock-like investments that allowed them to benefit from the run-up in price without having to actually store bitcoin in digital wallets. Some companies, notably Strategy Inc., made buying and holding crypto the crux of their business and their stocks jumped.

Bitcoin and hit a high around $125,000 in early October. But, almost as quickly, digital assets tanked as investors worried the prices for shining stars such as tech stocks and crypto had jumped too high. As of Monday afternoon, bitcoin traded around $89,400, down roughly 28% from the peak and 4% below where it started the year.

What’s ahead?

Many professional investors think more gains could be ahead in 2026.

That’s because most expect the economy to plod ahead and avoid a recession. That should help U.S. companies grow their profits, which stock prices tend to track over the long term. For companies in the S&P 500, analysts are expecting earnings per share to rise 14.5% in 2026, according to FactSet. That would be an acceleration from the 12.1% growth estimated for 2025.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

It feels simple: You shop, find something you want and click to buy. It shows up today, overnight or tomorrow. We’ve gotten used to that speed. But that convenience comes with a climate cost.

Multiple factors shape the environmental toll of a delivery. These include the distance from a fulfillment center, whether the shipment rides in a half-empty truck, how many trips a driver makes in the same area and the type of transportation used to move the package.

When customers choose faster shipping and earlier delivery dates, the system shifts from optimized routing to whatever gets the package out fastest, and that means higher emissions, said Sreedevi Rajagopalan, a research scientist at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics. For example, trucks may leave warehouses before they’re full and drivers might loop the same neighborhood multiple times a day, she said.

“For the same demand, fast shipping definitely increases emissions 10 to 12%,” she said.

To meet tight delivery windows, retailers may rely on air freight, which produces far more emissions than other options such as trains, making it the most carbon-intensive.

“Given that companies want to be competitive in terms of speed, it comes at the cost of your efficiency,” Sreedevi said. “Vans are half full, and you make multiple rounds, multiple trips to the same location … your fuel consumption goes up, and you’re not able to consolidate.”

One way companies like Amazon try to minimize that is by placing their supply chain closer to customers to reduce mileage and improve speed for the customer. Their goal is to make the journey fast and effective, but reduce its emissions at the same time.

“By really leveraging our supply chain efficiencies that we have at scale, we’re able to both offer better speed and sustainability outcomes at the same time,” said Chris Atkins, director of Worldwide Operations Sustainability at Amazon.

The last mile

Getting items to customers’ doors from a fulfillment center — referred to as the “last mile” or “last kilometer” of shipping — is one of the hardest stages to make less polluting, Sreedevi said.

Emissions rise even more when customers place multiple small orders throughout the week.

“If I place an order this morning and then I place an order this evening and choose fast shipping, the company might have already processed my morning order and wouldn’t wait for my evening order to consolidate,” she said.

And sending more half-full trucks out on the road means more trips overall.

“Imagine you’re not only sending a half-full truck, you’re also bringing back that truck empty. … Emissions are going to go up,” Sreedevi said.

Reducing emissions

Consumers can lower emissions if they’re willing to wait even a tiny bit, and they’ll save money at the same time, said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.

Delaying delivery by one to two days can result in a 36% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and three to four days pushes that reduction to 56%, so opting for standard or delayed shipping instead of next-day or two-day shipping helps, according to Sreedevi.

Amazon’s Atkins said changes to their network are cutting emissions linked to fast delivery. The company has expanded the use of electric delivery vans and shifted more packages to rail and to delivering by foot or bicycle in dense cities.

“Aviation is very carbon-intensive relative to ground shipping,” Atkins said. “One of the other things that Amazon and other logistics companies are looking at doing is: How do we mode-shift to less carbon intensive forms of transportation?”

Amazon says providing shipping options that encourage customers to consolidate orders have also helped. Data for the first nine months of 2025 shows that when customers chose a single delivery day for all items, it reduced more than 300 million delivery stops and avoided 100,000 tons (90,718 metric tons) of carbon emissions, according to Atkins.

Consumers change behavior when they know the impact

People are more likely to delay or consolidate orders once they understand the environmental impact of fast shipping, according to Sreedevi, who co-authored a 2024 study of delivery customers in Mexico.

“A significant number of consumers decided to wait for longer delivery or delayed their shipping when we showed them the environmental impact information in the form of trees,” Sreedevi said. “So it’s important that they are educated.”

While fast shipping isn’t likely to go away, experts say its climate impacts can be meaningfully reduced through small behavior shifts, both from shoppers and companies. Bundling orders, skipping the overnight option and choosing a single weekly delivery can all make a difference.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

Finances already looked tight for Jade Grant and her three children as she entered the year’s final months.

“Everyone’s birthday is back-to-back,” the 32-year-old certified nursing assistant said. “You have holidays coming up. You have Thanksgiving. Everything is right there. And then, boom. No (food) stamps.”

Grant is among the nearly 42 million lower-income Americans who get help buying groceries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. When the federal shutdown began in October, she wasn’t worried about losing her benefits — she said she is used to government “foolishness.”

But circumstances got dicey when the budget impasse entered its second month and President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of freezing November SNAP payments. With one child who eats gluten free and another with many allergies, specialty items already drove up her grocery bill. Now Grant wondered how she’d put food on the table — especially with her youngest’s 6th birthday approaching.

Then Grant logged into Propel, an app used by 5 million people to manage their electronic benefits transfers, where she saw a pop-up banner inviting her to apply for a relief program. Within a minute she’d completed a survey and about two days later she got a virtual $50 gift card.

The total didn’t come close to her monthly SNAP allotment. But the Palm Bay resident said it was enough to buy a customized “Bluey” birthday cake for her son.

Nearly a quarter of a million families got that same cash injection from the nonprofit GiveDirectly as they missed SNAP deposits many need to feed their households. The collaboration with Propel proved to be the largest disaster response in the international cash assistance group’s history outside of COVID; non-pandemic records were set with the $12 million raised, more than 246,000 beneficiaries enrolled and 5,000 individual donors reached.

Recipients are still recovering from the uncertainty of last month’s SNAP delays. Company surveys suggest many are dealing with the long-term consequences of borrowing money in early November when their benefits didn’t arrive on time, according to Propel CEO Jimmy Chen. At a time when users felt the existing safety net had fallen through, they credit the rapid payments for buoying them — both financially and emotionally.

“It’s not a lot. But at the same time, it is a lot,” Grant said. “Because $50 can do a lot when you don’t have anything.”

A ‘man-made disaster’ forces partners to try something new

It’s not the first partnership for the antipoverty nonprofit and for-profit software company. They have previously combined GiveDirectly’s fast cash model with Propel’s verified user base to get money out to natural disaster survivors — including $1,000 last year to some households impacted by Hurricanes Milton and Helene.

“This particular incident with the shutdown we saw as akin to a natural disaster,” Chen said, “in the sense that it created a really sudden and really acute form of hardship for many Americans across the country.”

The scope differed this time. The “man-made disaster,” as GiveDirectly U.S. Country Director Dustin Palmer put it, was not geographically isolated. The benefits freeze impacted more people than they usually serve. SNAP costs almost $10 billion a month, Palmer said, so they never expected to raise enough money to replace the delayed benefits altogether.

But 5,000 individual donors — plus $1 million gifts from Propel and New York nonprofit Robin Hood, as well as other major foundations’ support — provided a sizable pot. Palmer found that the issue resonated more than he expected.

GiveDirectly reports that the median donation was $100. Palmer took that response as a sign the issue hit close for many Americans.

“You and I know SNAP recipients. Maybe we’ve been SNAP recipients,” Palmer said. “So that was not a disaster in Central Texas where I’ve never been, but something in our communities.”

The greatest question revolved around the total sum of each cash transfer. Should they reach more people with fewer dollars or vice versa? Los Angeles wildfire survivors, for example, got $3,500 each from a similar GiveDirectly campaign. But that’s because they wanted to provide enough to cover a month’s worth of lodging and transit to those who lost their houses.

They settled on $50 because Palmer said they wanted a “stopgap” that represented “a meaningful trip to the grocery store.” To equitably focus their limited resources on the that would be missing the most support, Palmer said they targeted families with children that receive the maximum SNAP allotment. Propel’s software allowed them to send money as soon as the app detected that a family’s benefits hadn’t arrived at the usual time of the month.

Recipients decided whether their prepaid debit cards arrived physically, which might allow them to take cash out of an ATM, or virtually, which could be used almost immediately. The split is usually pretty even, according to Palmer, but this time more than 90% of recipients went with the virtual option.

“To me, that speaks to the speed and need for people,” Palmer said. “Just saying, ‘Oh yeah, I just need food today. I don’t want to wait to get it mailed.’”

Recipients lost trust when closely watched benefits were disrupted

Dianna Tompkins relies on her SNAP balance to feed her toddler and 8-year-old child.

“I watch it like a hawk, honestly,” she said.

But she said she entered “panic mode” when she missed what is usually a $976 deposit last month. She’s a gig worker, completing DoorDash and Uber Eats orders when she finds the time.

Her pantry is always stocked with non-perishables — canned goods, pastas, sauces — in case her unreliable van stops working and she can’t get to the store. But she couldn’t risk running out as uncertainty continued over the shutdown’s length and future SNAP payments.

GiveDirectly’s $50 bought her milk and bread — not much but a “big help,” she said. Her local food pantries in Demotte, Indiana, had proven inconsistent. One week they gave far more than expected, she said, but the following week they were “so overwhelmed” that it almost wasn’t worth visiting.

She said it’s “scary” the government “can just decide to not feed so many people.”

“At least I have my safety net but not everybody’s lucky,” she said. “I’ve never trusted the government and that’s just a new solid reason why I don’t trust them.”

Chen, the Propel CEO, said his company’s research suggests that November’s freeze damaged many recipients’ confidence in the government. Even with SNAP funded through the next fiscal year, Chen said, many respondents are concerned about another shutdown.

“Now it’s introduced this seed of doubt for people that this really fundamental thing that they use to pay for food may not be there when they need it,” Chen said.

The gap persists for many. Propel estimates that just over half of SNAP recipients got their benefits late last month. GiveDirectly launched an additional “mop-up” campaign to distribute cash retroactively for more than 8,000 people still reeling.

The delay disrupted the financial balancing act that Grant had going. She put off payments for her electricity bill and car insurance.

“Government shuts down and that just throws everything completely off,” she said.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.