Category: 3. Business

Silver and Gold Prices Rally; Stocks Hold Near Records

Indexes back away slightly from records hit Wednesday.

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Zelensky to Meet Trump on Closing Gaps in Draft Peace Deal

The high level talks come after a flurry of U.S.-Ukraine negotiations, but Russia remains a possible obstacle.

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Customs Crackdown Leads to Blocked, Destroyed Imports

Small imports that had cleared U.S. customs quickly and easily are now stranded because of changing tariffs and tougher enforcement.

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China Sanctions Boeing, Other U.S. Companies Over Taiwan Arms Sale

Beijing responded to the Trump administration’s approval of a large weapons package for Taipei with restrictions on firms and executives.

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Silver’s Runaway Rally Sweeps Up Amateur Investors

Silver prices have been rising in part because of constrained supply, with the world’s pure-play silver deposits mostly exhausted.

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Japan Plans Record High Initial Budget for Next Fiscal Year

The Japanese cabinet approved a record-high initial budget totaling approximately $785 billion for the coming fiscal year, signaling Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s latest effort to support growth through aggressive spending.

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The Economic Divide Between Big and Small Companies Is Growing

The economic fortunes of low- and high-income Americans are diverging. The same pattern is happening with companies.

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Japan Closer to Achieving 2% Inflation Target, BOJ Governor Says

Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda said Thursday that the central bank is getting closer to achieving its 2% inflation target, reaffirming his stance of seeking further interest-rate increases.

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Coast Guard Tracks Down Runaway Oil Tanker Linked to Iran and Venezuela

The U.S. is gathering more manpower and weaponry to seize the sanctioned Bella 1 as it flees in the Atlantic.

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Family Offices Have Become the New Power Players on Wall Street

Wealthy families are launching offices to manage their money at a record clip and are increasingly getting a seat at the table in significant deals.

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Warren Buffett and Private Equity Both Love Insurance. The Similarities End There.

Investing insurance premiums is a different game on Wall Street than in Omaha.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  December 26, 2025 17:15 ET (22:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

From ready-to-drink cocktails to de-alcoholized wine, Ontarians showed a strong preference for new formats and local producers throughout the past year.

LCBO took its annual look back at consumer preferences when it comes to beverage alcohol.

This past year Ontarians embraced the opportunity to discover something new amidst restrictions on U.S.-produced products, new points of sale, and innovative new product releases.

“This year we saw trends shift in response to industry changes and a growing desire to support local, with more than 20 per cent growth in demand for Ontario products”, said Abhay Garg, Vice President, Merchandising. “Customers were motivated to try something new – often from our own backyard – which is great for local producers.”

Beer, Cider and Ready-to-Drink

Both beer (+22%) and ready-to-drink (RTD) coolers (+21%) experienced a significant boost throughout the year – partly driven by their availability at more points of sale outside of the LCBO. Meanwhile, at the LCBO, the expansion of large format beer (i.e. 12, 24 and 30 packs) across the province, drove 42% growth over the previous year, with the 30-pack being the most popular large-pack format.

Ontario’s craft beer and cider customers flocked to tried-and-true favourites, flavour innovation, and seasonal releases from local producers, while interest in classic Belgian, German and Czech styles fuelled interest in imported beer. Non-alcoholic beer and cider (+14%) continued to grow in popularity, and customers can look forward to large national brands and local craft producers launching new styles in 2026.

Seltzer-style products, which offer a low-calorie alternative, remained the most popular type of RTD. However, RTD cocktails continued to be the fastest-growing (+31%), doubling in growth since last year. Exciting new releases from local Ontario producers were popular, and this year LCBO more than doubled the number of products available from small Ontario RTD producers.

Wine

When it comes to wine, customers continued to seek out fresher styles, including lighter reds, sparklers, and light wines. With more customers choosing to consume mindfully, de-alcoholized wines continued to gain popularity (+126%). In lieu of U.S.-produced wines, Ontario wines benefited from the strong customer sentiment to support local, with VQA sales increasing by +56%, led by Ontario red VQA (+66%) and Ontario white VQA (+54%). There was also a notable increase in demand for wines from Canada (+19%), Australia (+17%), Italy (+10%) and France (+18%) — particularly red wines.

Spirits

Within spirits, customers increasingly chose Canadian and Ontario alternatives. Canadian whisky led overall growth by value, but this trend extended to other spirit categories, including vodka, rum, and liqueurs, where Canadian and Ontario options gained traction. While smaller categories, Asian whiskies continued to experience strong demand (+23%) and Irish whiskey (+2%) enjoyed steady growth. Meanwhile, consumers continued to favour smaller, convenient sizes, driving demand for bottles below 750ml.

Maryland malls and stores were just crowded on Friday, as they were in the days leading up to Christmas, with shoppers returning unwanted gifts.

Mastercard reported that holiday spending was on the rise this year, with a 3.9% percent increase from last year. But now that the holiday is over, the stores are filling up.

“Probably making some rearrangements for some things we didn’t get or maybe there was a mistake and we need to make some returns,” shopper Nathan Cabrera said.

According to a report from the National Retail Federation, 15% of all sales this year will be returned, and the retailers need to find a way to stay afloat despite that.

“Luckily I haven’t really had anything to return but that would not make me happy to have to pay a fee to return something,” shopper Tessa Taulane said.

Stores and their return policies

Some stores, like H&M, J. Crew, and Zara, are charging return shipping fees to help pay for rising shipping costs. And other stores, especially those that sell electronics, are limiting their return windows, like Apple, Target, and Best Buy.

“Especially having a baby, he’s only 18 months, it’s hard for me to get out to the store, so I always really appreciate when they have longer return windows if I do need to return something,” Taulane said.

While the idea may be for retailers to ease cost concerns, some shoppers think their policy changes could backfire.

“I think a restocking fee sucks,” Cabrera said. “That’s not something that you hear with retail and retail is already hurting right now, so I don’t know why they would want to discourage customers even more about making purchases.”

Customers say the return policy won’t deter them from buying, but they may just pay closer attention to when and where they shop.

“I don’t know if it’s fair, but it is where it is. You shop where you can shop, you return where you can return,” Taulane said.

“Maybe this is the new norm. And even if we don’t like it, eventually we will stop whining about it and just go with the punches,” Cabrera added.

Experts say if you’re thinking about making a return, make sure packages are unopened and tags are still attached.

Also hold on to your receipts, and make sure to double check the return window to avoid getting stuck with unwanted items.

U.S. stocks held near all-time highs on Friday, while the run-up in precious metals broke new ground.

Front-month silver futures surged 7.7% to around $76.49 a troy ounce, extending a record run that has more than doubled prices this year while sweeping up Wall Street pros and amateur investors alike. Gold futures also hit records, rising around 1.1% to $4,529.10 a troy ounce.

One factor boosting precious metals, which are often viewed as a haven for nervous investors: escalating geopolitical tensions. The U.S. staged a Christmas Day strike on Islamic State in Nigeria, and has blockaded sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuelan waters. U.S. crude futures rose 0.4% this week, snapping a two-week streak of declines.

U.S. stock indexes swung between small gains and losses in thin trading before finishing slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite all fell less than 0.1%.

Major U.S. indexes notched a fifth straight session of gains on Christmas Eve, with both the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials closing at records. Stocks often rise in the period spanning the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the next, in what is sometimes termed a Santa Claus Rally.

Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, said the market’s performance at year-end continues to be driven by the tech giants that have dominated 2025, although sectors such as small-caps and international stocks have finally begun to catch up since early November.

“The market is starting to feel like it needs to broaden out,” he said. “There’s almost this undeniable pressure for the bull market to broaden out if it’s going to continue.”

On Friday, the metals rally lifted shares of miners including Southern Copper and Freeport-McMoRan, which rose 0.9% and 2.2% respectively. Materials shares in the S&P 500 gained 0.6%.

Nvidia stock climbed 1% after the chip maker late Wednesday unveiled a licensing deal with Groq, a semiconductor startup.

Shares of Coupang, South Korea’s e-commerce rival to Amazon, jumped 6.4% after skidding in recent weeks. The customer information leaked in a massive cybersecurity breach has been deleted by the suspect, according to media reports.

Numerous stock markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific remained closed on Friday, including in the U.K. and Hong Kong. The Japanese yen slipped against the dollar after data showed Tokyo consumer prices rose more slowly than expected in December, but held above the Bank of Japan’s target. Japan’s cabinet approved a record-high initial budget for the next fiscal year.

Silver prices jumped 9.6% to top $78 per ounce for the first time ever. Gold rose 1.3% to a fresh record of $4,561 per ounce, and platinum surged 10.5% to its own high, while palladium leapt 13%.

So far this year, silver has spiked 169%, platinum has shot up 172%, and palladium has soared 124%—all easily beating gold’s year-to-date gain of 73% as well as Nvidia’s 42% pop and the S&P 500’s 18% advance.

The latest rally came after the U.S. launched strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Thursday, adding to other geopolitical tensions.

Earlier in the week, the Trump administration continued to pile on more pressure on Venezuela by targeting additional oil tankers, squeezing a key source of revenue for the Maduro regime.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon sent large numbers of special-operations aircraft, troops and gear into the Caribbean, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

The extra military assets join a flotilla of Navy ships that has been building up in the region for months, while President Donald Trump hints that U.S. attacks will soon expand from suspected drug boats to targets on land.

With the threat of a new regional conflict breaking out, investors have sought out safe-havens. At the same time, debt worries have made precious metals appear safer than other assets like the dollar and yen.

Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in Substack post on Sunday that the so-called debasement trade has roared back, pointing out that precious metals began galloping higher after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell hinted at rate cuts over the summer.

“First, this trade is clearly triggered by Fed easing and related worries about debt monetization,” Brooks wrote. “After all, Chair Powell’s dovish speech at Jackson Hole on Aug. 22 and the latest Fed rate cut on Dec. 10 were big catalysts for precious metals to take off.”

As the U.S. and other top economies hurtle toward increasingly unsustainable levels of debt, investors fear that those governments will let inflation run hotter and erode the value of their bonds to lighten the burden, rather than reining in deficits.

This debasement trade isn’t just showing up in precious metals, Brooks added, noting that countries with low levels of public debt such as Switzerland or Sweden have seen their currencies move in tandem with gold and silver prices.

“It’s noteworthy that Sweden is so much in focus. The Krona has traditionally been a highly volatile currency that didn’t have safe haven attributes. The debasement trade is changing that,” he explained.

Similarly, market veteran Ed Yardeni attributed the surge in precious metals to concerns about excess stimulative effects of U.S. monetary and fiscal policies next year.

That’s as Wall Street expects more rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, which is also buying bonds again, while consumers will start to notice Trump’s tax cuts. Trump has also teased the possibility of “tariff dividend” checks, though Congress would have to approve them.

“In any event, the federal budget deficit could balloon significantly during the first four months of 2026, which might prompt the Bond Vigilantes to raise Treasury bond yields, causing a stock market correction,” Yardeni said in a note on Monday.