Market Insight and Analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC, Squawk on the Street.

Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Sarah Eisen. We're live from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Jim and Carl both have the morning off. Let's give you a look at futures as we get started with trading a half hour from now. It is the final trading day of 2025. Man, it went by fast, didn't it?

We made it. Reversed a bit, perhaps after those jobless claims, but we are looking for a slightly higher open.

Let's get to our roadmap this morning. It does begin with those major averages. Of course, they are on track for another big year of gains as we wrap up 2025. Retail investors

set to close out what's been a very strong year as well. And tech leading the charge this year.

We'll discuss what's ahead for the AI trade in 2026. Also, today is Warren Buffett's last day

at Berkshire Hathaway as CEO. Closer look at what's next for him, the company, and investors. Let's start with the markets. We approached, almost said it already, a half hour from getting started with the last trading session of the year. Major indices are wrapping up another big year. It's double-digit gains. Of course, the NASDAQ, the largest of the big ones, up 21%.

By the way, we have discussed this a number of times this week already.

Foreign markets have also had incredibly strong returns.

In fact, many stronger than our own, despite that very significant up year for the NASDAQ.

Yeah, looking at South Korea there and Taiwan.

But I just focus on the U.S. for a second. You know, in April,

in early April, the mantra was sell America. I went back and looked at some of the headlines.

Bloomberg was really big on this. The real Trump trade is sell America. Turns out that did not work,

at least when you look at U.S. stocks, when you look at U.S. bonds, remember the 10-year yield started January around 480. We're down to where, are we, 411, 412 right now. So buying U.S. bonds, buying U.S. stocks. It worked on the dollar. The dollar is set to cap off its weakest year in almost a decade, about eight years on the U.S. dollar. And that could be, you know,

lower interest rates, a number of cross currents and factors, questions about the Fed, for instance.

But sell America did not work. U.S. stocks roared. We have arguably, you know, the best and most

innovative companies when it comes to AI at the forefront. And it's interesting to look at who the biggest winners are of the year. It's not just AI.

I mean, it is a lot of AI adjacent, Western Digital, for instance, number one, Micron Seagate, top three.

But also some of the newcomers to the S&P 500, like a Robin Hood, did very well. Warner Brothers, of course,

at the center of the deal and the bidding war, Newmont on the gold price. So a number of themes

in the market, wrap it all up. Yeah. The U.S. had a good year. No, it did. Without a doubt,

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