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BIG NEWS
Epstein, bankruptcies, AI, and tariffs. How many buzz words do you want?
To say that this year so far has been eventful would be one of the top 10 biggest understatements of the year.
To prove it, here are the top 10 biggest financial news stories so far this year.
Special mention to Bitcoin, which didn’t make the list, but topped $122K for the first time ever. It briefly became more valuable than Amazon; since slipped a bit...to $2.36 trillion in total value.
A new government report showed that over $1 billion in questionable money went through just one of Jeffrey Epstein's bank accounts.
The report showed he used Russian banks that were not allowed to do business with the U.S. to make payments for his sex trafficking crimes.
This proves that the banking compliance system was basically a joke (not funny), because even though banks reported the strange activity, nothing was done to stop it.
Even though the stock market was shaky and the economy shrank a little, Americans kept spending money because most people still had jobs (yay).
People rushed to buy things early because they were worried that new taxes on goods (our new nemesis named “tariffs”) would make prices go up later.
This spending rush might not last, and it could lead to a big drop in shopping later because people already bought what they needed.
US Consumer Spending
Big companies are now very worried about world events like trade wars, because these issues can cost them a lot of money. No kidding!
To handle this, businesses are hiring new executives to study world politics and plan for how to keep their supply of goods safe.
Investors are now judging companies much more closely on how well they can handle these world problems, which affects the company's value.
Fewer companies were bought or sold this year than in the last ten years because business owners were nervous about the economy. Same.
But, the deals that did happen were huge, with many companies being sold for over $1 billion, so the total money spent was very high.
This shows that buyers only wanted to spend money on very strong, safe companies, while weaker businesses were ignored. This is known as a “flight to quality”.
More U.S. companies have gone out of business this year than at any time since the major economic crisis of 2010.
Well-known companies like Rite Aid and Forever 21 went bankrupt because it became more expensive for them to borrow money.
Many of these failed businesses were owned by private equity companies that had loaded them with a lot of debt, which they couldn't pay back. Classic!
U.S. Corporate Bankruptcies last 10 years
The World Bank said the world's economy is growing at its slowest pace since the 2008 financial crisis.
This slowdown is mostly caused by new trade taxes and general confusion over government rules, especially between the U.S. and China.
This shows the world is changing from one big connected economy to one where countries are more protective of their own businesses. Globalization to nationalism.
Ignoring 2020 (COVID), growth is lowest in over a decade!
Artificial Intelligence (ever heard of it??) is now a basic and essential tool in the world of finance, with companies spending hundreds of billions on integrating the new tech.
Financial firms are rapidly deploying AI for key functions like fraud detection, credit risk assessment, and personalized customer service to boost efficiency.
But this new technology also has risks, like keeping people's information safe and generally taking over the world.
My new assistant - strong work ethic, bad sense of humour.
The world's central banks are no longer working together on the economy and are now going in different directions.
The U.S. central bank is keeping borrowing costs high to fight rising prices, while Europe's bank is lowering costs to help its struggling economy.
This split is happening because of global political problems, and it's making the value of different currencies bounce up and down; the U.S. dollar is at its lowest level since 2022!
The U.S. Dollar relative to other global currencies.
A surprise announcement of new trade taxes, called tariffs, caused the stock market to crash in April, losing $6.6 trillion in just two days.
A measurement of fear in the market shot up to its highest level since 2020, showing that investors were extremely scared. BOO!
The crash proved that surprise government decisions can now hurt the economy faster and harder than almost anything else.
And after all that panic…we’re up to new all-time-highs.
The single most important financial story of 2025 has been the Trump administration's shift to a new regime of broad-based tariffs, acting as a "structural shock" to the global economy.
This one decision directly caused the stock market to crash, the world's economy to slow down, and the world's major banks to go in different directions.
The constant changes and confusion about these tariffs made businesses too scared to invest money and messed up how goods are shipped around the world.
He’s so proud.
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