The stocks edged lower on the last trading day of the year 2025 with the S&P 500 heading towards fourth-straight losing session, still poised to close up nearly 17% for the year. The U.S. dollar is on track for its worst year since 2017 due to concerns about President Trump’s tariffs and push for a more dovish Federal Reserve chief in 2026.
Investor Dan Niles listed Cisco Systems and Apple as top stock picks for 2026. Cisco saw a growth acceleration from 1% on average for five years up to 5% for the fiscal 2025 year, which is predicted to accelerate into high-single digits. Cisco stocks are up more than 30% in 2025. Niles pointed out Apple, despite the relatively lackluster performance in 2025 (a 9% rise vs S&P 500’s 17%), as a potential winner in the future. Other top picks included Impinj, Boeing and Nike.
Wall Street sees positive outlooks for Federal Realty Investment Trust coming into 2026, despite its nearly 10% slide in 2025. This stock has a dividend yield of about 4.5% and has seen 58 consecutive years of dividend hikes.
The “Dogs of the Dow” strategy, comprised of the 10 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the highest dividend yields, has done well in 2025, up 17%, outperforming the index’s 13.7% gain. For 2026, the strategy would focus on health care stocks like Amgen, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, besides Verizon for its high-yield.
In 2025, China appeared to win the battle in the trade war against the U.S, absorbing the economic shocks and responding with strategic controls on exports that mainly targeted US defense and automobile manufacturers. Its resilience was remarkable externally, but internal recovery still remains incomplete. A relatively stable relationship between the U.S. and China might continue in 2026 due to the fact that the former has plans of diplomatic engagement with the latter; however, tensions can arise with the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. Despite this, and the continuation of “managed decoupling”, many sectors in China are still seen as investable opportunities.
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