To investors,

I wanted to share five lessons I learned this year as we head into the final two weeks of the year.

Lesson 1 – Always question the consensus and look for moments where dissent is outlawed.

The tariff panic in the first half of 2025 led many investors to sell assets, predict a big crash, or generally find themselves off‑sides in financial markets. I avoided 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. The consensus narrative is almost always wrong as soon as dissent is outlawed. We saw this during the COVID situation, 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 2 – Sometimes you have to tune out the noise and study the market structure.

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. The decline was driven by heavy call selling, large liquidations on October 10, and immense profit‑taking by OG whales. The vibes were good and the narrative immaculate, but market structure proved to be the dominant force.

Lesson 3 – Fear porn is popular now. Supply and demand are still undefeated though.

Bubbles are sexy but remain very rare. We saw this play out in the public market related to AI. Innovation creates value out of thin air, and AI has been doing just that. While many claim AI won’t be valuable over time, the real question is the financial return on the massive investments being made. Predicting the next Great Financial Crisis every two months doesn’t make a lot of sense. As Bill Gates said, “we overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten years.”

Lesson 4 – America is addicted to gambling. Choose your form of gambling wisely.

Zero‑day options, leveraged ETFs, sports betting, and prediction markets have all exploded this year. All financial markets involve speculation, which is essentially gambling. Buying stocks, options, or cryptocurrency is gambling, but these activities generally have better odds of success than a lottery ticket or a blackjack table.

Lesson 5 – Public markets are going to be popular once again.

The younger generation of entrepreneurs is increasingly looking to go public. SpaceX is talking about an IPO next year, Medline recently went public after nearly a half‑century, and OpenAI and others are eyeing public listings. Public markets provide better access to capital and force stronger corporate governance. Meanwhile, private‑market returns for the average venture fund are being squeezed by the flood of capital into that sector, prompting founders, executives, and investors to leverage public markets 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 on what went well, what mistakes I made, and what the main takeaways are. If I come up with other information that I think would be valuable for everyone, I will share it 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