5 Lessons I Learned in 2025
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To investors,
I wanted to share five lessons I learned this year as we head into the final two weeks of the year.
First, always question the mainstream narrative. The tariff panic in the first half of 2025 led many investors to sell assets, predict a big crash, or generally find themselves offsides in financial markets. I was fortunate to avoid this trap by doing my own analysis of source material to better understand what had happened in 2018 when tariffs were levied against various goods (read that letter here).
In hindsight, I was able to identify the need for this analysis because I recognized a pattern that raised red flags. The consensus narrative is almost always wrong as soon as dissent is outlawed. We saw this during the COVID situation and it was easy to spot when people were labeled lunatic MAGA cheerleaders for merely suggesting that tariffs wouldn’t lead to sky-high inflation, empty shelves, or the next Great Depression.
Lesson: Always question the consensus and look for moments where dissent is outlawed.
My second lesson of the year was market structure can overwhelm narratives and vibes. Bitcoin is the perfect example. Everyone was excited going into the year because Trump was aspiring to be the first bitcoin President, the ETFs were gobbling up capital, and Wall Street was poised to embrace the digital industry.
Although bitcoin performed well in the first half of the year, it eventually crashed nearly 40% from the all-time high and left many investors disappointed in its performance. The reason for this lack of sustained appreciation is a combination of heavy call selling, large liquidations on October 10th, and immense profit taking by OG whales.
The vibes were good. The narrative was immaculate. But the market structure was ultimately too powerful of a force.
Lesson: Sometimes you have to tune out the noise and study the market structure.
My third lesson of the year is that bubbles are sexy, but remain very rare. We saw this play out well in the public market related to AI. It seems like tons of people watched the Big Short movie and now they want to call the next big market crash. It became cool to be a bear at some point in the last few years.
The stock market doesn’t care about those people’s feelings or opinions though. Innovation helps create value out of thin air and that is what artificial intelligence has been doing. The idea that a bubble could form and pop, while the market players are saying they can’t keep up with demand, is quite comical.
I have yet to find a person who claims AI won’t be valuable over time, but there are a lot of questions about the financial return on the significant investments being made. Those are fair questions that should be asked. But predicting the next Great Financial Crisis every two months doesn’t make a lot of sense. I am often reminded of the Bill Gates quote, “we overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten years.”
Lesson: Fear porn is popular now. Supply and demand are still undefeated though.
My fourth lesson of the year is that gambling is America’s favorite activity. We had an explosion of examples throughout the year. Zero day options are dominating the market. Levered ETFs with 3x or 5x leverage continue to be launched on single name stocks. Sports gambling has been sweeping the nation. And prediction markets have pulled off the greatest rebrand of all time by convincing people they are predicting the future rather than gambling on the weather, the color of someone’s tie, or whether an active shooter is going to be caught in the first 48 hours.
I don’t claim some moral high ground because I believe that all financial markets are speculation, which is just a fancy way to describe gambling. If you buy stocks, you are ultimately gambling. If you buy options, you are gambling. If you buy cryptocurrency, you are gambling. It is just that these investment related activities have much better odds of success than buying a lottery ticket, sitting at a blackjack table, or letting a triple parlay fly on NFL Sunday.
Lesson: America is addicted to gambling. Choose your form of gambling wisely.
My fifth lesson of the year is that public markets are going to become much more popular with the younger generation of entrepreneurs in the coming years. It used to be cool to stay private for as long as possible. SpaceX is talking about going public next year. Medline just went public after nearly a half century. OpenAI and others are eyeing the public market as well.
People are realizing the public market has better access to capital and the market scrutiny forces you to run a better business. Add in the fact that the private market returns for the average venture fund are getting squeezed because of the amount of capital pouring into that sector and you can see why founders, executives, and investors will begin leveraging the public markets once again.
This will have a profound impact on the companies that choose this route, but also on the millions of investors who have been boxed out of some of the best investment opportunities due to lack of access or antiquated accreditation laws.
Lesson: Public markets are going to be popular once again.
These are the five lessons from 2025 that are top of mind right now. I usually take the last two weeks of the year to debrief myself on what went well, what mistakes did I make, and what were the main lessons I learned. If I come up with other information that I think would be valuable for everyone, I will send more conclusions in another letter.
Hope everyone has a great end to their week. I’ll talk to you on Monday.
- Anthony Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Larry Fink Is Right About Bitcoin
Anthony and John Pompliano break down what’s really happening in the bitcoin market — why price has stalled, how volatility is evolving, and what most investors are missing about the next phase of this cycle.
We also dig into the Federal Reserve’s rate-cut debate, the broader economic backdrop, and how liquidity conditions are shaping risk assets — with a brief touch on BUD/S training and why discipline matters in markets and life.
Enjoy!
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This nails why supply-demand wins, echoing AI's real value creation.
In my view, it ties into tech stocks like NVDA surging on fundamentals. Great reflections—bullish for public market comebacks!
You are the man, Pomp!