December 2025 closing prices are in: There was no Santa Claus Rally

This is not a post that I've been looking forward to, but it is what it is. You can't improve things by ignoring unpleasant information, so...

December's monthly close is in and the Santa Claus Rally that we were hoping for did not materialize. This means that with the December closing price of $0.065314, the STEEM price declined for 10 of 12 months in 2025, beating its previous record of 9 months in 2018. It also set record low monthly closing prices for three consecutive months and saw five consecutive months of declines, which is one shy of the six month record that was also set in 2018.

Predictions

Before moving on to the visuals, let's review the outstanding questions that were awaiting answers. This month answered two of them:

1.) December 31 closing price: up or down from November's close of $0.076703?

• Answer: Down

2.) December 31: Over/under the 2025 opening price of $0.258505 $0.279892 (I just noticed a problem in my downloaded data. 0.258505 was the Jan 1. closing price, not the opening price.)?

• Answer: Under

One question still needs to be answered on May 25.

3.) Memorial Day, 2026: Over/under the (US) 2025 Labor Day price of 0.12741?

Here are the updates.

Four months ago:

account	September change	EOY 2025 change over/under $0.25	seasonal change over/under $0.12741 on Memorial day	# Correct results
@massola	Up	Over	Over	0 / 0 / ?
@remlaps-lite	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?

Three months ago:

account	October change	EOY 2025 change over/under $0.25	seasonal change over/under $0.12741 on Memorial day	# Correct results
@massola	Up	Over	Over	0 / 0 / ?
@moecki	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@remlaps-lite	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@mostofajaman	Up	Over	Over	0 / 0 / ?
@labibasultana	Up	Over	Over	0 / 0 / ?

Two months Ago:

account	November change	EOY 2025 change over/under $0.25	seasonal change over/under $0.12741 on Memorial day	# Correct results
@moecki	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@rosselena	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@remlaps-lite	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@mostofajaman	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?

Last month

account	December change	EOY 2025 change over/under $0.25	seasonal change over/under $0.12741 on Memorial day	# Correct results
@rosselena	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@remlaps-lite	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?
@moecki	Up	Under	Over	0 / 1 / ?

So, all of us who predicted "Under" for the EOY question were right - meaning that this year followed the cliché: "As goes January, so goes the year." But this month's prediction should have been "Down", and nobody predicted that.

At this point, the overall score is:
@remlaps-lite - 4
@moecki - 3
@rosselena - 2
Everyone else - 0

There are 14 questions yet to be answered, but every one of the guesses is "Over", so we'll either all be right or we'll all be wrong. Therefore, I'm declaring last year's results complete, and launching a new set of questions for the first half of 2026, starting with January guesses.

This month, I'm dropping down to just two questions.

1. January 31 closing price: up or down from December's close of $0.065314?
2. Memorial Day, 2026: Over/under the (US) 2025 Labor Day price of 0.12741?

And now, on to the charts.

Monthly percentage changes

Monthly price changes (USD)

Monthly closing prices (USD)

Finally

The good news - if there is any - is that January through April have produced a higher proportion of green months in past years. In total during those 4 months, there have been 23 positive closes and only 14 negative closes in Steem's entire history. So, history might suggest that we can be hopeful for a turnaround in the coming quarter.

And once again, here are this month's questions:

1. January 31 closing price: up or down from December's close of $0.065314?
2. Memorial Day, 2026: Over/under the (US) 2025 Labor Day price of 0.12741?

Happy new year, and welcome to 2026!