STOCK MARKETS WILL BE HIGHER IN 2025: OH REALLY?
Let's take a look back at what this investment year has brought us and what conclusions can be drawn from it.
WE ARE WRITING THIS ON DECEMBER 27, 2025
When we read about the stock markets, it is generally about new highs and, for example, how those who are not invested are losing money to inflation, which is not being offset by interest on savings. Investors and non-investors are bombarded with this message, especially the latter: those who do not invest are robbing themselves.
That may be true in general when an index is tracked.
However, we do not see 2025 as a good investment year. Our results were excellent with the RVM systems, and we are grateful for that, but that is not what we are referring to here.
Let's take a look at the bad news from 2025 and why I saw this as a difficult year for investments. We will base our analysis on the daily rate on December 24, 2025.
THE BAD NEWS OF 2025
Here is a brief summary, with explanations below:
- SPOT USD/EUR: -13.71% in 2025
- Wolters Kluwer: -50.45% from the peak in February 2025
- RelX: -30.01% from its peak in May 2025
- Novo Nordisk: -63.42% from its peak in June 2024
- Pepsico: -19.91% from its peak in May 2023
These are just a few examples, but they tell an interesting story.
THE DOLLAR
The fact that the dollar has fallen so sharply against the euro was a problem for European investors with investments in the US. Every
American investments fell by 13.71% (as of Christmas 2025). In order to still achieve a positive return in the US, shares in American companies had to be above +14%, which is higher than the average long-term return on shares in the US.
So, for those who follow American financial programs with their optimistic reports about "the strong stock market" in 2025, Europeans will not benefit from this, as none of this applies to the euro.
Incidentally, some European indices outperformed the S&P 500 in euro terms this year.
What makes this worrying is that this decline in the value of the dollar may not just be a single weak year. If we interpret the charts correctly, it seems that this could be the start of a longer-term trend of dollar weakness. We are emerging from a long period of dollar strength (2008–2022). This was preceded by a multi-year downtrend for the dollar in the period 2000–2008. On balance, this was a weak period for the stock markets, with two significant bear markets (2000–2003 and 2007–2009). Looking further back at the currency history of these two currencies, we can conclude that, in general, it is not good for the global economy when the dollar is weaker than the euro.
So this is simply not good news, unless we are proven wrong and the dollar resumes its uptrend. It is possible, for example, that Trump will disappear and the US will pursue a different economic policy. In theory, that could change a lot. But major trends are not easy to reverse, so for now we remain pessimistic.
LONG-STANDING RELIABLE COMPANIES FOR SHAREHOLDERS ARE GOING UNDER
So the dollar story is not favorable.
But in addition, there were some very unusual developments on the stock markets.
We have very strict criteria for purchasing and holding shares in companies. There is a reason for these strict criteria: we want to invest in certain companies for as long as possible, ideally forever. The goal is therefore to find a long-term investment that meets what we consider to be strict requirements, with the intention of excluding many investments.
Wolters Kluwer, RelX, Novo Nordisk, Pepsico—we take these companies as examples—met our criteria for many, many years and, fundamentally speaking, still do, except that their share prices no longer do.
At the same time, there is a bank such as ABN AMRO, which does NOT meet the long-term criteria, leading the AEX in 2025 with a huge increase. ArcelorMittal, same story.
So the question then becomes: should our criteria perhaps be scrapped? Because it seems that most of the biggest risers in 2025 will not be able to find a place in our long-term portfolio.
We don't think so at this point, because for now it only concerns 2025. We still believe in our long-term criteria.
Wolters Kluwer still fundamentally meets our criteria, as do other companies that had a weak 2025. We will therefore continue to monitor these companies, and when their share price meets our criteria again, they will be reinstated in the portfolio.
Let's explain Wolters Kluwer again.
WOLTERS KLUWER AND THE EXPECTATIONS FOR A.I.
First, a little history.
Wolters Kluwer has brought incredible prosperity to its shareholders. But we are now focusing on the periods of weakness at this very strong information company.
Wolters Kluwer's share price fell by 82.17% between 1999 and 2003. This followed a much larger run in the 1990s, but it remains a very sharp decline. Imagine having bought in at the peak in 1999.
This is therefore NOT A SAFE HAVEN. Between 1999 and 2003, there were profit warnings, declines in turnover, and costly restructuring measures, which even caused the group to temporarily fall into the red. That entire period was, of course, a bear market for the stock exchanges, so Wolters Kluwer was not alone.
At the moment, none of that is happening. So why such a sharp drop in the share price? It seems that investors are anticipating disruption caused by the AI revolution. The reasoning is that all kinds of services that currently generate revenue for Wolters Kluwer could become redundant.
Wolters Kluwer shareholders cannot know at this point whether this will actually happen, as there are no figures (yet) to indicate this. But if they have held on to their shares, they are facing a halving of their value.
Wolters Kluwer shares were included in the RVM Systematisch portfolio, but they were sold in May, which in hindsight was a good time, for around €160 per share.
Our strict rules for purchasing and holding shares make it impossible to buy large quantities of stocks that are currently performing well, such as the many chip companies that are doing very well. We are not looking for cyclical companies and businesses that are part of a hype whose duration we cannot predict. I want to be a shareholder, with an emphasis on 'holder', and therefore consciously seek fundamental long-term stability. For the short term, we have other strategies that are designed to generate cash flow for us.
If we look at the companies in Amsterdam that performed best in terms of share price in 2025, we see ABN AMRO, ARCELORMITTAL, ING, NN, PROSUS, ASML, and ASR leading the way. You would have had fantastic foresight if you had already included these companies in your portfolio as winners at the beginning of the year. Banks and insurers, steel, technology, and a conglomerate with international interests in everything.
None of these companies pass the long-term screening process we use at RVM Systems. We are familiar with stock market history and know which companies will come out on top in the long term. The future rhymes with the past, so knowledge of the history of the stock market and the economy does indeed provide a good framework for long-term investing in our day and age.
When we engage in trend investing, we prefer to do so by tracking an index, and if we happen to see a good opportunity, we also invest in stocks, but only stocks that we consider fundamentally interesting for the very long term.
NOVO NORDISK
Novo Nordisk has taken an incredible nosedive, even though its figures did not actually show any particular weakness. Novo Nordisk has traditionally been a global market leader in diabetes, and the company is actually suffering from the enormous hype that arose when one of its drugs was found to cause weight loss. Novo Nordisk rose to unprecedented heights, but the competition did not stand still, and Eli Lilly may now have overtaken Novo Nordisk in terms of
weight loss products. Add to that the fact that the US government is trying to reduce the cost of medicines (a noble goal in itself), and all this led to an incredibly sharp fall in the share price and, with it, weakness in the entire Danish economy, because Novo Nordisk has become so important.
What do I think about investing in Novo Nordisk? I still think it's a good investment. The company is much more than just weight loss products; it controls a third of the diabetes market. A price-earnings ratio of 15 and a dividend yield of 2.35% is not expensive. A further decline in the share price can only be justified by a decline in profitability and market leadership, which we are not currently seeing.
INDEX INVESTING
The conclusion for 2025 and the advice to readers is: index investing is recommended. Sectors that had been shunned by investors for years (European banks, steel companies) came to the fore in 2025. There was not only an AI hype, but also a financials hype, a precious metals hype, a defense hype, and an energy hype (linked to AI). Don't expect yourself to be able to predict all of this accurately. It's impossible.
Index investing is the solution here. Through index investing, every trend and every hype emerges naturally, without investors having to think about it. The most important thing is that index investing prevents misguided visions. Index investing means abandoning the idea of having a vision, which can be very sensible, even for professionals who deal with these matters every day.
2025 has been the year that proved the power of index investing.
Even the S&P 500 in euros, which can be tracked via the Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF, has still managed to achieve a slightly positive result of +3.89% so far, despite the sharp fall in the dollar. It's not much, but it's good enough, especially as there was also some dividend income.
CONCLUSION
2025 was not a particularly good year for investors in the eurozone. Only those who recognized early on that financials, steel, industry, and specific technology companies would steal the show had an exceptionally good year. Traditionally reliable stocks, as discussed in this article, took a dive due to fears that the rise of AI could disrupt business.
Index investing would have been good for everyone. If there was one year that illustrated how interesting index investing is, it was 2025.
Ruud van Megen
Director of Van Megen Systematic Trading & creator of the RVM systems