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In each Sunday Business Dallas Morning News print edition, we dig into various sectors to highlight key numbers to watch.
Here are some recent developments worth noting.
Feb.1: Gold prices recently topped at $5,500 per ounce, a record high, riding a massive wave of investor buying amid broad and historic rally. A litany of geopolitical and macroeconomic events are undermining dollar-denominated assets, and burnishing the luster of precious metals — including silver, which hit $100 per ounce. Since then, bullion has dropped below $5,000 in a broader market selloff.
Jan. 25: If investors are worried about an artificial intelligence bubble, companies active in the sector aren’t paying attention. According to data from Gartner, AI spending is expected to top $2.5 trillion this year, and a mind-blowing $3.3 trillion in 2027.
Jan. 18: The forecasted amount of employment growth for all of Texas in 2025 is near zero, according to data from the Dallas Fed, underscoring how job growth has mostly stalled. Since then, the Texas Workforce Commission published data showing 2025’s annual nonfarm growth rate checked in at 0.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the Dallas-Fort Worth unemployment rate is 3.6% as of December 2025, lower than the national figure of 4.4%.
Jan. 11: The median number of years companies are taking to go public is 14, according to a study by the University of Florida’s Jay Ritter.
According to Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, “with more companies staying private for longer, and in some cases staying private forever, there is a bigger need for private markets in debt and equity.”
Getting more start-ups to go public is one of the main pitches of the fledgling Texas Stock Exchange.
Jan. 4: Amid a broad rally in precious metals, silver poked above $80 an ounce for the first time in January, with the rally extending to well above $100 before it sharply corrected lower.
While much of the focus has been on gold’s record surge in 2025, silver is widely used in a range of products.
It’s a sign of market uncertainty and of investor thirst for alternative assets in an era of inflation. Since Jan. 4, it has risen to above $117 per ounce, but has since fallen below $78 an ounce.
Dec. 28: $20 million in new funding, recently announced by the Texas Stock Exchange, a tranche that brought its total capitalization to $270 million.
Investors include Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, which in a statement to The Dallas Morning News said the new infusion was an “additional validation of TXSE’s mission to bring more competition and innovation to US capital markets as well as reflects how Texas has become one of the most strategic markets in the US.”
