Who could have predicted that the S&P 500 would have another strong year (three years in a row), who could have known that Bitcoin would cross the $125,000 mark before crashing back to earth by the end of the year, and who could have predicted that gold and silver would be the stars of the show (both hitting record highs in December and both totaling over 60% in 2025)?
Either way, it’s always fun to predict what’s coming and then look back at the end of the year and laugh about everything we didn’t know. After all, one of the mantras on this site that I’ve probably read a hundred times is, “My crystal ball is cloudy, but…” Well, forget all that. Today, for fun, we’re going to look into our crystal balls for 2026 and see what emerges from the mist.
As we enter the new year, investors continue to ride high on the bullish stock market, although some are still worried about an AI bubble that could burst at any moment. The US economy (despite another Fed rate cut and inflation still somewhat under control) seems a bit fragile – unemployment continues to slowly rise – and one has to wonder how the issue of ‘affordability’ will shape next November’s midterm elections.
And what I wrote around this time last year still seems applicable: “Even though the economy appears to be doing well (at least for those who make a lot of money), some wonder if chaos is lurking.”
Let’s have some fun.
I’ve collected predictions from some of our readers, writers, and other financial experts to make crystal ball predictions for 2026 when it comes to finance, investing, or anything related to money. I didn’t care if the prediction was obvious or bizarre, funny or diabolical. I just wanted to know what people are prophesying. As James Clear wrote in his book Atomic Habits, “The human brain is, after all, a prediction machine.” And it’s okay if these forecasters are wrong. As Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock once eloquently said, “Your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear.”
At the end of the year, we’ll revisit this column and see if any of these predictions actually came true. For now, let’s look at the cloudiness of our crystal ball and see if we can find anything remotely clear. This is what these forecasters predict.
Financial predictions for 2026
From Reader SC
- AI stocks will continue to go crazy.
- House prices will remain high.
- Bitcoin will come back a bit and end the year at around $120,000.
- S&P will rise again, but only by about 8%-10%.
- Profits for PE groups buying physician practices will decline as they finally realize that physicians are not interchangeable “medical providers.”
Banking company JP Morgan Chase
The S&P500 will close the year at 7,500. “The US will remain the world’s growth engine,” the company wrote. It also expects the Fed to cut rates twice more in 2026 (three times in 2025). The S&P 500 ended 2025 at 6,845.
Housing analyst Melody Wright
The US housing market will undergo a price correction’worse than 2008”, and house prices could fall by 50%. Zillow said more than half of US homes will lose value by 2025 (the highest rate since 2012). In October, the average home sales price was about $440,000, up just 1.2% year over year.
“What I’ve seen over the last three months, and this is – I’m going to get into the dirty details under the covers – is that the retail price is starting to increase between $100,000 and $250,000 in sales in that category,” Wright shared. Thoughtful money. “And as it continues, it’s going to pull down the median. It’s already happening, and that’s where we’re seeing the slowdown.”
Real estate platform Redfin
On the other hand, Redfin says 2026 “will be a one-year period of gradual increases in home sales and normalization of prices as affordability gradually improves.” Redfin also predicted that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate would hover around 6.3% (it was about 6.1% by the end of 2025) and that home sales would increase 3% year over year.
From commenter FloridaEDDoc
“Trillions and trillions will be spent on AI investments, the circular finance will continue, the market will continue to rise for a while… and not much will come of it. Except for a few better/faster search engines, some IP copyright lawsuits, a few weird music videos, and a million redundant AI chat apps that no one ever uses.
That’s about it. But it won’t cause MUCH of a market crash/correction because the Mag 7 are already big money makers. They’re just returning to what they did before the AI bubble.
And the science fiction community will stop making AI movies about the end of the world.”
Matt Frankel of The Motley Fool
Here’s what Frankel, a CFP®, wrote:
- Mortgage interest rates will approach 5%.
- The Russell 2000 will gain at least 20% (which means small caps will do very well).
- Walmart, Eli Lilly, JPMorgan Chase and Visa will each reach a market cap of $1 trillion.
- AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic will have record launches.
- Bitcoin will reach $150,000 (at the time of writing Bitcoin is at $90,000).
From commentator Fruitful
- I am again not predicting a recession in the US, as I have said in recent years.
- As I predicted last year, I again predict that the war between Ukraine and Russia will continue unabated. The war will intensify and Russia will make greater territorial gains than in any year since 2022.
- The Fed will cut rates significantly. I predict at least four rate cuts (a total of 1% or more). Nevertheless, mortgage rates will remain relatively flat and 30-year rates will remain between 5.5% and 7.5% throughout the year.
- House prices will fall nationally, although the decline will be small, between 1% and 2%. Certain states in the South and West – such as Florida, Texas, Colorado and California – could see a decline of 3% to 5%.
- Last year I said gold would outperform Bitcoin, and it did in a big way. By 2026, I predict Bitcoin will outperform gold.
- I expect Israel to go to war with at least one country, probably Iran or Lebanon.
Deutsche Bank
The S&P 500 will rise by about 16% in 2026 to reach 8,000 points.
Investor Louis Navellier
As quoted by The streetNavellier said: “2026 will go down in history as ‘economic nirvana’, in which the US will be characterized by 5% GDP growth without any significant inflation.”
WCI founder Dr. Jim Dahle
- The US stock market will post its lowest returns since 2022, but small value stocks will outperform large growth stocks.
- International stocks will outperform US stocks.
- Interest rates will fall slightly, which will boost bond yields.
- There will be no major recession.
- Real estate will achieve its best returns since 2021.
- The Democrats will retake the House of Representatives.
- The Colorado Avalanche win the Stanley Cup.
- Bitcoin will end above $100,000 in 2026.
- My men’s hockey team won’t win championships.
And as usual, feel free to ignore this guy:
Money song of the week
The Outsiders has been a treasure throughout the seasons of my life. I read the book when I was in high school, and I’ve probably seen the movie, I don’t know, fifteen times since I was a kid. I interviewed Ralph Macchio (Johnny Cade) at SXSW a few years ago (it was definitely a career highlight), and a few years before that I interviewed Matt Dillon’s father (Dallas Winston) about his career as a college golf coach.
Recently my children were required to read SE Hinton’s seminal work for their education, and it so happened that my local Broadway series included The Outsiders in this year’s subscription plan. I wasn’t sure how the music and songs would work in this story that I grew up with and have loved for so many years and whether it wouldn’t be a carbon copy of West Side Story, but I had heard that the feud between Socs and Greasers towards the end of the play was phenomenal to see (it certainly was).
In the song Great expectationsPonyboy – the main character who has lost both of his parents and who lives with his two older brothers – sings about his brother Darrel (who could have escaped his lower-class life and driven to his own success had he not been thrust into the role of Ponyboy’s parent by proxy) and his best friend Johnny (whose absent parents basically don’t let him go anywhere). As Ponyboy, played by Brody Grant, sings:
“Darrel was on his way up in the world/Everyone knew he would go far/Life passed by, it had other plans/How quickly a dream falls apart.
Johnny has no chance in this world/Not where he had to start/Who knows how far he could go in this life/If he played another role. . .
Torn between what is and what could be/It’s hard to write the story/When the story writes me.”
It’s a song about privilege and the class system and about Ponyboy’s expectations for himself.
To be honest, I didn’t like The Outsiders’ music, but man, when that anthemic chorus ends up in Great Expectations, it could be a real earworm. Maybe that’s what Johnny meant when he said, “Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.”
More information here:
Every money song of the week ever published
Tweet of the week
High-level athletes, including successful race car drivers, are not immune to bad financial decisions. Here’s what Kyle Busch had to say recently.
We have always tried to take the most difficult chapters of our lives – infertility, loss, setbacks – and use them for good. Today is one of those moments.
We are sounding the alarm about a hidden insurance scam involving policies being sold by Pacific Life and other insurance companies.… pic.twitter.com/RyYPzzN7KM
— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) October 28, 2025
What are your predictions for 2026? Do you agree with any of the above predictions? Or is everyone just wrong?
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