If 2025 taught investors anything it was this: most so-called “safe havens” were not very safe at all. The year was busy with conflict, artificial intelligence (AI) bubble jitters and political brinkmanship — yet the assets supposed to cushion the blows failed to bring home the bacon.
The big winners were precious metals and defence stocks, while everything else that promised protection either stalled or sank.
With 2025 now in the rear view mirror, investors can now look back at the pattern with some trepidation.
Economies ran hot, policymakers leaned toward easy money, recession fears fizzled, AI mania roared on, and geopolitical tension simmered across the globe.
In short, markets did not hide in 2025, they evolved and when investors reached for a safety net, they were extremely choosy.
Precious metals outperformed
Gold, silver, and platinum did not just perform — they stole the show.
Silver and platinum more than doubled over 2025, while gold surged over 60%, its strongest run since the oil shock era of the late 1970s.
That crushed global equity benchmarks, which rose a respectable yet somewhat lacklustre 20%.
Is there a metals bubble lurking?
That remains to be seen, but unlike many fads, this rally had brawn behind it: persistent central-bank buying and the metals’ role in everything from semiconductors to clean energy hardware.
While old-school hedges were ‘in play’, they plugged directly into the modern tech build-out narrative.
Oil missed out
Meanwhile, broader commodities did not share the love with oil dragging indexes down.
Despite repeated Middle East flare-ups and predictions of US$100 crude, supply simply swamped demand.
Prices slid roughly 20% over the year and ended 2025 at barely half that feared level, as a result the commodity benchmarks quietly underwhelmed.
Defence beat defensives
If you were worried about war, utilities and consumer staples were not your shield. Defence was.
U.S. aerospace and defence stocks climbed 36%, while European peers surged roughly 55% as governments — Germany in particular — opened their wallets and re-armed.
It turned out that betting on actual weapons worked better than hiding in “defensive” labels.
Bonds and crypto were laggards
Traditional ballast failed too, with government bonds, the textbook risk-free asset, slipping around 1% in dollar terms, delivering only modest total returns.
Broader bond benchmarks did little better and lagged equities badly and by year’s-end, global stocks were on track for their best performance since before the COVID panademic .
Crypto did not rescue portfolios either with Bitcoin, often pitched as “digital gold", finishing the year lower — a reminder to investors that narratives do not equal insurance.
Equities rewarded risk
Within stocks, playing it safe was not the winning move it was supposed to be.
The S&P 500 rose around 15%, but that headline masked the real story.
Growth stocks jumped roughly 20%, more than double the gains of value stocks, powered by megacap tech stocks and the AI boom.
The equal-weighted index lagged badly, showing how narrow the rally really was.
Utilities, healthcare, and financials posted solid double-digit gains, yet still trailed the broader market.
Meanwhile, consumer staples barely budged with the Dow’s blue chips struggling to keep pace with the S&P 500 or Nasdaq.
Haven currencies were a mixed bag
Currency havens also told a mixed tale and while the Japanese yen teased investors early on, they eventually gave everything back.
A rate hike from the Bank of Japan couldn’t offset worries about fiscal stimulus and bond-market volatility under new leadership.
In real effective terms, the yen ended the year down about 4%.
By contrast the Swiss franc held firm and alongside gold and silver, it was one of the few places where “safety” actually paid off.
However, for the U.S dollar it was a different story.
It slid sharply during several of 2025’s most volatile moments and stayed weak through repeated geopolitical shocks.
Even fear itself disappointed
While volatility was supposed to be the hedge of last resort, ended 2025 as a major fizzer.
Equity, bond, and currency volatility gauges all ended 2025 lower than where they began, despite dramatic swings along the way.
The takeaway: in a year packed with reasons to panic, markets rewarded precision, not paranoia and, while guns and gold worked, almost everything else that claimed to be a refuge left investors high and dry.
