S&P 500 in correction territory. Tesla losing half of its value in the last 3 months. Tens of thousands of Federal employees fired. Trade wars just began and show no signs of easing. Inflation going back up. Consumer confidence lowest since 2022. Weakening retail sales. A rise in unemployment. Inverted Yield Curve. A rise in national debt. A decrease in housing activity. Interest rates are still high. Personal debt increasing. Risk of defaults for US Companies at the highest levels, since the Great Recession. Big Tech, and seemingly everyone else, is laying people off. The Salesforce CEO has no hiring plans this year, opting to utilize AI instead. Anthropic CEO declares that in a few months, 90% of all code will be written by AI. Klarna going public, while boasting the savings from fired employees being replaced by AI. Hiring for technical employees hasn’t been this low in 15 years, the very period of time, which birthed millions of new technical workers. Job searches for most take 3-6 months, while some take far longer to find anything. Employee engagement hasn’t been this low, since 2014, and it’s easy to understand how being stuck in the same job, unable to find the next career opportunity, may discourage some of the most dedicated employees. Recession is no longer just a long-forgotten fear, with JP Morgan and others predicting the odds of one being as high as 40%.

2025 is here. It seems that as far back as anyone can remember, economists used past indicators to look into the future to make predictions on what to expect. This year, however, seems more unpredictable than possibly ever before. Quantitative trading formulas used to offer insight into what’s to come, based on past behavior. What happens when past behavior becomes unpredictable? Future plans become even more murky, as the result.