UK’s blue‑chip index FTSE 100 tops 10,000 for the first time with ~+22% gain in 2025

Semiconductor names exploded out of the gate, with Micron soaring 10% and ASML jumping 9% on the first trading day of 2026.

Lam Research and Intel each ripped more than 6%, while Marvell added 5%. AMD and Nvidia tacked on 4% and 1%, continuing their streak after gaining 77% and 39% last year.

The AI datacenter arms race is still pouring fuel on the chip fire. Amazon and Google have kept hyperscale spending elevated, chasing relentless cloud and compute demand.

Not everyone’s buying the hype. In November, Michael Burry, known for “The Big Short,” went short on Nvidia and Palantir, calling out hyperscalers for juicing earnings and warning of a potential AI bubble.

Still, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF surged 4%, adding to its 49% rally in 2025. The fund has now posted gains for three straight years, including its record 72% run in 2023.

Elsewhere, the S&P 500 edged up 0.19% to 6,858.47, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.03% to 23,235.63. Both had stronger intraday highs, with the S&P up 0.7% and the Nasdaq up 1.5% at peak. The Dow gained 319 points (0.66%), closing at 48,382.39.

Berkshire Hathaway shares slipped 1.4% on Friday as Greg Abel officially took over as CEO, ending Warren Buffett’s six-decade reign. It marks the start of a new chapter at one of the world’s most closely watched conglomerates.

Abel steps in with Berkshire sitting on $381.6 billion in cash at the end of Q3, after years of net equity selling. Buffett stays on as chairman, but made it clear Abel now calls the shots.

“Greg will be the decider,” Warren said this morning. “I’d rather have Greg handling my money than any of the top investment advisors or any of the top CEOs in the United States.”

Class A shares fell on Abel’s first day, as investors weighed whether he can run the sprawl of businesses and manage the equity book while keeping Berkshire’s premium intact.

Still, Berkshire gained 10.9% in 2025, its tenth straight positive year, though it trailed the S&P 500’s 16.4% climb.

Warren, now 95, led Berkshire from a struggling textile company into a $800 billion-plus machine. From 1964 to 2024, it compounded at 19.9% annually, compared to the S&P 500’s 10.4%, clocking a total return of over 5.5 million percent.

“I think it has a better chance of being here 100 years from now than any company I can think of,” Warren said.

Jefferies is doubling down on Baidu, calling for more upside as the Chinese tech giant pushes to spin off Kunlunxin, its AI chip unit, into a separate listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Analyst Thomas Chong kept his buy rating and jacked up his price target from $159 to $181, which implies 39% upside from Wednesday’s close. Chong said the move could unlock Kunlunxin’s full valuation, boost its visibility, and let it tap its own equity and debt markets.

“It aims to showcase KLX value, enhance market profile, broaden financing channels and management accountability with performance,” Chong wrote. Once listed, Kunlunxin will stay a Baidu subsidiary.

Jefferies sees the spinoff helping clarify Kunlunxin’s financials, attracting investors focused on AI computing chips, and boosting Baidu’s broader AI business value. The company recently unveiled two new Kunlun chips and super node solutions, as Cryptopolitan previously reported.

Baidu shares have jumped 58% over the past year, and the Street’s mostly bullish. Out of 33 analysts, 25 call it a buy or strong buy, per LSEG.

The U.S.-listed spot crypto ETFs just posted their worst two-month stretch ever, ending 2025 in full retreat.

After a brutal $3.48 billion in outflows in November, December saw another $1.09 billion pulled, bringing total redemptions to $4.57 billion, per SoSoValue. That’s the largest withdrawal spree since these products launched in January 2024.

It’s a sharp reversal for a vehicle that once drove institutional bitcoin adoption. Appetite cratered as bitcoin dropped 20% over the same period. The previous worst back-to-back months came in Feb-Mar 2025, when investors yanked $4.32 billion.

Ether ETFs got hammered too, bleeding over $2 billion in redemptions across the same two-month span.

But Ethereum’s chain itself? Still buzzing. On Dec. 31, the network hit 1.87 million transactions (7-day average), blowing past its 2021 DeFi/NFT boom peak of 1.61 million and August 2025’s high of 1.73 million.

Active addresses ended the year at 728,904, the most since May 2021, while 270,160 new addresses were added in a single day, the highest since early 2018.

Wall Street came in hot on the first trading day of the year, with stock futures flashing green across the board. Dow futures jumped 206 points (0.4%), S&P 500 futures gained 0.6%, and Nasdaq-100 futures surged 1%, as tech tried to pick up right where it left off.

Nvidia climbed over 1% in premarket, continuing its monster run after soaring 39% in 2025. Palantir popped more than 2%, riding momentum from its 135% gain last year. The rest of the gang (Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft) also ticked up.

On the bond side, Treasury yields barely budged after being closed for New Year’s Day. The 10-year yield was up less than 1 basis point to 4.155%, the 2-year held flat at 3.467%, and the 30-year ticked up 1 bp to 4.837%.

Here’s where yields stand:

• U.S. 1M: 3.65% (+0.055)

• U.S. 3M: 3.63% (-0.004)

• U.S. 6M: 3.614% (-0.001)

• U.S. 1Y: 3.483% (+0.008)

According to the CNBC Market Strategist Survey, strategists are feeling upbeat, the average S&P 500 target for 2026 is 7,629, pointing to a possible 11.4% gain from current levels.