Russia's Top General Tells Troops To Keep Carving Out 'buffer Zones' In Ukraine

Political

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Summary:

Russia's top general has told troops to keep carving out buffer zones in Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv regions in order to protect civilians in Russia's neighbouring Kursk and Belgorod regions from Ukrainian attacks.

● Russia's top general visits command post

● Says buffer zones inside Ukraine needed to protect adjacent Russian land

● Ukraine says such buffer zones represent illegal land grab

General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, made the comments during a visit to a command post belonging to Russia's "North" military grouping, which the Defence Ministry publicised on Wednesday.

The ministry did not say when Gerasimov made the comments or where the post was located.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to Gerasimov's comments, but Kyiv has repeatedly condemned Moscow's efforts to carve out buffer zones inside its territory, accusing Russia of using the pretext of security zones to illegally grab more of its territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Moscow's plans for Sumy and Kharkiv are "mad" and will be resisted as Ukraine defends the two regions.

Gerasimov said Russian forces had taken control of around 950 square kilometres (366 square miles) in the two provinces, including 32 settlements.

Reuters could not verify his battlefield assertions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed the idea of buffer zones after Ukraine staged a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August 2024, which Moscow's forces then repelled in months of fierce fighting which saw both sides suffer heavy losses.

In a Kremlin meeting on December 29, Putin called work to carve out buffer zones very important and said it needed to continue in the new year.

Source: Reuters

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Adam

Economic

Most investors knew this year would be different given Donald Trump's return to power in the world's biggest economy, but few predicted how wild the ride would get, or the end results.

World stocks (.MIWD00000PUS) recovered from April's "Liberation Day" tariffs' crash and have risen 21% in 2025 - a sixth year of double-digit gains in the last seven - but look elsewhere and the surprises jump out.

Gold , the ultimate safe port in a storm, has surged nearly 70% in its best year since the 1979 oil crisis, while the U.S. dollar (.DXY) is down nearly 10%, oil is off almost 17%, yet the junkiest of junk bonds have soared in the debt markets.

The "Magnificent Seven" U.S. tech giants seem to have lost some of their sparkle since artificial intelligence darling Nvidia (NVDA.O) became the world's first $5 trillion company in October, and bitcoin has suddenly lost a third of its value too.

DoubleLine fund manager Bill Campbell described 2025 as "the year of change and the year of surprises", with the big moves all "intertwined" in the same seismic issues - the trade war, geopolitics and debt.

"If you were to tell me a priori that Trump was going to come in and use very aggressive trade policies and sequence it the way he has, I would not have expected valuations to be as tight or lofty as they are today," Campbell said.

Markets in 2025: Gold, Goldilocks and the dollar bears_1

This chart shows the MSCI World Stocks Index market cap over 2025.

A 55% boom in shares of European weapons makers (.SXPARO) has been driven by Trump too, following signals he will scale back Europe's military protection forcing the region - and other NATO members - to rearm.

That also helped drive the best year for European banking shares since 1997 (.SX7P) , while there's also been a 70% leap in South Korean stocks (.KS11) and near-100% returns on defaulted Venezuelan bonds. Silver and platinum are up an even more dazzling 165% and 145% respectively.

A trio of U.S. rate cuts, Trump's criticisms of the Federal Reserve and broader debt worries have all impacted bond markets.

The U.S. president's "big, beautiful" spending plans led the 30-year Treasury yield to surge past 5.1% to its highest since 2007 in May. Though it is now back at 4.8%, the re-expanding gap to short-term rates that bankers dub "term premia" is causing jitters again.

Japan's 30-year yields are back at a record high too. The juxtaposition here is that global bond market volatility is at a four-year low (.MOVE) , and local-currency emerging market debt has had its best year since 2009.

AI is all part of the debt mix too as firms borrow to invest. Goldman Sachs estimates the big AI "hyperscalers" have spent nearly $400 billion this year and will spend almost $530 billion next year.

Markets in 2025: Gold, Goldilocks and the dollar bears_2

Gold, guns and AI have driven up world markets this year

ALL THAT GLITTERS

The dollar's decline leaves the euro up almost 14% in 2025 and the Swiss franc 14.5% higher. China's yuan has just broken through 7 per dollar, while the yen's December bashing leaves it flat for the year.

Trump's re-engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin has helped the rouble surge 40%, although it remains heavily restricted by sanctions and just leads the 34% tear from gold producer Ghana's cedi.

Poland's zloty, the Czech crown and Hungarian forint are all between 15% and 20% stronger and Taiwan's dollar jumped 8% in just two days in May, while Mexico's peso and Brazil's peso both shrugged off the trade war drama to score double-digit gains.

"We don't think this is just a short-term phenomenon," said Jonny Goulden, head of EM fixed income strategy research at J.P. Morgan. "We think a bear market cycle for EM currencies that has lasted for 14 years now, has turned here."

Argentina has been another standout. Its markets were hammered when President Javier Milei suffered a thumping regional election defeat in September, but then went wild weeks later when a $20 billion pledge from Trump helped Milei romp national midterms.

In crypto, Trump launched a memecoin and gave a presidential pardon to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Bitcoin hit an all-time high above $125,000 in October but then crashed to $88,000 and will end the year down nearly 7%.

Markets in 2025: Gold, Goldilocks and the dollar bears_3

An arrow chart with the title 'Emerging market currency moves against the US dollar'

NEW YEAR, NEW FEARS

It won't be a quiet start to next year either.

Trump is already revving up for midterm elections in November and is expected to name his new head of the Federal Reserve shortly, which could be crucial for the central bank's independence.

Investors will be looking to see if China's economy can push on. Israel will hold elections before the end of October, which will keep the fragile Gaza ceasefire in focus. Ending the Ukraine war remains devilishly difficult, while Viktor Orban faces his toughest election yet in Hungary in April and Colombia and Brazil have pivotal elections starting in May and October respectively.

And then there are all of the AI unknowns.

Satori Insights founder Matt King said markets are going into 2026 in a "remarkable" situation in terms of valuations and with leaders like Trump "looking for excuses" to give voters money through stimulus or tax breaks.

"There's just this ongoing risk that we are pushing the limits of what easy money can do," King said.

"Already you are starting to see the cracks appearing around the edges, in terms of growth of term premia (in the bond market), in terms of bitcoin suddenly selling off and in terms of the ongoing gold rally."

Source: reuters

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Adam

Economic

Retail investors have had a gangbuster year in 2025.

Mom-and-pop investors bought the dip at key points this year, providing strong returns as the market climbed to all-time highs. Once thought of as unsophisticated and easily duped, a new breed of retail investor is giving the professionals who have long dismissed them a run for their money, according to investors and market data analysts interviewed by CNBC.

"Retail is just getting smarter, and they're getting hardened to the market," said Mark Malek, investing chief at Siebert Financial. In other words: These investors "really are growing up."

Individual traders bought the dip at a faster clip during market drawdowns early in the year, according to JPMorgan quant analyst Arun Jain, who called it a "successful year" for this group. It was an effective strategy: 2025 is shaping up to be the second-best year since at least the early 1990s for dip-buying, per data from Bespoke Investment Group data published this month.

From May onward, JPMorgan said these investors shifted their focus from single stocks to ETFs. The group particularly dove into the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) fund, with JPMorgan finding 2025 inflows topped the last five years combined. The gold-focused ETF has seen a record-setting surge of more than 65% this year amid the precious metal's rise to all-time highs.

The result: retail investors' single-stock portfolios have seen stronger profit-to-loss ratios than baskets tied to artificial intelligence and software run by JPMorgan, according to data from the bank released earlier this month. Everyday investors' exchange-traded fund holdings had much higher profit rates than the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) , the firm found.

'TACO' and buying the dip

A significant driver of their strong performance this year goes back to a week in April that had investors of all sizes on the edge of their seats.

Big money ran for the hills as President Donald Trump first unveiled his plan for broad and steep tariffs on most foreign countries on April 2, which he dubbed "liberation day." The S&P 500 briefly slipped into bear market territory as institutional investors worried the policy would drive up inflation and weigh on corporate earnings.

But retail investors jumped head first into the turbulence. They bought a record of more than $3 billion in equities on net on April 3 — even as the S&P 500 fell around 5% in the session, according to VandaTrack. Elevated buying continued the following day despite the benchmark average dropping another 6%.

Trump put most of his steepest duties on pause April 9, exactly one week after "liberation day." Small-scale stockholders were on the ground floor of the S&P 500's 9.5% surge that session. The broad index has climbed more than 21% since April 2. It's on track to finish 2025 higher by more than 17% after hitting several new intraday and closing records.

"We often talk about retail as being sort of late to the party," said Viraj Patel, Vanda's deputy head of research. "But this has been the polar opposite."

At Siebert, Malek said the professionals were starting to get nervous as the S&P 500 fell below 5,000 during the tariff-induced sell-off. But their retail traders continued buying all the way down, drawing on their past successes in increasing exposure amid pullbacks rather than panicking.

Retail investors "have been more right about the market and how to react to, certainly, a lot of the emotionally driven trades of the year," Malek said. "They've been much more accurate in their dealings than my colleagues in the institutional space."

Beyond believing in buying the dip, these traders also benefited from a conviction that the "TACO trade" would pan out, according to Zhi Da, a professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame whose research focuses on retail trader activity.

Known in full as "Trump Always Chickens Out," this strategy encourages investors to buy into stocks when policy decisions from the White House cause market downturns, with the expectation that the actions will be reversed. On the other hand, institutional counterparts have been more cautious about trading around Trump's policies, Da said.

He acknowledged there was some luck involved and that 2025 was an "exception" to the rule. Typically, retail investors buy market dips too late and don't benefit as much on average, he said.

A 'more sophisticated' investor

Retail's positive 2025 comes years into the investing boom among everyday Americans that began during the pandemic. The next serious downturn in the market will test whether the elevated participation will last.

More than one out of every three 25-year-olds in 2024 moved significant sums from checking to investing accounts since they turned 22, according to JPMorgan data released earlier this year. That's up from just 6% of 25-year-olds in 2015.

JPMorgan found 2025 retail flows surged to records, up more than 50% from last year and about 14% higher than the meme stock craze in early 2021. Individual investors' share of total trades this year climbed to highs last seen during the short-squeeze mania four years ago, according to data from a working paper by professors at Chapman University, Boston College and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The narrative during 2021's meme stock surge — which centered on stocks like GameStop and AMC

— was that retail investors made simplistic investing decisions to "stick it to the man." Two years later, the sentiment toward these meme-stock era investors was captured in a film starring Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen and Sebastian Stan called "Dumb Money."

Vanda's Patel and others said that view is changing. Small investors are taking advantage of the widening access to market research and data — and getting a better reputation on Wall Street as a result, they said. Retail has also established itself as being more adept at buying at lows, increasingly putting them in the arena with bigger counterparts, Patel said.

"The average retail investor's just becoming more and more sophisticated," Patel said. "This year has been kind of a good testament to that."

To be sure, a new class of meme stocks including OpenDoor has emerged this year. But Vanda found the bulk of retail investor dollars this year has been directed to names like Nvidia, Tesla and Palantir that have outperformed the market in recent years.

Siebert's Malek said he's found everyday investors to be increasingly focused on longer-term investing, which can keep them from panic selling when the market goes down. Still, one question is top of mind for Malek and other investing leaders: What will retail traders do when the stock market, after multiple years of big gains, finally hits a lasting rough patch?

For now, retail investors are taking notice of their improved standing.

Real estate professional Josh Franklin remembers a decade ago when they were easily written off by big investors. The 28-year-old Tampa resident, who has invested in stocks like Robinhood and Palantir over the years and spends dozens of hours a week studying the market, now sees the small guy as central to the story.

"Back then, no one really cared about retail. They thought retail was dumb money," said Franklin. "Now, retail kind of leads the charts."

Source: cnbc

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Justin

Economic

Chinese President Xi Jinping.Sergey Bobylev | Via Reuters

China is on track to meet its growth target of around 5% this ⁠year and will roll out more proactive policies in 2026, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, amplifying promises for more stimulus to power economic growth.

China's gross domestic product is expected to ‍have reached 140 trillion yuan ($20 trillion) this year, ‍with defence and science and technology in ‍particular having reached new levels, Xi said in a New Year's address televised by state broadcaster CCTV.

The country's GDP growth rate is expected to be around 5% after an "extraordinary" year, Xi told a New Year's tea party of top Chinese Communist Party officials on the same day, CCTV reported.

That means the economy will have hit ‌this ‌year's growth target set by policymakers, buoyed partly by goods exports, which proved resilient despite a heated trade war with the United States.

Xi did not unveil any specific policies in his New Year's messages, but vowed to improve the quality of the economy while maintaining "reasonable growth", and reiterated his "common prosperity" pledge.

Worries over second-half slowdown

In his tea party address, Xi pledged "more proactive" macro policies, which could allay worries over the slowdown seen during the second half of 2025 ⁠in the world's second-largest economy.

Despite exports holding up, growth momentum has faltered, weighed down by soft household consumption, persistent deflation and a prolonged property sector crisis.

China's trade surplus, which topped $1 trillion for the first time in November, could lead to more tensions with trade partners, some of which are calling on China to do more to reform its economy and reduce its dependence on exports to support growth.

"Our country's economy is expected to move forward under pressure ... showing strong resilience and vitality," Xi told Party officials.

Xi's policy pledge is in line with an agenda-setting economic meeting this month, where Chinese leaders promised to maintain a "proactive" fiscal policy next year including "special actions to boost consumption".

Chinese leaders have also acknowledged a "prominent" imbalance between strong domestic supply and demand weakness.

The country will promote effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth in the economy, while maintaining social harmony and stability, Xi said.

Pursuit of technological self-sufficiency

China was able to power its development with tech innovation, Xi said in the New Year's address, calling the country "one of the economies with the fastest growing innovation capabilities".

The emphasis on science and technology echoes Beijing's relentless drive to achieve technological self-reliance amid intensifying rivalry with the U.S., which has been seeking to prevent China from accessing advanced chipmaking tools and technology.

China has seen a surge in innovative ‍achievements, including improvements in artificial intelligence large language models and new breakthroughs in independent chip development, Xi said in the televised speech.

The country ‌has poured state resources into building a self-sufficient domestic semiconductor supply chain, including injecting hundreds of billions of yuan into the ⁠sector through the "Big Fund", which established a third phase in 2024 with 344 billion yuan in capital.

Reuters reported this month that Chinese scientists were working on a prototype of a machine capable of producing cutting-edge chips, an outcome that Washington ‍has spent years trying to prevent.

Markets end year on high note

The Shanghai Composite Index capped its best year since 2019 with a gain of 18% this year. China's blue-chip CSI300 Index also gained 18% on the year, its best in five years.

China's yuan breached the psychologically important 7-per-dollar level for the first time in 2-1/2 years this week, and is on track for its biggest annual rise since 2020.

The central government has allocated 62.5 billion yuan from special treasury bond proceeds to local governments to fund a consumer goods trade-in scheme next year, which aims to boost the economy ⁠by offering consumers subsidies to replace domestic appliances.

China's state planner ‌has also released early investment plans for 2026, including major projects, involving about 295 billion yuan in central budget funding.

Source: CNBC

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James Whitman

Cryptocurrency

Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. plans to issue a new cryptocurrency, which will be distributed among its shareholders.

The company, which operates President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform, said the new token will be allocated to investors in a partnership with crypto exchange Crypto.com, according to a statement Wednesday. It is expected to operate on the Cronos blockchain, a network supported by Crypto.com.

The coin is the latest in a string of cryptocurrencies attached to Trump. World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance project supported by the Trump family, operates the WLFI token and the USD1 stablecoin. The president also released his own TRUMP memecoin earlier this year, alongside a similar coin promoted by his wife, Melania.

Each of Trump Media's shareholders will receive one token per share, the company said. Trump himself is the company's largest shareholder with a 41% stake in the business, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

His return to the White House in January brought about a more favorable regulatory environment for crypto businesses, with new legislation passed to oversee parts of the sector in the summer. A number of enforcement cases against crypto companies have been paused or dropped by regulators.

"We look forward to utilizing Crypto.com's blockchain technology and improving regulatory clarity to implement this first-of-its kind token distribution, reward Trump Media shareholders, and promote fair and transparent markets," said Trump Media Chief Executive Officer Devin Nunes.

The token would be yet another venture for the social media company, which has unveiled plans for a wide array of new business lines this year — including nuclear fusion, stockpiling other cryptocurrencies, offering financial products and setting up markets for sports wagering.

Token holders may receive additional rewards, the company added, such as benefits or discounts tied to Trump Media products. The coins won't represent ownership of DJT shares, and may not be transferable or exchanged for cash.

The company's stock was up about 3.3% in pre-market trading Wednesday.

Source: Bloomberg

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Adam

Cryptocurrency

Commodity

Gold and Bitcoin are very often placed side by side as potential rivals in the competition for investor capital. At the same time, it is important to underline several key differences between these asset classes, most notably volatility and the persistent perception that BTC remains a high-risk asset. Looking solely at full-year returns, the clear winner of this comparison is gold, which gained just over 65%, while Bitcoin, by contrast, is still struggling to move even modestly above its current 5% drawdown. The broad correction in BTC and the more local yet dynamic pullback in gold create interesting conditions for positioning along long-term trends at more attractive price levels. With that in mind, it is worth examining the current technical situation of both assets and their prospects for the coming year.

Bitcoin Awaiting a Breakout From Consolidation

When loosely comparing Bitcoin’s recent behavior with its historical cycles over more than a decade, many analysts point to a recurring pattern. According to this framework, the market is currently in a corrective phase that could potentially extend through most of the coming year. Such a scenario becomes more likely if Bitcoin breaks lower from its present consolidation range between $80,000 and $94,000 per coin. A downside breakout from this base could direct selling pressure toward the $74,000 area. In the shorter term, demand is clearly struggling to regain initiative, mainly due to continued outflows from ETFs, which alone saw approximately $780 million in assets under management leave the market during the holiday period.

Bitcoin Vs. Gold: Which Asset Could Outperform in 2026?_1

The base case therefore assumes a further deepening of the correction, while keeping in mind that the long-term trend remains upward and that deeper pullbacks may offer opportunities to look for long positions at more favorable prices.

Gold Pulls Back Just Before Year-End

The holiday period was marked by a dynamic continuation of the broader uptrend in Gold prices, culminating in a breakout to new highs just below the $4,600 per ounce level. These levels proved short-lived, however, as a sharp decline erased the Christmas rally in full, pushing prices back toward the $4,300 per ounce area.

The start of the new year does not materially alter the positive medium-term outlook for gold, given expectations of further interest-rate cuts and fiscal expansion in the US, alongside ongoing geopolitical tensions, particularly those related to Taiwan. Under a minimum-target scenario, and assuming pro-growth conditions persist, gold could move toward the psychologically important $5,000 per ounce level.

Bitcoin Vs. Gold: Which Asset Could Outperform in 2026?_2

When comparing gold and Bitcoin, gold currently appears more likely to maintain its upward trend. However, if the correction in BTC deepens further, its percentage upside potential becomes significantly higher, assuming a return to upward momentum. In both markets, a dovish stance from the Federal Reserve — with the market now pricing in at least 2 rate cuts over the next 12 months — should, overall, continue to favor buyers.

Source: investing

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Blue River

Forex

Technical Analysis

EUR/USD, GBP/USD And EUR/GBP Forecasts – Currencies Drift Around on New Year’s Eve_1

EUR/USD Technical Analysis

The Euro has fallen just a bit during the early hours of Wednesday, only to turn around and show signs of life again. All things being equal, this is a market that I think is still struggling with the idea of the 1.18 level being massive resistance. I think that resistance extends all the way to the 1.1850 level, and therefore, you have to recognize that it's very likely going to be a situation where we rally again, then we show hesitation.

It is New Year's Eve as I do this video, so I wouldn't look for much until next week, although obviously Friday will be open. It's still got the vibe of a more fade-the-rally type of market than anything else.

GBP/USD Technical Analysis

The British pound is also looking like it is going to continue to see the 1.35 region as its barrier. It did fall early in the session, and I think this is another situation where we rally, we show signs of exhaustion, and then we turn around and fall again. If we can break above the 1.3550 level and close above there on a daily candlestick, I think maybe then you have a shot at going to the 1.37 level.

EUR/GBP Technical Analysis

The Euro has risen quite nicely against the British pound here during the trading session on Wednesday, and at this point in time I think we've got a situation where the 50-day EMA and the 0.8750 level loom large as resistance. At the first signs of exhaustion, I'm more than willing to start selling this pair. But if we were to break above that area, then we could go looking to the 0.88 level, where I would expect even more resistance. I'm not looking for big moves; I just recognize that we have a bit of a ceiling overhead, especially when you look at longer-term charts.