When I was jotting down notes for this piece I started listing out all the best observable reasons 2026 could be a bad year.

• the labor market is weakening


• AI capex can’t continue at this rate and is propping up the market


• stocks are expensive and multiples will contract


• private credit boogeyman


• inflation returns

The Technology sector was the 2nd best performing sector in 2025, fueled by huge earnings growth while the multiple ascribed to the sector contracted. The performance wasn’t a function of investors becoming euphoric and slapping deranged valuations on the sector but rather actual earnings growth (the best long-term indicator of fundamental... See more

Unemployment is going up. Historically it trends, meaning it is likely to continue going up. Incidentally this is one of the main drivers of inflation (labor market) but the quits-rate is quite low meaning people aren’t leaving their jobs. This suggests employers have the leverage between these two groups. If that’s true then it’s probably also... See more

I feel a bit like a broken record because at least anecdotally it seems people have been asking me for a while if the bull market is over. My crude, high-level view on this is that unless we are heading into a recession or a rate-hiking cycle the answer is probably no.

There have been louder and louder calls for the death of crypto. But this is evergreen. When you start to see “crypto is dead” content go viral and it becomes en vogue to shit on the space as an insider, then rest assured you’ve reached some sort of sentiment bottom.