Our 2026 Market Predictions

0:00Public.com presents the Rich Habits Radar, a new Friday episode of the Rich Habits Podcast where every Friday morning, we're coming at you with the biggest headlines impacting you and your money. My name is Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croak. Robert, today's episode is going to be a little bit different, as I'm sure our listeners can see by the title of the episode. So what are we going to be talking about in today's episode? Yes, definitely. In this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, we're sharing our 2026 market predictions. We did this for episode 100 of the podcast last January and you all seem to love it so we're bringing it back again here in 2026.

0:38As a quick refresh of our 2025 market predictions we said number one the IPO market would heat back up and boy did it so. Number two we said volatility was coming and number three the crypto markets would experience a peak and as of today's recording we've been entirely correct going three for three on those predictions. So let's see if we can do it all over again, Austin, for 2026. We can certainly give it our best shot here. Of course, no one can accurately predict what the markets will do, and we don't claim to be able to do that either. Just full disclosure there. We don't have crystal balls.

1:15I can't do any like palm reading here. We're not looking at the tea leaves. We're just over here trying to give you our best guess. But by sharing our thoughts here on these market expectations, you'll get a better understanding of how we're positioning our investments, our businesses, and our mindsets relative to these market expectations. I'm actually excited for this episode, Robert, because despite the easy money having already been made throughout most of 23 and 24 and 2025 here, 2026 will be a year of success for those who know how to position themselves correctly, use technology to their advantage, and take notes and take action like we always say in every episode.

1:52So Robert, kick us off with our first market prediction for 2026. That's right. Our first prediction is the stock market will both reward and punish AI. The prediction might sound counterintuitive, but we believe it's really important to understand. This isn't 2023 and 2024 where your company can simply announce a partnership with NVIDIA or open AI and your stock pops by 15 % overnight. Investors are smarter than ever now when it comes to AI and how this technology is implemented and driving results for publicly traded companies. And we believe that 2026 will be the first big year where the stock market will materially reward or more importantly, punish companies because of their AI strategies.

2:37Yeah, let's kind of double click on this, Robert. So for example, right, Google stock price skyrocketed in 2025 because they have a distribution strategy with billions of customers, allowing them to disseminate their AI products essentially overnight, right? They've got now hundreds of millions of users of Gemini. We all use Gemini now. Either we plan to use it intentionally or not. You just go type something in Google, you see that AI overview at the top. They've got it in Gmail. They've got it in Google Doc. Google, like it's all over the place. They have taken their distribution, that is their customers, taken this new AI product called Gemini, merge the two of them and add that with some TPU hype and Google stock just up and to the right in 2025.

3:18On the flip side, Apple, despite having over 2 billion active devices around the world, they experienced pushback in 2025 by the market because they lacked a clear AI strategy. And we believe this was only the beginning. And we'll start to see every company get their feet held to the fire as it relates to their specific AI strategy in 2026. And if it doesn't pass the sniff test, talking about those SaaS companies like Monday and Snowflake, they'll get punished by the markets 100%. And here's actually just a quick call out as it relates to what sector we think is going to begin to implement AI in a very strategic and unique way in 2026.

3:59And that's healthcare. We think we'll look back at 2026 and believe that that was the year that these healthcare companies really began to implement AI into their businesses and utilize those efficiencies to really turn the corner from a valuation perspective. So keep an eye out for those healthcare stocks in 2026 and what they're doing with AI as well. So Austin, what is our next prediction? Our next prediction is that the Trump administration will continue to run the economy and the stock market as hot as they possibly can. So dating back to 1928, the stock market's performance leading up to an election cycle has predicted with 80 % accuracy who will win that election.

4:37Literally, if the stock market is trending up into the right, whoever is in office at that time, they are now, they remain in office. If the stock market is moving in the wrong direction, 80 % of the time they get replaced with whoever they're, obviously if Republican or Democrat, right? So like if the stock market's moving up into the right, 80 % chance, historically speaking, that Republicans will remain in office. If the stock market is in the red heading into the end of this year when that election takes place, historically speaking, they'll be replaced by the Democrats. So we have a midterm election coming up.

5:09We all know that here in 2026. And I don't know if you guys saw the headline, but I thought it's pretty funny. Trump literally said that he thinks he's going to get impeached if Republicans don't win the midterms. So this tells me that the Trump administration is going to do everything they possibly can to ensure that the economy and the stock market continued to run hot in 2026. Yeah, and we've seen this in a few ways already, but most notably, Trump says he wants the government to buy$200 billion in mortgage bonds to lower mortgage rates, which is actually working well as mortgage rates are down 1.5 % in the last 12 months already.

5:44Trump is going to do everything he can to keep asset prices up, real wages up, inflation low, and unemployment stagnant as he knows this is crucial for Republicans to win the midterms. If everyone's feeling wealthy and well compensated, then why elect new representatives? That is what history tells us. Now, we just saw the extreme lengths he's willing to go to intimidate Jerome Powell into cutting interest rates. That was pretty crazy, right? So which, of course, lower interest rates that stimulates the economy. I think this guy is going to do everything he possibly can to keep prices trending up and to the right.

6:18If it's the value of your home, if it's the stock market, the 401k, precious, like literally everything is just moving up, which means if you're not an asset owner, if you're not in the stock market, you're not contributing to 401k, like you're just sitting in CDs or cash, probably stop doing that. That's not a good idea to just be sitting in cash. The markets are up like literally 60 % since 2023. But this is actually a great segue into what it could mean for the markets, right? We just talked a little bit, but let's really dial in here. We believe small cap stocks are poised to benefit from this trend, more specifically the Russell 2000, right?

6:52This index of small cap stocks, the Russell 2000, we think will benefit from this trend of the Trump administration. Now, don't be fooled because there's a ton of small cap stocks that outperformed the markets in 2025. But we believe they've already put in those all-time highs. And they're just coming down with these lower highs one after another here. And they're very much in their bust cycle of that bubble that they experienced. A lot of these sectors, these sexy high beta names experienced some crazy stock prices in 2025. We're not talking about those. We're talking about the Russell 2000 in general and your sort of everyday small cap stock that's been beaten down over the last several years here.

7:29So, Robert, take us in to our last prediction of 2026. Yes, commodities are more important than ever. And we can't talk about commodities with me not patting myself on the back for being so correct about precious metals all the way back to 2023, riding that wave into 2024, and then experiencing hundreds of percentages of increases in silver gold in 2025. And now that same momentum in 2026. Now, I'm not saying silver and gold are going to have another crazy banner year like they just did. They very well might, but regardless, I'm a long-term investor in these precious metals, and I hope everyone has made thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars following these predictions over the years.

8:14So let's now talk about other commodities we believe will benefit in 2026, and two stand out for us. The first is copper, something I've been talking about for roughly six months now inside the Rich Habits Network during our weekly live streams, and it's already performed very well. but I continue to believe copper will trend higher in 2026 and the use cases for the metal expand dramatically via data centers, chips, and all things infrastructure for this revolutionary technology. I completely agree with you. I think copper is really, you know, they've experienced a run, shout out to you for the last six months of being right on that one.

8:50But, you know, you think about the ICOP ETF or the COPX ETF, right? These copper miners, I think copper is important. Now, the second commodity that stands out to us is potash, aka fertilizer for like plants and farming and agriculture, right? So the United States imports 90 % of their fertilizer known as potash for all things agricultural endeavors from Canada. So 90 % of all the fertilizer we use here in America comes from Canada. And as you guys might remember, especially back in 2025, Trump does not have the best relationship with Canada and is always using tariffs as a way to control the narrative and leverage and negotiations and all this stuff.

9:32So if we import 90 % of U.S. potash consumption from a country that overnight could have a 25 % tariff applied to it, especially now as we think about like reshoring and like strategic and like those critical materials and minerals and things like potash, in my opinion, should be part of that conversation since we only produce three and a half percent of U.S. potash consumption domestically. Like we need fertilizer for our plants, for our food, for everything we are doing here in the United States. We need fertilizer. But 90 percent of that comes from Canada. And there's only one company in the United States that actually makes potash.

10:09And that company's ticker symbol is IPI. And again, they're the only U.S.-based potash manufacturer. So I think if we experience a tariff on potash from Canada, this company could benefit dramatically since one, they don't have a tariff imposed upon them, but two, they also would have to transport potash thousands of miles to these US customers like they do in Canada. And then finally, they could probably command more money for their existing products since, you know, even at a 15 % markup, it's still less than a potential 25 % tariff on Canada. So I think it's a good idea to keep an eye on potash, ticker symbol IPI.

10:45It's a pretty interesting commodity. And it's not as if it's like so cut and dry, right? Like some things have to happen. But I think it's like that dark horse commodity here coming into 2026 potash. Very interesting. I love that addition. So those are our 2026 market predictions. The stock market will meaningfully reward and punish companies using or not using AI. The Trump administration will do everything they can to run the economy and the stock market hot. And commodities, specifically copper and potash, will be more important than ever. There you go. You've got the market predictions for 2026.

11:19We were three for three for 2025. Hopefully we're three for three for 2026. We shall see. All right, Robert, now let's jump to our next segment of the show, which are the biggest movers and shakers in the ETF sectors, right? Talk about like the specific sectors of ETFs, these themes that are taking place all around us. What is moving and shaking? What's going up? What's going down according to ETFcentral.com. ETFcentral.com is a great website to learn more about ETFs, fund flows, holdings, all things ETFs on ETF Central. So according to ETF Central, the best performing sectors of ETFs this week in third place was cannabis and psychedelic ETFs up 6%.

12:02In second place were energy ETFs up 6.5%. And in first place this week, best performing sector of ETFs were metals when you exclude gold. So think silver, palladium, things like that. I love it. And the worst performers for the week were cloud computing down around 2%, fintech down right around 3%, and US financials in the lead at the number one worst performer at around three and a half percent. My biggest takeaway in this one, Robert, is that cloud computing, because it reminds me a lot of like that, that software as a service model. We kind of gave that as an example for the types of companies that AI might begin to punish.

12:43We just saw that Claude had their like co-work software that just came out. And I think it's going to really negatively impact a lot of these incumbent software as a service companies as more and more of their customers realize they can easily with ai build these applications if it's a crm tool if it's whatever they're using you know software as a service as a customer like whatever they're using there they can build these applications themselves with a cloud co-work with a you know codex from open ai like that to me is interesting so seeing that despite the nasdaq Despite the S &P and the Russell all really up this year, cloud computing is down year to date 1.4%.

13:27I think that could continue in 2026 if they're not careful. Yeah, definitely. The markets are going to continue to change as AI gets its scale and more and more people are implementing it into their daily lives and into their businesses. So we will definitely keep a close eye on cloud computing and other sectors that will be adversely affected from the AI boom. So Robert, let's now round off the episode with our sort of show and tell. These are our call outs. I find three headlines that I thought were pretty interesting. Robert finds three as well. And then we bring them to the class here and do a little show and tell action.

14:00So my three headlines include RBC Capital saying that the AI semiconductor market will grow to$550 billion by 2028, Amazon buying a copper mine in Arizona, and BlackRock ending 2025 with$14 trillion of assets under management. Unreal. So let's jump to that first one. RBC Capital saying that the AI semiconductor market is going to grow to$550 billion by 2028. Now, Robert, we're talking about revenue here. We're not talking about value. We're talking about full-blown revenue. So in 2025, the AI semiconductor market was only$220 billion. And they're saying it's going to grow to$550 billion. That's$330 billion in just, what is that, two years now.

14:47Unbelievable. RBC Capital says that high bandwidth memory demand is expected to be a key driver and should reduce the cyclical nature of the memory market. A quote from that report says Gen AI is also driving strong demand for high-capacity servers. While high memory prices could have an impact on PC smartphone demand, we expect memory demand to outpace supply in 2027. They also gave a couple stock picks as names that they thought were going to benefit the most. Those include NVIDIA, Micron Technologies, Marvel, Arm Holdings, Astera Labs, ASML Holdings, Applied Materials, LAM Research, and Lattice Semiconductor corporation.

15:27Pretty interesting stuff, Robert. Now, the next one, of course, is Amazon buying that copper mine in Arizona. We're just talking about copper. I think this is a great story to lead to here. The move by Amazon is their latest example of a big technology company rushing to secure the power and critical materials necessary to build and operate AI data centers. The biggest data centers that Amazon is currently building each require tens of thousands of metric tons of copper for their wires bus bars circuit boards transformers and other electrical components housed at these data centers so if that's not a glaring copper is going to be needed like you see amazon buying a freaking copper mine that's unbelievable to me now robert it reminds me a funny video of a guy i saw this recently uh he went out and bought millions of nickels like the coin, like the nickel coins, because these nickels are made up of 75 % copper and 25 % nickel, which means his downside risk is literally just the face value of the coins, right?

16:31Oh, I just spent, let's call it, you know,$100 ,000 buying$100 ,000 worth of nickels, like he still has 100 grand. But the upside is that every coin is now worth more and more and more if you decide to smelt out and separate the copper from the nickel because copper is going up so much in value and we think it will continue to do that. So kind of a meme, but maybe he's genius. Who knows? Now, my last call out is, of course, BlackRock ending 2025 with$14 trillion in assets under management. The net inflows of money from clients totaled over$342 billion during the last quarter and those total 2025 inflows grew by 22 % year over year.

17:13BlackRock reported$423 billion in what they call alternative assets under management, up from$290 billion a year ago. Their CEO, Larry Fink, says their pipeline of business has broadened across products and regions, and we're seeing excellent fundraising activity. Robert, I can't even conceptualize$14 trillion, dollars, let alone it's unreal to think that there's a company out there that manages that much money on behalf of their investors. It's bonkers. It is definitely bonkers and hard to really fathom, even though we're in the finance world and we do this every single day. But let me get into my Rob's radar points this week because I'm excited about these three headlines.

17:55Number one for me is a company I've been talking about for a very long time, and that is Taiwan Semiconductor. They delivered a record Q4 as profits jumped 35%. I've been an investor with Taiwan Semiconductor for years now. And with robust AI chip demand, I remain bullish. Remember, they're the world's largest contract chip maker. And they have posted year-over-year profit growth for eight consecutive quarters. And their CFL, Wendell Hong, expects more of the same in 2026 with profits continuing to rise. So I'm excited about that Taiwan Semiconductor. I've been an owner of that stock. I'm sure a lot of you own it as well, but they are just crushing it.

18:35Number two for me is Trump announcing the credit card caps at 10 % interest. And on Tuesday, he endorsed the newly created Credit Card Competition Act to push his plan to cap credit card interest at 10%. Now, remember, we're all seeing these headlines everywhere, but at this point, it's just a proposal and it will likely need congressional approval to pass. But what does this mean for you and I and our money? I expect to see more pushback from big banks and even those in the Republican Party. But in my opinion, the banks can withstand such a cut in the rates that they charge you and I. So I think everything will be just fine.

19:13There's going to be a lot of headlines around this, but I wouldn't worry about it or even consider how it affects you until we see if it gets approval. And then number three is the Clarity Act, which is a major crypto regulatory bill which was supposed to be voted on this week. But after objections by CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, the entire planned vote was canceled. Armstrong cited that the language in the bill could harm some of Coinbase's products and give the SEC too much power. This delayed months of work, but also highlights the power of crypto in Washington as it stands right now. So I will keep a close eye on this.

19:51And as of recording, crypto has been on a steady run into positive territory. So I think it's OK news. And we will keep you posted on what happens with this regulatory bill around crypto. And I'll keep updating you along the way. I think the cool call out there was the Trump credit card 10 % interest rate cap. Monday's episode is a conversation with Max Levchin, the CEO of the Buy Now Pay Later company Affirm. So be sure to come back on Monday and listen to that episode. But, you know, I was thinking about this and I mentioned this on the episode is like if Trump does cap interest rates on credit cards at 10 percent, two things could happen.

20:32One, these banks either have to really beef up their provision for credit losses because they are not making as much in interest revenue. So like that's you got to figure out where to come up with that money. And or two, they just stop lending. They get a lot stricter with who can use credit cards and have access to their credit. And I believe if the second thing happens and they do get stricter, then buy now, pay later companies like Affirm, like Klarna, like, you know, insert buy now, pay later company here. I think Affirm is like the only one that really does it right. But anyway, Affirm and other buy now, pay later companies could benefit as these people who need access to credit, who can't get it through credit cards anymore, now flock to BNPL and use that as a way to support their spending habits.

21:17I think that's a wonderful takeaway. And I agree with you 100 percent because it could go either way. The banks could really push back hard against the government and say we can't withstand this major cut in interest rates. And maybe they come back and settle it 15 percent as the cap and meet in the middle somewhere. Who knows what's going to happen? But I think it is important to keep an eye on it. And I like your take a lot because a firm does do it right if people need that short term capital. But we'll see what happens. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits Radar.

21:48I know it was not the normal three headlines. I think you guys don't mind. The market predictions are just as fun. If you enjoy this sort of deep dive on the markets, our thoughts, all these things, consider joining the Rich Habits Network. Inside the Rich Habits Network, we host weekly live streams that take place every Tuesday night. They're two hours long, and it's literally this on steroids. It's Robert and I coming at you with the biggest headlines and the market moving activity that we believe you need to know as an educated investor. What we're doing with our money as a response, not to mention the ability to invest alongside Robert and myself into some awesome companies.

22:27We just closed a, I think Robert, it was just under a million dollars of a SPV that we raised to be invested into SpaceX. We're doing one with Lambda, which is going to IPO later this year. Like there's a ton of cool stuff that we're doing over there. We're super, super excited for the support and we can't wait for you to join us over there. So be sure to check out the Rich Habits Network in the show notes below. We have invested in so many incredible companies over the last two years inside the Rich Habits Network. Share with us some of the names so everyone out there that's not part of the network can hear some of these companies that we have access to and are investing with inside the Rich Habits Network.

23:06Yeah, so just kind of looking here and scrolling, Apptronic was one of them. humanoid robotics company, SpaceX, of course, Bronco Breakfast Bagels, which is awesome. Hologen, which was co-founded by Eric Schmidt, ex-CEO of Google. We've invested into FluidStack, which actually had a 9x markup in about a year. We invested into Nitra. We invested into Neurofus, Lambda AI, Paradromics, Capacity. We also invested into Mercore, and now they're a$10 billion company. So we've had some pretty cool things, little cool markups and wins in the network. Yeah, I definitely wanted to just click back on that for a second because that's one of the coolest things I think people get by joining the network is access to this deal flow that we get that the general public just never sees or hears about until companies IPO.

23:55So I think it's a really cool part of the network. And I just wanted to share a little more in-depth insight into what we're investing in. Everybody, thanks so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits podcast. Please consider leaving us a five review if you enjoy the show, sharing the episode with a friend, and we'll see you on Monday with our interview with Max Lemchin, the CEO of Affirm. Have a great day.

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