Most of these 2026 market outlooks/predictions suck. They’re usually filled with esoteric views on Macro, why you should buy gold because we’re all going to die or some far-fetched stock pick.

We’re not doing that. We’re here to generate idea flow that all of you can actually use next year while avoiding these Wall St. bozos who would rather hear themselves talk than make money — and yes, that is how I really feel!

We’re talking about realistic themes we’re playing at our investment firm in 2026 for clients (as well as some going into our newsletter) as well as covering a few of our research highlights this year.

We’re in a global easing cycle which is providing tailwinds to the broad markets but not without volatility. We have a mid-term election year next year and they are notorious for market pullbacks so investors should embrace the idea that there will be no smooth ride higher in 2026.

In fact, we’re going to be discussing this particular view in our upcoming webinar in a few weeks.

Some of this rate cut cycle leads to thematic idea flows in small and mid caps which is not noise - there is something there and we’ve covered some of those ideas in the newsletter the last year but plan to add more in Q1.

One of those ideas already was $ATRO ( ▲ 5.83% ) which we flagged for readers of the newsletter for a +50% gain in 4 months (already).

What about housing and the real estate market? Where is there news and where is there noise? The rate cut cycle is easing pressure on the markets and we’re seeing some recent data start to show positive signs that we could be near a turn but there is a lot of noise when it comes to housing and whether or not this stalemate breaks anytime soon.

My view the last few years has been to trade in and out of some of the home builders but not taking a position assuming that the inflection for housing is here, just yet.

I think there’s something there to my views two years ago and we’re seeing it some of the economic data start to show a bifurcated economy.

So, I don’t think this is noise but I also don’t think it matters for first-time home buyers with many waiting to enter the housing market for the first time as owners. And what I’ve said all year is that I’d rather trade the home builders long/short than to be an investor in them for one reason; they’ve got to compete against each other to get the buyer.

Let’s play the suppliers in this cycle, plus, the current homes on market that are not new builds are re-modeling.

There are some suppliers that I have invested into and traded:

We’re going to cover more of these names as a key idea for readers of the newsletter when we return in January.

The rate cuts are positive for risk assets and housing going forward but there are other concerns in the broad markets like tariffs, a mid-term election year and the lower end consumer.

That doesn’t mean that there’s not opportunity to be found it just means that there will be volatility (likely a 10% pullback in Q1 which I will share in the webinar). However, for those that do the work, look under a few rocks and are not obsessed with chasing the shiny object stocks there will be plenty of upside opportunity come 2026.

This merger seems to have made a lot of headlines the last week or so and I’ve had a lot of questions about it so news or noise?

I really could care less from an investing stand point about this merger, it’s just another one of these noise headlines where everyone shares an opinion trying to pick an outcome.

The reality is not every situation in markets deserves your attention and contrary to popular belief you don’t have to have an opinion on everything so the final verdict here is: noise.

We had a short-target on Deckers this Summer into low $80s then we reversed our view and turned bullish after the last earnings call.

We’ve had a +20% rally since we discussed this idea for newsletter readers and hit $100 which was a short-term target.

We were looking for new highs on the market the last few weeks and while we are just shy of them we did break some key levels that we wanted to see.

We are still bullish with a $7,150 target into all time highs and readers of the Options Flows membership had a note this week on the Nasdaq long trade as well.

P.S.

We cover a lot more data and commentary with this exact article in our webinar so make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel here.