Global Market Movers: The Biggest Winners and Losers of 2025 (YTD)

From metals to meats, indices to soft commodities, 2025’s scoreboard highlights a dramatic split between standout winners like platinum and silver, and heavy losers such as orange juice and cocoa.

The most dramatic moves so far

Two commodities have stolen the show in 2025. Platinum is up +50.39% YTD, the strongest performance across major assets, as both industrial demand and safe-haven flows lifted the metal. Silver follows at +40.6%, proving that investors continue to seek out tangible hedges amid shifting rate expectations and global uncertainty.

On the other side, the reversal has been just as sharp. Orange juice has plunged -45.2% YTD, giving back last year’s explosive gains and reminding traders that commodity supercycles often end abruptly. The VIX is down -29.26%, but unlike the others, this decline should be read as an exception. By design, the volatility index drifts lower unless equity markets see major shocks. It also has an inverse relationship with the S&P 500: when stocks are rising or stable, the VIX usually falls.

Beyond the extremes

The broader leaderboard is still filled with noteworthy shifts. Gold has advanced +34.3%, coffee is up +37.6%, and cattle markets have posted gains above +30%. Soybean oil (+26.58%) and lean hogs (+17.81%) show that agricultural themes are playing a big role this year.

Outside commodities, Bitcoin (+16.36%) and Germany’s DAX index (+16.16%) have kept pace with some of the traditional winners, underlining that alternative assets and equities remain competitive in a cross-asset portfolio.

Losers beyond orange juice include cocoa (-26.54%), rough rice (-21.34%), and natural gas (-19.44%), each reflecting oversupply pressures and weaker demand compared with 2024’s inflationary backdrop.

What this tells us about 2025

The biggest winners and losers underscore how fragmented markets have become. Metals and certain agricultural commodities have been the stars, while softs like orange juice and cocoa have collapsed. The VIX decline is best treated as a structural feature rather than a bearish signal, reflecting calmer conditions in equity markets rather than investor rejection.

A reminder on diversification

The wide spread between platinum’s +50% surge and orange juice’s -45% collapse is more than trivia for market watchers. It shows that diversification is critical. Precious metals rallied as safe-haven assets in a year defined by policy uncertainty and shifting interest rate expectations. Agricultural winners like cattle and coffee gained on supply shortages and food inflation, while orange juice and cocoa demonstrate how quickly oversupply can turn last year’s darlings into this year’s losers.

For investors and executives alike, the lesson is straightforward: spreading exposure across asset classes is not about chasing everything at once, but about balancing different drivers such as safe havens, growth-linked commodities, equities, and even volatility products, in order to buffer against the extremes that 2025 has delivered, or that any year can deliver.

This is not financial advice. For real-time updates on cross-asset shifts, you can follow the LiveBytes feed on the upper right of the homepage at investingLive.com (formerly ForexLive.com).