U.S. Debt Wall, War Risk & The Market Reckoning: Steven Feldman’s 2026 Outlook
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Read Steven Feldman’s full 2026 Outlook for a deeper look at the risks and realities that will shape investing, macro, markets, and …
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We've been living in a world of lots of narratives and those narratives are treasuries are risk-f free and the Fed will come to uh the rescue of the markets every time and all debt gets refinanced and technology will solve everything including the climate and AI is going to work for humanity and make it nirvana. And I think in 2026, we're going to find out. All of the answers are going to come back to math and gravity, and there's going to be a lot of surprises. >> What do you think is the biggest risk? >> War. Without a doubt, it's warp. The whole world is on a war footing. >> Hello and welcome to Wealthon. I'm Maggie Lake and joining me today to share his 2026 outlook is the CEO of Wealthon, Steven Feldman. Hi, Stephen. >> Hi, Maggie. How are you? >> Um, happy new year. >> Good. Yeah, happy new year to you and we're we're sort of like a rocket out of the gate, right? We're not even a few days into the new year and we've had some huge news stories, big market moves already. So, I'm really looking forward to this conversation and hearing your thoughts and I think we should probably start big picture. So, you know, when you were thinking about your outlook, what is the macro framework you're using heading into this year? So we're going to release through wealthon the entire outlook and you can uh see it more in depth but the headline is that 2026 is the year that math and gravity reassert themselves. uh you know if you are uh a human uh and especially if you're an investor we've been living in a world of lots of narratives and those narratives are treasuries are risk-f free and the Fed will come to uh the rescue of the markets every time and all debt gets refinanced and technology will solve everything including the climate and AI is going to work for humanity and make it nirvana and I I think in 2026 we're going to find out all of the answers are going to come back to math and gravity and there's going to be a lot of surprises in 2026. >> Sounds like nasty surprises. Sounds like this is this this sounds like a bearish outlook. >> You know, maybe um I uh I'm not a I'm not a pessimist. Uh certainly nobody who becomes an entrepreneur has that right. Mh. >> Uh but at the same time uh when you are in the precious metals business which I am in a in in GBI when you're a trained macroeconomist and uh I have a background in that and you've been an investor in real assets for this long you're sort of trained not to live in a narrative. In fact that's as an investor that's a little bit where the money gets made where the crowd believes something but the math says something else. I think the world's great hedge fund folks would agree that that's where money gets made. So, I'm quite pragmatic. I don't want to judge what's going to happen. I want to adjust my investing. I want to enjudge my thinking and I want to make sure I have sort of emotional fortitude that not everything that comes at me, whether bad or good, is a surprise and I have to react in a way that's ungrounded. >> Yeah. I always forget which way it goes around. It's like defense is the best offense in this case. And if you're ready, then you can manage risk. So where do you think this this reckoning of sorts is going to be most keenly felt? Like how do you see this playing out? If math is going to become our reality, we've been living in a fantasy. What does that adjustment look like? >> Well, I'd put at the top of the list, and this is something that I've been writing about, talking about forever, and that's the Treasury market. And uh maybe before the pandemic it wasn't quite as perverse, but since the pandemic uh we've gotten to a place where $ 38 trillion of debt in a in an interest rate environment that's going up uh notwithstanding Fed rates, that's only on the short end and we can probably talk about that a little bit more later. um you and and a a more erratic unpredictable borrower and that is the United States, right? It's just much a more unpredictable country, more willing to realign allies, drop bombs. That all says that something might happen in the Treasury market. Now, couple that with $9 trillion rolling in 2026, and I think that's the moment where the market says the math doesn't work. >> So, you know, I we can understand why these narratives have been in place because people have been warning about these debt levels for a long time. So, why now does do we see the cracks? I mean, it sounds like you're saying the bond market's going to break. Well, I mean, is it is it that severe or do we you know, what does it look like in real time as this? >> I'm I'm always loathed. Uh, you know, I I've mentioned the gold space a bit and it's interesting because when you're in the gold business, you're really in the macro business. And gold is a very interesting asset because it ends up sussing out or smelling the truth a lot. And I would say without any hint of doubt that 2025 was the year that you saw a shift in the safe haven asset from treasuries to gold. >> And that's not necessarily a statement that says that treasuries are unsafe. It's a less safe and b as power has replaced globalism, you're seeing that asset gold, uh being owned in central banks, non-American central banks as a statement of saying that's our we don't want to have a dollar denominated resource in our central bank. And so when you're looking for $9 trillion of new buyers in 2026, certainly the stable coin issuers will show up because they have to as per the Genius Act. You'll see some if I think as as the long end of rates go up, I think you're going to see retail investors emerge. But I it's completely possible not saying it will happen that it gets out of hand that you notwithstanding the short end uh the Fed lowering rates you will also see the long end go out of control. One more thing I meant to add which is the other piece of this is that there might be a little less uh faith in monetary policy if the Fed becomes more politicized. If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hard Assets Alliance, at hardassetsallalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. Yeah. So, I mean, in this in this instance, and we've had sort of crises before, we we have seen extraordinary measures taken by the central bank. I mean, that is why people talk about that that Fed put. They've come in, they've rewritten the history book, they've come up with all sorts of instruments. Have we reached a point where monetary policy is no longer effective? >> Well, I I want to say that monetary policy has already become less effective. Uh I think that part of it is just how much debt we have. And so the the just the slight altering of interest rates is really hard to impact over $ 38 trillion. I think the credibility of the Fed has been lowered again as political pressure comes in. And we've been in a period where it hasn't been about monetary policy. It's been about fiscal policy. I've heard the term fiscal dominance. I didn't invent it, but I like it a lot. >> I think I think it was Lynn Alden and some others who brought that term to four. But when you're running 6% uh deficits every year and they're extremely durable, uh I don't think monetary policy is making anything happen. I think it's all fiscal policy at this point. M so if if we can't count on the Fed to to provide the relief and support and get rates down if the bond market's sort of untethered from monetary policy because of the risks that you mentioned. What does that mean for bond rates and what does that mean for the real economy? >> Well, let me go backwards before I go forwards. So, as we mentioned there's um right now it's fiscal dominance. So the economy is running in my opinion in the last six months on fiscal deficits and AI spending. >> And I'm again I'm not sitting here crunching numbers but when you read the Financial Times and other popular press they would say that 1% of GDP is only AI data center and uh related CPU spending. Take that out and take the next couple of trillion dollars of deficit spending out and I don't know what the economy looks like. And by the way, that goes back to my statement. That's just math. >> Uh I think if you pull, if we decided to run a balanced budget and we decided that AI spending is reached its apex and is now going to go back down, I don't know if the productivity that comes with AI is going to add up to the trillions of dollars that are lost from that big broadside benefit to the economy. I I I would listen, I'm not a pro stock prognosticator and I don't think the stock market is the market. You could still have great companies in a crummy market uh in a crummy economy. But I do feel like if the overall factor, I think you'd see GDP coming down, certainly the rate of GP GDP coming down. And I think that pretty soon policy makers are going to come back to math and they're going to say, well, what makes that debt deficit look less bad? And frankly, it's inflation. And so we're going to be stuck. And now we're going to go back to politics. And the politicians are going to be stuck. the federal politicians are going to be stuck between this place where on the one hand they're going to be elected or not elected on affordability. >> On the other hand, the only way to afford the debt is to inflate a bit because 3% inflation on $ 38 trillion is the equivalent of $1 trillion of debt reduction. Good luck getting a trillion dollar of tax increases. Politicians don't even talk about it anymore. Doesn't matter. It's just a fight. just a performative fight over over debt ceilings. So again, I'm I don't forecast crashes. No, no, that would be silly for me to say. I don't know if that will happen. I don't know. But I would say that the arithmetic of 2026 says very high interest rates, very high debt that's hard to bring down without inflation. Inflation hits affordability and affordability is affecting electability. how that all comes together. I'll leave that to the viewers to suggest, >> but that's what's concerning for me. That's in my outlook for 26. >> So, I think this is so important because you just you just pulled together two things that people talk about in in different silos. And there is frustration, I think, and we've seen this already in some early voting in the New York City race. This affordability issue is at the front and center. There's a feeling like people are making bad choices. But you just pointed out, is it that the politicians are making reckless choices with debt, just choosing to continue to sort of, you know, run up the deficit, give tax breaks, spend, spend, spend, or do they not have any good choices? They're backed into a corner and no matter what they do, they tank the economy and send it into to a spiral downward, or they let inflation run high. It seems like you're saying these two things have reached a point where they're no longer sustainable. that there aren't really choices. >> Yes, that that that is listen, there is a choice, but it's not a choice that is uh that Americans are willing to uh to follow. You know, if a politician came up and said, "Listen, here's what's going to happen. Here's how we're going to uh tame the deficit, manage inflation. We're going to increase taxes, and we're going to reduce spending. We're going to reduce military spending. Make that up. I mean, could you imagine the reaction to that? Uh, you know, we're going to have a weak country vulnerable to the Chinese and the Venezuelans and we're also going to increase taxes and that's going to manage affordability and that's going to manage the deficit. Yes, that's what's going to manage affordability and that's going to manage the deficit if you but it's how unpopular would that be to raise taxes and can a politician today win? Can somebody actually say we're gonna raise taxes through the entire country and win a federal election? That's not Mandani. Mandani is in New York City and he ran against an extremely weak opponent and it was like a young fighter coming in and beating an overthe-hill guy who didn't train. And I'm not sure everybody was voting for increased taxes. I think people were voting more so for somebody who was young and engaging. >> Yeah. and a protest vote to say things are broken and we're not happy with that. Yes. But >> so do you you know do you think that that the Trump administration has a plan to address this? We're coming into the midterms in the US. Do you see a way to grow out of this? A lot of people have put a lot of faith in Scott Besson that he can come up with a way to get out of this. Is it possible to to run it hot enough to grow revenues to get out of it? Do you how's the math on that side add up to you? >> You know, I I I certainly didn't put this in my prep notes, but it just occurred to me that there is a scary scenario where you could afford to pay off our debt. You could in in continue to invade other countries and uh take their assets. I don't think that would be something that would be hugely popular, but you know, you're sitting here and you're in Venezuela now and all of a sudden oil revenues that you didn't have before are there. Uh there can be maybe an AI productivity explosion. I don't think that's going to happen in 2026. I think there will be incremental productivity increases, but you know what you need in tax revenues to reduce the deficit to have GDP catch up in in real rates. Not talking about inflation, just talking about real GDP growth would be extraordinary. First of all, we're on two very large bases. GDP is very large and the debt's very large. If you want to have you have a 30 billion 30 trillion5 trillion dollar economy growing at 10% is 3.5 trillion dollars that's a lot of growth. It's a lot of absolute dollars >> and if you can't get it through inflation if you can't get it if you had to get it in real terms it's going to be very very complicated to do it. I don't know what industry would do it. And I am also nervous in AI that any productivity gain that you get is going to be offset by job losses which will hurt the consumer and the consumer is twothirds of GDP. And so if you're going to displace a lot of people, if this is going to be NAFTA 2.0, but now you're taking out the white collar workers, I wonder uh if you could ever catch up. Now listen, I don't have a good answer. The policy answer is the one that's untenable for politicians which is fiscal discipline. >> Yeah. Extreme austerity and pain. >> Right. It would take some pain and but you know that is not the way the American citizen has grown up. What pain? Uh you know I'm not going to go into you know the the character of Americans, but I do know that we're not a country that's used to massive sacrifice for a generation. >> Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned the Venezuela situation and this was this was very interesting right out of the gate. I mean they had been telegraphing it but I think the way it went down the timing of it did catch people by surprise and has a lot of conversations happening about the sort of the next shoes that might drop. You know the second and third derivative off of this are and yet if you look at the market action just the first few days the market's kind of looked right past it. It's been very very muted very calm. Are investors overly complacent about geopolitical risk when we look out into 2026? >> Oh, you it's a lot to unpack there, Maggie. Um, let's start with complacence. So, that that we can isolate on itself. Investors are very complacent. Um, we're we're in a momentum market. >> Uh, you know, I read an article that said if you go into chat GPT prompts uh and you took it looked at two prompts. One prompt was what is this company worth? What's its value? That's one prompt. The second prompt is what's going to go up. The second prompt is 10 times more popular than the first prompt. And so, uh, nothing is tethered to value. Everything seems to be tethered to momentum. And so, the stock market has a lot of momentum. Second thing I'd say is the stock market is not the economy. uh you could always have good performing companies in the stock market and the fact is the stock market on itself is a lousy investment but the S&P 500 is an excellent investment because they keep changing the components. You're always betting on the best companies. So even if the world was full of bankrupt companies, there'd be one company that specialized in bankruptcies which would be a very good company. So if you throw a do a dart at a stock, more likely than not, it's going to go down. But if you buy indexes of the best American companies, it would go up in overtime and it has. Um, but let's go now to Venezuela. I told you there was a lot to unpack. Venezuela, when the first bomb dropped in Venezuela, uh, it basically marked the end of globalism. >> It's official. >> It's now about naked power and spheres of influence. >> And so, what do I see in 26 as the knock-on effect? And I'll come back to the markets in a second. You've got three spheres of influence. You've got North America, sort of Western Hemisphere, South America, that's the US sphere of influence. You got Chinese sphere of influence. And you got Taiwan and Japan involved in that already. And then you have Europe and Russia and Ukraine. And in short order in 2026, three quick predictions. Number one is Venezuela is going to move into the US sphere sphere of influence. Ukraine is going to give up some land uh which will have a terrible precedent and China is going to do something in Taiwan that says we're very serious and this is happening and whether that's going to be a naval blockade or some cyber attack that knocks them out for a period of time. They're going to send a message that says, "Hey, if every if you could do this in Venezuela and Russia can do it in Ukraine with your blessing, uh, America, I could do this in China and in Taiwan, and you're not going to show up. And we know it. >> So, back to investors. All that said, does not mean the stock market is going to go down." And I've learned that the hard way over 35 years. Sometimes companies can thrive, markets can thrive. It's a complex thing but you know I do feel again if you come back to my original theme that math matters I think the valuations in American stocks are stretched under any scenario >> and I wouldn't be surprised if sometime during the year there was a little bit of a reckoning. >> Yeah. And it I think that to your point you're seeing uh metals move. you're seeing indications that people are uncomfortable and there is a recognition that we are moving into, you know, at least an uncertain time. Uh whe whether it's multipolar, bipolar, we don't know yet, but there is a it does feel like we've crossed a threshold. So, it's easy, I think, and and you know, I think it's really useful and I love the math analogy, but it's useful. It sounds grim. I think this is what I'm saying. People are listening to this and saying, "Oh, this is, you know, we're talking about my retirement. We're talking about trying to build wealth and this sounds hopeless." But I think if you're prepared for the risk, I'm guessing there is opportunity in this in this new math driven world. So, let's talk a little bit about what that looks like. So, so we know what doesn't work. Sounds like bonds. We know what's riskier sounds like certain areas of the stock market, although not all of it. So what benefits if those are the stress points? What does well in this? What are you thinking about in terms of either sectors or asset classes? >> Well, uh let's let me let me start it off by saying uh you know if someone said you had a 100% of your wealth in Nvidia today, which I think believe maybe them or Microsoft, largest cap company in the world, an extraordinary run. People would say that's you're crazy. I mean, you know, but but wouldn't make you a pessimist. Wouldn't make it grim, right? You just say you shouldn't have all your eggs in a basket on one theme at that valuation. Okay, let's start there. So, before anyone accuses me of being grim, I I'm saying is you have to start to expand your brain a tiny bit about how if the market shifts, shouldn't your investment shift? And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing grim about that. All I'm saying is the market is long in the tooth. There's a lot of risks out there and I think you should invest in a slightly different way. We've been I've been saying it all of 2025. >> Um I'm not saying be out of the stock market either. I'm saying that within the stock market there are sectors that have been uh unexplored that are worth exploring. anything that talks about uh resource nationalism, supply chains, rearrangement of supply chains, certain energy things, um industrial companies that can take advantage of AI in a way that people aren't really noticing that much. Um I think there's lots of things that you can do in the market. I have since interest rates came down, it wasn't this year that I decided to be anti-bonds. I thought the 6040 mix should have been dead and buried when interest rates went almost to nothing. You not making any money. If you're a taxable investor, you were giving some of it to the government. And so you had returnfree risk. It was a terrible investment. For 10 years, bonds have made nothing. And uh and I just think it was a not the place for people to make investments. I've been telling people they should if you're making nothing in bonds, why not go to gold? And frankly, gold over the has done just as well as the stock market has done for the last 25 years. And for the last five, it's done extraordinarily well. And then that's a question of of industry and stock picking. And um you know, I I'm a client of Goldman Sachs, but I'm I'm not their chief strategist. I don't know exactly which names to pick, >> but there are certainly places in the market where you should be considering if you haven't considered them before. Certainly we at GBI and wealthy on are leaning into the real asset space a because we believe in it but b there's a a woefully inadequate amount of education for it right you can there's a billion analysts cover uh Nvidia and there's three analysts covering the next you know 500 metals and mining shares and uh there's really nobody there's nothing it's an it's less than 1% of the stock market is industrial metals, precious metals and uh other real asset companies. Maybe it should be 2%, maybe it should be 10%. I don't know. But I'm asking investors to explore other parts of the market. I think there's money to be made. I also think this is a market where you may want to be slightly riskoff. We've all made a lot of money, no matter where you were, except for bonds. We've all made a lot of money in the stock market. Maybe it's just a time to tap a break. Respect math. Respect gravity. Start to look around in unconventional places for some math. And I'm It's not a pessimistic view. Being an investor is a bit like being an athlete. You play a better team, you better have a better scheme or you're just going to get slaughtered. Unless you're a New York Jet fan, in which which I am, which nothing works. >> Nothing forever. Nothing. >> Nothing. Nothing ever works. But it's built my character dramatically. >> Yeah. Well, it's not much better as a giant. Although there are green shoots there. So we'll just >> I think if if you merge those two teams, you'd be seven and nine. Seven and 10. >> Yeah. But but there's but there's hope for for big blue. So um I think that's a great way to think about it. So let me ask a question that comes up a lot uh when we do shows and for people who are responding in the comments and we we have people ask questions about this. So people have sort of becoming aware of the fact that I I can't maybe that 6040 isn't working and I need to think about different asset classes and I'm terribly underexposed to hard assets. I don't even know where to start. But they look at the price action in gold. We know what's happening with silver of late and they say record levels. I missed the boat. I'm too late. >> Yeah. >> Um do you think that we are kind of in a new era? Is this a structural change or is this one of the momentum trades that that they should be worried about? How should they approach it if they haven't diversified into hard assets yet? Just what's your broad We can't tell people what to do. You they have to understand their own risk and and talk to an advisor uh and they can and they can find a free portfolio review if they go to our website. Um but but just broadly about the asset class, how should we be thinking about this record run in metals? Yeah, listen that that is the $64,000 question in the space. We've been talking about the space for a long time and I'm very gratified that I was long the space before the doubles and the triples. Um, here's my glib answer. You know, Nvidia is up 100x and nobody said when it was up 2x we shouldn't invest in it anymore. Although I guess some did and then they missed the next 90x's. So, uh, you know, a good sector can run for a long time. Uh, when you look in the metals and mining space specifically, which I have some expertise, but I'm not the most expert. I'm I'm certainly not a Rick Rule, but the, uh, you know, it could it could run. It could really it could really run. And no one here is ever recommending being 100% in those assets. And you could dip your toe in and you can start to try to create some alpha. Um, you know, some assets are look rich and look very speculative. That may not be for your taste. Um, we are trying to over time to curate and try to help investors not just be educated, but to try to separate the wheat from the chaff if that's possible. >> But I I'm not going to lie, it's a little harder to see these things have doubled. It's not human nature to you to think you didn't miss it. >> Yeah. But I I don't think uh I don't think you have I think this real asset space has got a long run and even though the space has if you're sort of in a junior silver miner it may have doubled or even tripled but that doesn't mean the market caps are high and that doesn't mean that many a high percentage of investors have discovered the asset class they have not. >> Yeah. >> Very still a very low participation rate. >> Yeah. Um, and this is the important um the important sort of issue when we're thinking about it. If it's a structural change, if we're going back to math and you see this as a structural change, then it's a different conversation than a than a sort of momentum trade. Another thing I want to ask you about is technology. So, a lot of times when we talk about or we have people on who talk about being bullish hard assets, there is an assumption that that means they're anti-technology. you know, there sort of like the old gold bug, gonna put it in that, don't want it. Um, I don't I think that's that's a false narrative. Um, but I'm curious what how you are approaching technology. You certainly sound like you're a little bit skeptical of the AI trade as it has played out so far. So, how are you thinking about the technology sector in 2026? >> You you give me these multi-level questions, but I'm not taking notes. I'm going to try to remember everything, but again, try to simplify it. I'm just letting technology. >> Let's start with let's start with AI. Nobody uses it more than I do. I mean, I was an early adopter and uh you know, you get if you're a chat GPT person, it says you get a year in review. And in my year in review, it said I'm in the top one half of 1% of users. My my my productivity has exploded, but it's also made me even busier. And that wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. Um, so I I'm actually am a big believer in AI. Uh, I believe there'll be quite a few externalities that people are overrating. I'm a I'm a huge follower of Brad Jacobs. He's the entrepreneur who's built XPO, QXO, and he's helped me make some decent money following his companies. And he thought that AI was could possibly lead to a nirvana scenario. I do not believe that. I I be I am actually you want to ask me if I if I'm pessimistic about the societal impact of the technology. I am pessimistic. >> I don't believe in Nirvana. I think people need meaningful work. And I think if you get rid of all the drivers and you get rid of all the white collar people and you add to the NAFTA woes, even if you reshore, I think it's going to be we're going to go through a thing and it's going to be as unpleasant. uh when people lose jobs who are living in the suburbs, they're going to get angry as can be and it's not going to be pleasant. Now, >> I think second piece of this is AI is an investment. I think it's gotten ahead of itself. I think a lot of it is going to fail. But the good news is I've watched this in real estate. I've watched this in other boom bust places. The buildings don't care if they're bankrupt. They're still there and some of them are beautiful and people want to be in them and they change owners. So all that AI infrastructure, it may be a good investment, it may not, but it's still going to be there and it's going to help the AI business and so people will use it. And I just feel like you got to be very careful because I don't think everyone is going to win just like the not everybody won in the railroads and not everybody won in infrastructure uh uh in internet infrastructure. >> Okay. So now how do I invest? I have a bit of a barbell strategy and they are related even though they're on because they are on the same bar. I believe in innovation. If you look at stock market returns, uh almost all of the stock market returns have come in innovation. Whether it was RCA inventing the radio and going into TV or it's Nvidia creating the C CPU for AI and going to the moon. So innovation drives return. find companies that can do innovation and that will be the outsized return for you. And and interestingly today all the innovation is coming out of the mag four or five out of the seven. They've got their own capital. They got plenty of money to do this. They don't look like RCA to me. You know, Amazon conquered retail. Then it conquered the cloud and now it's going to conquer robots. So you get, you know, it's it probably isn't overvalued. I believe it. But the real asset space there is no AI without electricity. There is no uh electricity without uh some form of fossil fuel which is a real asset or a renewable. And by the way, all those solar panels, they need silver. >> So, and if you can't get your silver from China, you got to get your silver in the United States because all the supply chains have decided that they're going to follow where the power spheres are. then they're highly related. And so I can honestly say that I'm playing macro themes. I play the macro theme of innovation, supply chain, resource nationalism, and then the gold and silver trade is monetary debasement, which is seems inevitable. I don't find them any inconsistent at all. I just find them uh inconsistently applied. So I don't feel people I think because of what you just said people like yeah but I'm not who wants to buy burillium you know I don't understand it and you know and they're not and Kramer's not talking about burillium by the way I'm not even sure burillium is is is a rare earth I made that up so uh but all the more reason why people won't invest in it >> yeah you just said something really important that is always um something that I worry about and that is because of financial media traditional financial media, there's a lot of emphasis on equities. And I think this is partly why there's a lot of people overexposed perhaps. Um, and when we're talking about diversification, it's it's going to be a new reality if we have to think about being in all these different areas. It's just because it's the nature of it, right? Because that's most of what they talk about. Um, >> by the way, I I forgot to mention I have one more investment. Cash. All right? So cash sits there. It makes 4%. It's taxable. That's terrible. But if it just so happens that the market goes up, most of my money will most of my investments will go up. But if the world goes crummy, I get 4% on the return plus the op on the cash return plus the option value of deploying that if something cracks up. Certainly, if Amazon goes down 50%, I'm buying, right? Like I I I think my my trouble is not with the with what the companies are doing. They're highly innovative. My trouble is with the valuations. >> Yeah. So cash is a cash is a position cash >> cash is cash is a wellthoughtout position for me right now >> especially going into this year. Yes. So uh we I I so we talked about the um the sort of macro framework and the fact that math is coming back in and that we are in a pivot and maybe we're in a new era certainly geopolitically um but also maybe in terms of the ability to float these debt levels. If you look across um and you're and you're being very thoughtful about where you think the opportunities are, what do you think is the biggest risk? I know we mentioned treasuries, but what else are you concerned about that would maybe make you say, "All right, I got to rethink this." What is >> war? >> What's the war? >> War. Without a doubt, it's war. The whole world is on a war footing and and and the cost of war, as the Ukrainians have showed us, has been has been much lowered through drone technology >> and asymmetry, meaning you don't even need a drone. You just need a computer. And uh I was on a call today with a a a strategist who has some uh Swed is Swedish by background or married a Swedish gentleman and she said that the in in Sweden the Russians have uh put malware in all their infrastructure and uh so here you are there's no declared war but it's a war footing. And you've it's not been in the news today, but it'll come back into the cycle that the Chinese have done the same in American infrastructure. And I would suspect when they start to make noise around Taiwan this year that they'll shut something down in the United States to show what they can do. And this isn't gloom and doom. It's just the asymmetry now, the democratization of war. And we have uh an administration in the United States which is certainly uh got interesting got elected on no foreign wars and now has decided that surgically at a minimum but maybe more is going to be at war. When Denmark says you know we we could possibly be at war with the United States over Greenland you know something has changed. Now people will say oh that's just talk just talk. Uh but I I don't think it is. I I think if you're in a world of hard power, and we are in a world of hard power, the mask is off. There's no one even even making believe that that's not the case anymore. There's no even narrative. There's no fakery. There's nothing. You know, you hear Pete Hegsith and Steven Miller talk about it's power. It's always been power. People who don't read the history books don't understand that it's always been about power. Power is economic power, but power is also military power. And I think that is the single biggest risk that the country uh that the world faces. We the all of these old alliances that and so between alliances and global trade I think that kept the peace as much as possible. Now we don't have those and so what happens when you don't have those? And I'm not saying I'm not calling there will be war. I'm just saying that the risk is higher. >> Yeah. And you got to be prepared for risk. You also have to you also have to be prepared for some surprises and and I did see you mention something that's that it I mean listen there's a lot to digest, right? But this doesn't seem to be on anybody's bingo card and that's mergers. You think we're going to you you because this was part of by the way part of the Trump um promise about deregulation and and sort of but you see you see a lot of mergers coming. It seems like >> I think 26 is going to be the year. By the way, if you're a merger banker and you're watching this, congratulations. I think you're going to have a great year. And I have a lot of friends, you know, as a Goldman Sachs alum, I got a lot of friends in the M&A business, lawyers, and I think this is going to be the year of the mega deal. >> Why? >> Uh, uh, for a number of reasons. Number one is, you know, regulation, and you don't have to worry if you don't have to worry about antitrust, uh, then all of a sudden big deals, uh, you know, are no longer no longer frowned upon. They'll be encouraged. Second, it's competitive advantage. So, in certain industries, you're going to see things that, you know, are going to be viewed as US strategic. So, you know, you can't have Boeing be a weak company. Can't happen. That's why I wrote in the outlook, I think GE buys Boeing. I think uh I think Google uh Alphabet buys Spotify. And no one has to worry about antitrust because Apple has Apple Music and so they need music. They already have YouTube so they're going to they're going to buy that. So you're going to see and then in the semiconductor space which is a strategic asset right with Taiwan is under threat so is all uh semiconductor creation. And so you might see quite a bit of merger activity in that where you'll see Intel you'll where the US government already has an investment you might see even more consolidation in that space. So I think mer merger activity is going to uh is going to explode and they're going to be large mergers. Uh, I mean, it sounds like 2026 is going to sort of mimic how it feels coming right out of the gate, which is an awful lot of change, an also an awful lot of volatility, an awful lot of disruption. It's going to require new way of thinking. I mean, there's a lot going on. Um, I appreciate you sharing your outlook, Stephen. I think this gave us a lot. No, I mean, we we need to be able to sort of have a framework to operate off of, right? >> But but you are not going straight to a cocktail after this, are you, though? That's how that's how I'm going to be dealing with all the change, which is lubrication. >> I mean, as tempting as that is, um, but no, I think that, um, there's one thing to just be doom and gloom, but this is this is there's a practicality to this that I think is really important. Um, >> but I also hear that you are launching a new show. Is this true that you're going to be this is this is not just 2026 Outlook and done. You're going to be back with us on the regular. >> Uh, you know, we're going to try it out. And uh you know I've been a pretty private person. Uh but you know I' I've also been a mission-based person and part of what I've tried to do is use my seat, my influence to be a good custodian, a good steward of the things that are important to me. Obviously my family, my businesses, my community. Uh this year I leaned into LinkedIn a lot more. Uh, and I've been writing about that custodianship, that stewardship, whether it's dealing with my dad, uh, who is aging, uh, with some health issues, dealing with, uh, interesting challenges to value systems as you try to build business and treat people respectfully. And uh I think there's a bit of a lack of authenticity that I've seen when people talk about their I go to LinkedIn and someone you know one-third place for the best app in you know financial services and they're you know taking a victory lap around that and does anybody really care? I I don't know. It feels good, I guess, >> and you're getting some promotion. But I, you know, when I post things that um address how I'm thinking, how I operate, how I apply a value system to different situations, and there's a certain vulnerability and a certain authenticity to that. I think the reception of it has been extraordinary. >> Like I I write that GBI wins an award, I get 500 impressions. I write about the advice I give my daughter on graduation and I get 20,000 impressions. I write about putting my father in assisted living. I get 10,000 impressions. Uh I write about uh uh there was a business that I was involved in in the a space that failed and how that felt uh and what how we came to make those decisions. And so that's me and what I was hoping in this show um is to try to get that out of other people. It's it's how what's their operating system look like? Uh what's keeping them up at night? How do they reconcile a value system with a profit motive? Uh I I don't know how it'll work. I'd love to have you on and interview you since you got to interview me is and try to really connect to humanity >> uh as opposed to connecting to profit. Not that I don't want people to be profitable and I we're going to explore how that happens too, but what are we all solving for? Which I don't know exactly like I I made this joke to my wife the other day. I said like what what what exactly are we all solving for? Do we need a new operating system? Because it doesn't seem that everybody I talk to is content. Mhm. >> And I think the pressure on people's brains today has been, you know, starting with the pandemic. We had everybody saw a death in the face, right? We had a life and death experience. None of us went to war. We're all too young to have served in some war. But we had our little war where we could have all been dead. Nobody knew. And we got right off that uh into a changing of value systems uh globalism to mercantalism you know uh uh being you know sort of respecting power in a slightly different way than we had before >> and I think that's weighed on people a lot and I want to get to the point where how are people navigating that also >> and that's without the cocktail that's with straight talk authentic conversations with accomplished people who are solving for humanity or at least I want to see if they are. If they're not, we should know that, too. >> If everybody's solving for the last dollar and nobody's solving for manity, I'd like to know that. >> Uh because that might change how I have to operate too. >> Yeah, I I think it's fantastic. Um it's it's called unhedged. Um unhedged, which I love. Uh I think there's a need for this. I think we are hearing from everyone that they want transparency. They want a real conversation. Um they want something that at least sounds truthful or an effort to get to the truth. Um and it's lacking everywhere. We're in an age of misinformation. So I think that kind of conversation um is going to be fantastic and I'm really looking forward to it. Um we'll drop we'll drop some uh we'll drop some information about when when you can catch that and where that's coming out. So So let's wrap this up. what what do you what do you want us to take away if if we can sort of boil down your 2026 outlook? Um what's the sort of thumbnail? What what's the what's the headline or what's the couple of sentences that describe what your mindset is? You know, I I I don't think what I would say here is much different than I would say at the beginning of any year, which is, you know, we all like to live in a narrative and it's easier for us and in some ways it it protects us, but I think everyone can do a better job of pretending a little bit less, being a little bit more informed, taking your head out of the sand just a little bit and try to uh think about math, physics, and reality. Not in a gloom and doom, I'm depressed sort of way. Maybe we'll do it this way as a challenge, as a New Year's resolution. This year I'm going to try to be a bit more informed, a bit more realistic, and a bit more nimble so I could either protect what I have, protect my family, be a better custodian for everything that I do, >> not because I think the world is going to end. By the way, final sentence, the world won't end this year. I promise you. Uh it's not I'm not even I'm not predicting a crash. I'm predicting more of a reckoning. And I think for those of us who are a little bit more prepared, have a little more ballast, will maybe even take advantage of some of that reckoning as opposed to being a victim of it. >> I love it. Eyes wide open. Well, and hopefully we'll we'll use that as the mission and help people get there. >> I hope so. That was the whole goal. We didn't do Wealthy to make a billion dollars and it doesn't even come close. We did Wealthon in part to do just this. in large part to do just this, which was make people informed. Don't be uh don't be gloom and doom. Get people educated. I get it. We're we're on TV. We have to entertain people. We can't just sit there and spout statistics. Sometimes we have to be a little histrionic, but at the end of the day, it is a missionbased channel, and this is the mission. And I hope it resonates. And if it doesn't work, go change the channel. Go someplace else. >> I love it. Stephen, thank you so much. This was fun. >> Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate it, too. Happy New Year, by the way. >> You, too. >> Bye. >> Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.com/free. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.
U.S. Debt Wall, War Risk & The Market Reckoning: Steven Feldman’s 2026 Outlook
Summary
Read Steven Feldman’s full 2026 Outlook for a deeper look at the risks and realities that will shape investing, macro, markets, and …Transcript
We've been living in a world of lots of narratives and those narratives are treasuries are risk-f free and the Fed will come to uh the rescue of the markets every time and all debt gets refinanced and technology will solve everything including the climate and AI is going to work for humanity and make it nirvana. And I think in 2026, we're going to find out. All of the answers are going to come back to math and gravity, and there's going to be a lot of surprises. >> What do you think is the biggest risk? >> War. Without a doubt, it's warp. The whole world is on a war footing. >> Hello and welcome to Wealthon. I'm Maggie Lake and joining me today to share his 2026 outlook is the CEO of Wealthon, Steven Feldman. Hi, Stephen. >> Hi, Maggie. How are you? >> Um, happy new year. >> Good. Yeah, happy new year to you and we're we're sort of like a rocket out of the gate, right? We're not even a few days into the new year and we've had some huge news stories, big market moves already. So, I'm really looking forward to this conversation and hearing your thoughts and I think we should probably start big picture. So, you know, when you were thinking about your outlook, what is the macro framework you're using heading into this year? So we're going to release through wealthon the entire outlook and you can uh see it more in depth but the headline is that 2026 is the year that math and gravity reassert themselves. uh you know if you are uh a human uh and especially if you're an investor we've been living in a world of lots of narratives and those narratives are treasuries are risk-f free and the Fed will come to uh the rescue of the markets every time and all debt gets refinanced and technology will solve everything including the climate and AI is going to work for humanity and make it nirvana and I I think in 2026 we're going to find out all of the answers are going to come back to math and gravity and there's going to be a lot of surprises in 2026. >> Sounds like nasty surprises. Sounds like this is this this sounds like a bearish outlook. >> You know, maybe um I uh I'm not a I'm not a pessimist. Uh certainly nobody who becomes an entrepreneur has that right. Mh. >> Uh but at the same time uh when you are in the precious metals business which I am in a in in GBI when you're a trained macroeconomist and uh I have a background in that and you've been an investor in real assets for this long you're sort of trained not to live in a narrative. In fact that's as an investor that's a little bit where the money gets made where the crowd believes something but the math says something else. I think the world's great hedge fund folks would agree that that's where money gets made. So, I'm quite pragmatic. I don't want to judge what's going to happen. I want to adjust my investing. I want to enjudge my thinking and I want to make sure I have sort of emotional fortitude that not everything that comes at me, whether bad or good, is a surprise and I have to react in a way that's ungrounded. >> Yeah. I always forget which way it goes around. It's like defense is the best offense in this case. And if you're ready, then you can manage risk. So where do you think this this reckoning of sorts is going to be most keenly felt? Like how do you see this playing out? If math is going to become our reality, we've been living in a fantasy. What does that adjustment look like? >> Well, I'd put at the top of the list, and this is something that I've been writing about, talking about forever, and that's the Treasury market. And uh maybe before the pandemic it wasn't quite as perverse, but since the pandemic uh we've gotten to a place where $ 38 trillion of debt in a in an interest rate environment that's going up uh notwithstanding Fed rates, that's only on the short end and we can probably talk about that a little bit more later. um you and and a a more erratic unpredictable borrower and that is the United States, right? It's just much a more unpredictable country, more willing to realign allies, drop bombs. That all says that something might happen in the Treasury market. Now, couple that with $9 trillion rolling in 2026, and I think that's the moment where the market says the math doesn't work. >> So, you know, I we can understand why these narratives have been in place because people have been warning about these debt levels for a long time. So, why now does do we see the cracks? I mean, it sounds like you're saying the bond market's going to break. Well, I mean, is it is it that severe or do we you know, what does it look like in real time as this? >> I'm I'm always loathed. Uh, you know, I I've mentioned the gold space a bit and it's interesting because when you're in the gold business, you're really in the macro business. And gold is a very interesting asset because it ends up sussing out or smelling the truth a lot. And I would say without any hint of doubt that 2025 was the year that you saw a shift in the safe haven asset from treasuries to gold. >> And that's not necessarily a statement that says that treasuries are unsafe. It's a less safe and b as power has replaced globalism, you're seeing that asset gold, uh being owned in central banks, non-American central banks as a statement of saying that's our we don't want to have a dollar denominated resource in our central bank. And so when you're looking for $9 trillion of new buyers in 2026, certainly the stable coin issuers will show up because they have to as per the Genius Act. You'll see some if I think as as the long end of rates go up, I think you're going to see retail investors emerge. But I it's completely possible not saying it will happen that it gets out of hand that you notwithstanding the short end uh the Fed lowering rates you will also see the long end go out of control. One more thing I meant to add which is the other piece of this is that there might be a little less uh faith in monetary policy if the Fed becomes more politicized. If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hard Assets Alliance, at hardassetsallalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. Yeah. So, I mean, in this in this instance, and we've had sort of crises before, we we have seen extraordinary measures taken by the central bank. I mean, that is why people talk about that that Fed put. They've come in, they've rewritten the history book, they've come up with all sorts of instruments. Have we reached a point where monetary policy is no longer effective? >> Well, I I want to say that monetary policy has already become less effective. Uh I think that part of it is just how much debt we have. And so the the just the slight altering of interest rates is really hard to impact over $ 38 trillion. I think the credibility of the Fed has been lowered again as political pressure comes in. And we've been in a period where it hasn't been about monetary policy. It's been about fiscal policy. I've heard the term fiscal dominance. I didn't invent it, but I like it a lot. >> I think I think it was Lynn Alden and some others who brought that term to four. But when you're running 6% uh deficits every year and they're extremely durable, uh I don't think monetary policy is making anything happen. I think it's all fiscal policy at this point. M so if if we can't count on the Fed to to provide the relief and support and get rates down if the bond market's sort of untethered from monetary policy because of the risks that you mentioned. What does that mean for bond rates and what does that mean for the real economy? >> Well, let me go backwards before I go forwards. So, as we mentioned there's um right now it's fiscal dominance. So the economy is running in my opinion in the last six months on fiscal deficits and AI spending. >> And I'm again I'm not sitting here crunching numbers but when you read the Financial Times and other popular press they would say that 1% of GDP is only AI data center and uh related CPU spending. Take that out and take the next couple of trillion dollars of deficit spending out and I don't know what the economy looks like. And by the way, that goes back to my statement. That's just math. >> Uh I think if you pull, if we decided to run a balanced budget and we decided that AI spending is reached its apex and is now going to go back down, I don't know if the productivity that comes with AI is going to add up to the trillions of dollars that are lost from that big broadside benefit to the economy. I I I would listen, I'm not a pro stock prognosticator and I don't think the stock market is the market. You could still have great companies in a crummy market uh in a crummy economy. But I do feel like if the overall factor, I think you'd see GDP coming down, certainly the rate of GP GDP coming down. And I think that pretty soon policy makers are going to come back to math and they're going to say, well, what makes that debt deficit look less bad? And frankly, it's inflation. And so we're going to be stuck. And now we're going to go back to politics. And the politicians are going to be stuck. the federal politicians are going to be stuck between this place where on the one hand they're going to be elected or not elected on affordability. >> On the other hand, the only way to afford the debt is to inflate a bit because 3% inflation on $ 38 trillion is the equivalent of $1 trillion of debt reduction. Good luck getting a trillion dollar of tax increases. Politicians don't even talk about it anymore. Doesn't matter. It's just a fight. just a performative fight over over debt ceilings. So again, I'm I don't forecast crashes. No, no, that would be silly for me to say. I don't know if that will happen. I don't know. But I would say that the arithmetic of 2026 says very high interest rates, very high debt that's hard to bring down without inflation. Inflation hits affordability and affordability is affecting electability. how that all comes together. I'll leave that to the viewers to suggest, >> but that's what's concerning for me. That's in my outlook for 26. >> So, I think this is so important because you just you just pulled together two things that people talk about in in different silos. And there is frustration, I think, and we've seen this already in some early voting in the New York City race. This affordability issue is at the front and center. There's a feeling like people are making bad choices. But you just pointed out, is it that the politicians are making reckless choices with debt, just choosing to continue to sort of, you know, run up the deficit, give tax breaks, spend, spend, spend, or do they not have any good choices? They're backed into a corner and no matter what they do, they tank the economy and send it into to a spiral downward, or they let inflation run high. It seems like you're saying these two things have reached a point where they're no longer sustainable. that there aren't really choices. >> Yes, that that that is listen, there is a choice, but it's not a choice that is uh that Americans are willing to uh to follow. You know, if a politician came up and said, "Listen, here's what's going to happen. Here's how we're going to uh tame the deficit, manage inflation. We're going to increase taxes, and we're going to reduce spending. We're going to reduce military spending. Make that up. I mean, could you imagine the reaction to that? Uh, you know, we're going to have a weak country vulnerable to the Chinese and the Venezuelans and we're also going to increase taxes and that's going to manage affordability and that's going to manage the deficit. Yes, that's what's going to manage affordability and that's going to manage the deficit if you but it's how unpopular would that be to raise taxes and can a politician today win? Can somebody actually say we're gonna raise taxes through the entire country and win a federal election? That's not Mandani. Mandani is in New York City and he ran against an extremely weak opponent and it was like a young fighter coming in and beating an overthe-hill guy who didn't train. And I'm not sure everybody was voting for increased taxes. I think people were voting more so for somebody who was young and engaging. >> Yeah. and a protest vote to say things are broken and we're not happy with that. Yes. But >> so do you you know do you think that that the Trump administration has a plan to address this? We're coming into the midterms in the US. Do you see a way to grow out of this? A lot of people have put a lot of faith in Scott Besson that he can come up with a way to get out of this. Is it possible to to run it hot enough to grow revenues to get out of it? Do you how's the math on that side add up to you? >> You know, I I I certainly didn't put this in my prep notes, but it just occurred to me that there is a scary scenario where you could afford to pay off our debt. You could in in continue to invade other countries and uh take their assets. I don't think that would be something that would be hugely popular, but you know, you're sitting here and you're in Venezuela now and all of a sudden oil revenues that you didn't have before are there. Uh there can be maybe an AI productivity explosion. I don't think that's going to happen in 2026. I think there will be incremental productivity increases, but you know what you need in tax revenues to reduce the deficit to have GDP catch up in in real rates. Not talking about inflation, just talking about real GDP growth would be extraordinary. First of all, we're on two very large bases. GDP is very large and the debt's very large. If you want to have you have a 30 billion 30 trillion5 trillion dollar economy growing at 10% is 3.5 trillion dollars that's a lot of growth. It's a lot of absolute dollars >> and if you can't get it through inflation if you can't get it if you had to get it in real terms it's going to be very very complicated to do it. I don't know what industry would do it. And I am also nervous in AI that any productivity gain that you get is going to be offset by job losses which will hurt the consumer and the consumer is twothirds of GDP. And so if you're going to displace a lot of people, if this is going to be NAFTA 2.0, but now you're taking out the white collar workers, I wonder uh if you could ever catch up. Now listen, I don't have a good answer. The policy answer is the one that's untenable for politicians which is fiscal discipline. >> Yeah. Extreme austerity and pain. >> Right. It would take some pain and but you know that is not the way the American citizen has grown up. What pain? Uh you know I'm not going to go into you know the the character of Americans, but I do know that we're not a country that's used to massive sacrifice for a generation. >> Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned the Venezuela situation and this was this was very interesting right out of the gate. I mean they had been telegraphing it but I think the way it went down the timing of it did catch people by surprise and has a lot of conversations happening about the sort of the next shoes that might drop. You know the second and third derivative off of this are and yet if you look at the market action just the first few days the market's kind of looked right past it. It's been very very muted very calm. Are investors overly complacent about geopolitical risk when we look out into 2026? >> Oh, you it's a lot to unpack there, Maggie. Um, let's start with complacence. So, that that we can isolate on itself. Investors are very complacent. Um, we're we're in a momentum market. >> Uh, you know, I read an article that said if you go into chat GPT prompts uh and you took it looked at two prompts. One prompt was what is this company worth? What's its value? That's one prompt. The second prompt is what's going to go up. The second prompt is 10 times more popular than the first prompt. And so, uh, nothing is tethered to value. Everything seems to be tethered to momentum. And so, the stock market has a lot of momentum. Second thing I'd say is the stock market is not the economy. uh you could always have good performing companies in the stock market and the fact is the stock market on itself is a lousy investment but the S&P 500 is an excellent investment because they keep changing the components. You're always betting on the best companies. So even if the world was full of bankrupt companies, there'd be one company that specialized in bankruptcies which would be a very good company. So if you throw a do a dart at a stock, more likely than not, it's going to go down. But if you buy indexes of the best American companies, it would go up in overtime and it has. Um, but let's go now to Venezuela. I told you there was a lot to unpack. Venezuela, when the first bomb dropped in Venezuela, uh, it basically marked the end of globalism. >> It's official. >> It's now about naked power and spheres of influence. >> And so, what do I see in 26 as the knock-on effect? And I'll come back to the markets in a second. You've got three spheres of influence. You've got North America, sort of Western Hemisphere, South America, that's the US sphere of influence. You got Chinese sphere of influence. And you got Taiwan and Japan involved in that already. And then you have Europe and Russia and Ukraine. And in short order in 2026, three quick predictions. Number one is Venezuela is going to move into the US sphere sphere of influence. Ukraine is going to give up some land uh which will have a terrible precedent and China is going to do something in Taiwan that says we're very serious and this is happening and whether that's going to be a naval blockade or some cyber attack that knocks them out for a period of time. They're going to send a message that says, "Hey, if every if you could do this in Venezuela and Russia can do it in Ukraine with your blessing, uh, America, I could do this in China and in Taiwan, and you're not going to show up. And we know it. >> So, back to investors. All that said, does not mean the stock market is going to go down." And I've learned that the hard way over 35 years. Sometimes companies can thrive, markets can thrive. It's a complex thing but you know I do feel again if you come back to my original theme that math matters I think the valuations in American stocks are stretched under any scenario >> and I wouldn't be surprised if sometime during the year there was a little bit of a reckoning. >> Yeah. And it I think that to your point you're seeing uh metals move. you're seeing indications that people are uncomfortable and there is a recognition that we are moving into, you know, at least an uncertain time. Uh whe whether it's multipolar, bipolar, we don't know yet, but there is a it does feel like we've crossed a threshold. So, it's easy, I think, and and you know, I think it's really useful and I love the math analogy, but it's useful. It sounds grim. I think this is what I'm saying. People are listening to this and saying, "Oh, this is, you know, we're talking about my retirement. We're talking about trying to build wealth and this sounds hopeless." But I think if you're prepared for the risk, I'm guessing there is opportunity in this in this new math driven world. So, let's talk a little bit about what that looks like. So, so we know what doesn't work. Sounds like bonds. We know what's riskier sounds like certain areas of the stock market, although not all of it. So what benefits if those are the stress points? What does well in this? What are you thinking about in terms of either sectors or asset classes? >> Well, uh let's let me let me start it off by saying uh you know if someone said you had a 100% of your wealth in Nvidia today, which I think believe maybe them or Microsoft, largest cap company in the world, an extraordinary run. People would say that's you're crazy. I mean, you know, but but wouldn't make you a pessimist. Wouldn't make it grim, right? You just say you shouldn't have all your eggs in a basket on one theme at that valuation. Okay, let's start there. So, before anyone accuses me of being grim, I I'm saying is you have to start to expand your brain a tiny bit about how if the market shifts, shouldn't your investment shift? And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing grim about that. All I'm saying is the market is long in the tooth. There's a lot of risks out there and I think you should invest in a slightly different way. We've been I've been saying it all of 2025. >> Um I'm not saying be out of the stock market either. I'm saying that within the stock market there are sectors that have been uh unexplored that are worth exploring. anything that talks about uh resource nationalism, supply chains, rearrangement of supply chains, certain energy things, um industrial companies that can take advantage of AI in a way that people aren't really noticing that much. Um I think there's lots of things that you can do in the market. I have since interest rates came down, it wasn't this year that I decided to be anti-bonds. I thought the 6040 mix should have been dead and buried when interest rates went almost to nothing. You not making any money. If you're a taxable investor, you were giving some of it to the government. And so you had returnfree risk. It was a terrible investment. For 10 years, bonds have made nothing. And uh and I just think it was a not the place for people to make investments. I've been telling people they should if you're making nothing in bonds, why not go to gold? And frankly, gold over the has done just as well as the stock market has done for the last 25 years. And for the last five, it's done extraordinarily well. And then that's a question of of industry and stock picking. And um you know, I I'm a client of Goldman Sachs, but I'm I'm not their chief strategist. I don't know exactly which names to pick, >> but there are certainly places in the market where you should be considering if you haven't considered them before. Certainly we at GBI and wealthy on are leaning into the real asset space a because we believe in it but b there's a a woefully inadequate amount of education for it right you can there's a billion analysts cover uh Nvidia and there's three analysts covering the next you know 500 metals and mining shares and uh there's really nobody there's nothing it's an it's less than 1% of the stock market is industrial metals, precious metals and uh other real asset companies. Maybe it should be 2%, maybe it should be 10%. I don't know. But I'm asking investors to explore other parts of the market. I think there's money to be made. I also think this is a market where you may want to be slightly riskoff. We've all made a lot of money, no matter where you were, except for bonds. We've all made a lot of money in the stock market. Maybe it's just a time to tap a break. Respect math. Respect gravity. Start to look around in unconventional places for some math. And I'm It's not a pessimistic view. Being an investor is a bit like being an athlete. You play a better team, you better have a better scheme or you're just going to get slaughtered. Unless you're a New York Jet fan, in which which I am, which nothing works. >> Nothing forever. Nothing. >> Nothing. Nothing ever works. But it's built my character dramatically. >> Yeah. Well, it's not much better as a giant. Although there are green shoots there. So we'll just >> I think if if you merge those two teams, you'd be seven and nine. Seven and 10. >> Yeah. But but there's but there's hope for for big blue. So um I think that's a great way to think about it. So let me ask a question that comes up a lot uh when we do shows and for people who are responding in the comments and we we have people ask questions about this. So people have sort of becoming aware of the fact that I I can't maybe that 6040 isn't working and I need to think about different asset classes and I'm terribly underexposed to hard assets. I don't even know where to start. But they look at the price action in gold. We know what's happening with silver of late and they say record levels. I missed the boat. I'm too late. >> Yeah. >> Um do you think that we are kind of in a new era? Is this a structural change or is this one of the momentum trades that that they should be worried about? How should they approach it if they haven't diversified into hard assets yet? Just what's your broad We can't tell people what to do. You they have to understand their own risk and and talk to an advisor uh and they can and they can find a free portfolio review if they go to our website. Um but but just broadly about the asset class, how should we be thinking about this record run in metals? Yeah, listen that that is the $64,000 question in the space. We've been talking about the space for a long time and I'm very gratified that I was long the space before the doubles and the triples. Um, here's my glib answer. You know, Nvidia is up 100x and nobody said when it was up 2x we shouldn't invest in it anymore. Although I guess some did and then they missed the next 90x's. So, uh, you know, a good sector can run for a long time. Uh, when you look in the metals and mining space specifically, which I have some expertise, but I'm not the most expert. I'm I'm certainly not a Rick Rule, but the, uh, you know, it could it could run. It could really it could really run. And no one here is ever recommending being 100% in those assets. And you could dip your toe in and you can start to try to create some alpha. Um, you know, some assets are look rich and look very speculative. That may not be for your taste. Um, we are trying to over time to curate and try to help investors not just be educated, but to try to separate the wheat from the chaff if that's possible. >> But I I'm not going to lie, it's a little harder to see these things have doubled. It's not human nature to you to think you didn't miss it. >> Yeah. But I I don't think uh I don't think you have I think this real asset space has got a long run and even though the space has if you're sort of in a junior silver miner it may have doubled or even tripled but that doesn't mean the market caps are high and that doesn't mean that many a high percentage of investors have discovered the asset class they have not. >> Yeah. >> Very still a very low participation rate. >> Yeah. Um, and this is the important um the important sort of issue when we're thinking about it. If it's a structural change, if we're going back to math and you see this as a structural change, then it's a different conversation than a than a sort of momentum trade. Another thing I want to ask you about is technology. So, a lot of times when we talk about or we have people on who talk about being bullish hard assets, there is an assumption that that means they're anti-technology. you know, there sort of like the old gold bug, gonna put it in that, don't want it. Um, I don't I think that's that's a false narrative. Um, but I'm curious what how you are approaching technology. You certainly sound like you're a little bit skeptical of the AI trade as it has played out so far. So, how are you thinking about the technology sector in 2026? >> You you give me these multi-level questions, but I'm not taking notes. I'm going to try to remember everything, but again, try to simplify it. I'm just letting technology. >> Let's start with let's start with AI. Nobody uses it more than I do. I mean, I was an early adopter and uh you know, you get if you're a chat GPT person, it says you get a year in review. And in my year in review, it said I'm in the top one half of 1% of users. My my my productivity has exploded, but it's also made me even busier. And that wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. Um, so I I'm actually am a big believer in AI. Uh, I believe there'll be quite a few externalities that people are overrating. I'm a I'm a huge follower of Brad Jacobs. He's the entrepreneur who's built XPO, QXO, and he's helped me make some decent money following his companies. And he thought that AI was could possibly lead to a nirvana scenario. I do not believe that. I I be I am actually you want to ask me if I if I'm pessimistic about the societal impact of the technology. I am pessimistic. >> I don't believe in Nirvana. I think people need meaningful work. And I think if you get rid of all the drivers and you get rid of all the white collar people and you add to the NAFTA woes, even if you reshore, I think it's going to be we're going to go through a thing and it's going to be as unpleasant. uh when people lose jobs who are living in the suburbs, they're going to get angry as can be and it's not going to be pleasant. Now, >> I think second piece of this is AI is an investment. I think it's gotten ahead of itself. I think a lot of it is going to fail. But the good news is I've watched this in real estate. I've watched this in other boom bust places. The buildings don't care if they're bankrupt. They're still there and some of them are beautiful and people want to be in them and they change owners. So all that AI infrastructure, it may be a good investment, it may not, but it's still going to be there and it's going to help the AI business and so people will use it. And I just feel like you got to be very careful because I don't think everyone is going to win just like the not everybody won in the railroads and not everybody won in infrastructure uh uh in internet infrastructure. >> Okay. So now how do I invest? I have a bit of a barbell strategy and they are related even though they're on because they are on the same bar. I believe in innovation. If you look at stock market returns, uh almost all of the stock market returns have come in innovation. Whether it was RCA inventing the radio and going into TV or it's Nvidia creating the C CPU for AI and going to the moon. So innovation drives return. find companies that can do innovation and that will be the outsized return for you. And and interestingly today all the innovation is coming out of the mag four or five out of the seven. They've got their own capital. They got plenty of money to do this. They don't look like RCA to me. You know, Amazon conquered retail. Then it conquered the cloud and now it's going to conquer robots. So you get, you know, it's it probably isn't overvalued. I believe it. But the real asset space there is no AI without electricity. There is no uh electricity without uh some form of fossil fuel which is a real asset or a renewable. And by the way, all those solar panels, they need silver. >> So, and if you can't get your silver from China, you got to get your silver in the United States because all the supply chains have decided that they're going to follow where the power spheres are. then they're highly related. And so I can honestly say that I'm playing macro themes. I play the macro theme of innovation, supply chain, resource nationalism, and then the gold and silver trade is monetary debasement, which is seems inevitable. I don't find them any inconsistent at all. I just find them uh inconsistently applied. So I don't feel people I think because of what you just said people like yeah but I'm not who wants to buy burillium you know I don't understand it and you know and they're not and Kramer's not talking about burillium by the way I'm not even sure burillium is is is a rare earth I made that up so uh but all the more reason why people won't invest in it >> yeah you just said something really important that is always um something that I worry about and that is because of financial media traditional financial media, there's a lot of emphasis on equities. And I think this is partly why there's a lot of people overexposed perhaps. Um, and when we're talking about diversification, it's it's going to be a new reality if we have to think about being in all these different areas. It's just because it's the nature of it, right? Because that's most of what they talk about. Um, >> by the way, I I forgot to mention I have one more investment. Cash. All right? So cash sits there. It makes 4%. It's taxable. That's terrible. But if it just so happens that the market goes up, most of my money will most of my investments will go up. But if the world goes crummy, I get 4% on the return plus the op on the cash return plus the option value of deploying that if something cracks up. Certainly, if Amazon goes down 50%, I'm buying, right? Like I I I think my my trouble is not with the with what the companies are doing. They're highly innovative. My trouble is with the valuations. >> Yeah. So cash is a cash is a position cash >> cash is cash is a wellthoughtout position for me right now >> especially going into this year. Yes. So uh we I I so we talked about the um the sort of macro framework and the fact that math is coming back in and that we are in a pivot and maybe we're in a new era certainly geopolitically um but also maybe in terms of the ability to float these debt levels. If you look across um and you're and you're being very thoughtful about where you think the opportunities are, what do you think is the biggest risk? I know we mentioned treasuries, but what else are you concerned about that would maybe make you say, "All right, I got to rethink this." What is >> war? >> What's the war? >> War. Without a doubt, it's war. The whole world is on a war footing and and and the cost of war, as the Ukrainians have showed us, has been has been much lowered through drone technology >> and asymmetry, meaning you don't even need a drone. You just need a computer. And uh I was on a call today with a a a strategist who has some uh Swed is Swedish by background or married a Swedish gentleman and she said that the in in Sweden the Russians have uh put malware in all their infrastructure and uh so here you are there's no declared war but it's a war footing. And you've it's not been in the news today, but it'll come back into the cycle that the Chinese have done the same in American infrastructure. And I would suspect when they start to make noise around Taiwan this year that they'll shut something down in the United States to show what they can do. And this isn't gloom and doom. It's just the asymmetry now, the democratization of war. And we have uh an administration in the United States which is certainly uh got interesting got elected on no foreign wars and now has decided that surgically at a minimum but maybe more is going to be at war. When Denmark says you know we we could possibly be at war with the United States over Greenland you know something has changed. Now people will say oh that's just talk just talk. Uh but I I don't think it is. I I think if you're in a world of hard power, and we are in a world of hard power, the mask is off. There's no one even even making believe that that's not the case anymore. There's no even narrative. There's no fakery. There's nothing. You know, you hear Pete Hegsith and Steven Miller talk about it's power. It's always been power. People who don't read the history books don't understand that it's always been about power. Power is economic power, but power is also military power. And I think that is the single biggest risk that the country uh that the world faces. We the all of these old alliances that and so between alliances and global trade I think that kept the peace as much as possible. Now we don't have those and so what happens when you don't have those? And I'm not saying I'm not calling there will be war. I'm just saying that the risk is higher. >> Yeah. And you got to be prepared for risk. You also have to you also have to be prepared for some surprises and and I did see you mention something that's that it I mean listen there's a lot to digest, right? But this doesn't seem to be on anybody's bingo card and that's mergers. You think we're going to you you because this was part of by the way part of the Trump um promise about deregulation and and sort of but you see you see a lot of mergers coming. It seems like >> I think 26 is going to be the year. By the way, if you're a merger banker and you're watching this, congratulations. I think you're going to have a great year. And I have a lot of friends, you know, as a Goldman Sachs alum, I got a lot of friends in the M&A business, lawyers, and I think this is going to be the year of the mega deal. >> Why? >> Uh, uh, for a number of reasons. Number one is, you know, regulation, and you don't have to worry if you don't have to worry about antitrust, uh, then all of a sudden big deals, uh, you know, are no longer no longer frowned upon. They'll be encouraged. Second, it's competitive advantage. So, in certain industries, you're going to see things that, you know, are going to be viewed as US strategic. So, you know, you can't have Boeing be a weak company. Can't happen. That's why I wrote in the outlook, I think GE buys Boeing. I think uh I think Google uh Alphabet buys Spotify. And no one has to worry about antitrust because Apple has Apple Music and so they need music. They already have YouTube so they're going to they're going to buy that. So you're going to see and then in the semiconductor space which is a strategic asset right with Taiwan is under threat so is all uh semiconductor creation. And so you might see quite a bit of merger activity in that where you'll see Intel you'll where the US government already has an investment you might see even more consolidation in that space. So I think mer merger activity is going to uh is going to explode and they're going to be large mergers. Uh, I mean, it sounds like 2026 is going to sort of mimic how it feels coming right out of the gate, which is an awful lot of change, an also an awful lot of volatility, an awful lot of disruption. It's going to require new way of thinking. I mean, there's a lot going on. Um, I appreciate you sharing your outlook, Stephen. I think this gave us a lot. No, I mean, we we need to be able to sort of have a framework to operate off of, right? >> But but you are not going straight to a cocktail after this, are you, though? That's how that's how I'm going to be dealing with all the change, which is lubrication. >> I mean, as tempting as that is, um, but no, I think that, um, there's one thing to just be doom and gloom, but this is this is there's a practicality to this that I think is really important. Um, >> but I also hear that you are launching a new show. Is this true that you're going to be this is this is not just 2026 Outlook and done. You're going to be back with us on the regular. >> Uh, you know, we're going to try it out. And uh you know I've been a pretty private person. Uh but you know I' I've also been a mission-based person and part of what I've tried to do is use my seat, my influence to be a good custodian, a good steward of the things that are important to me. Obviously my family, my businesses, my community. Uh this year I leaned into LinkedIn a lot more. Uh, and I've been writing about that custodianship, that stewardship, whether it's dealing with my dad, uh, who is aging, uh, with some health issues, dealing with, uh, interesting challenges to value systems as you try to build business and treat people respectfully. And uh I think there's a bit of a lack of authenticity that I've seen when people talk about their I go to LinkedIn and someone you know one-third place for the best app in you know financial services and they're you know taking a victory lap around that and does anybody really care? I I don't know. It feels good, I guess, >> and you're getting some promotion. But I, you know, when I post things that um address how I'm thinking, how I operate, how I apply a value system to different situations, and there's a certain vulnerability and a certain authenticity to that. I think the reception of it has been extraordinary. >> Like I I write that GBI wins an award, I get 500 impressions. I write about the advice I give my daughter on graduation and I get 20,000 impressions. I write about putting my father in assisted living. I get 10,000 impressions. Uh I write about uh uh there was a business that I was involved in in the a space that failed and how that felt uh and what how we came to make those decisions. And so that's me and what I was hoping in this show um is to try to get that out of other people. It's it's how what's their operating system look like? Uh what's keeping them up at night? How do they reconcile a value system with a profit motive? Uh I I don't know how it'll work. I'd love to have you on and interview you since you got to interview me is and try to really connect to humanity >> uh as opposed to connecting to profit. Not that I don't want people to be profitable and I we're going to explore how that happens too, but what are we all solving for? Which I don't know exactly like I I made this joke to my wife the other day. I said like what what what exactly are we all solving for? Do we need a new operating system? Because it doesn't seem that everybody I talk to is content. Mhm. >> And I think the pressure on people's brains today has been, you know, starting with the pandemic. We had everybody saw a death in the face, right? We had a life and death experience. None of us went to war. We're all too young to have served in some war. But we had our little war where we could have all been dead. Nobody knew. And we got right off that uh into a changing of value systems uh globalism to mercantalism you know uh uh being you know sort of respecting power in a slightly different way than we had before >> and I think that's weighed on people a lot and I want to get to the point where how are people navigating that also >> and that's without the cocktail that's with straight talk authentic conversations with accomplished people who are solving for humanity or at least I want to see if they are. If they're not, we should know that, too. >> If everybody's solving for the last dollar and nobody's solving for manity, I'd like to know that. >> Uh because that might change how I have to operate too. >> Yeah, I I think it's fantastic. Um it's it's called unhedged. Um unhedged, which I love. Uh I think there's a need for this. I think we are hearing from everyone that they want transparency. They want a real conversation. Um they want something that at least sounds truthful or an effort to get to the truth. Um and it's lacking everywhere. We're in an age of misinformation. So I think that kind of conversation um is going to be fantastic and I'm really looking forward to it. Um we'll drop we'll drop some uh we'll drop some information about when when you can catch that and where that's coming out. So So let's wrap this up. what what do you what do you want us to take away if if we can sort of boil down your 2026 outlook? Um what's the sort of thumbnail? What what's the what's the headline or what's the couple of sentences that describe what your mindset is? You know, I I I don't think what I would say here is much different than I would say at the beginning of any year, which is, you know, we all like to live in a narrative and it's easier for us and in some ways it it protects us, but I think everyone can do a better job of pretending a little bit less, being a little bit more informed, taking your head out of the sand just a little bit and try to uh think about math, physics, and reality. Not in a gloom and doom, I'm depressed sort of way. Maybe we'll do it this way as a challenge, as a New Year's resolution. This year I'm going to try to be a bit more informed, a bit more realistic, and a bit more nimble so I could either protect what I have, protect my family, be a better custodian for everything that I do, >> not because I think the world is going to end. By the way, final sentence, the world won't end this year. I promise you. Uh it's not I'm not even I'm not predicting a crash. I'm predicting more of a reckoning. And I think for those of us who are a little bit more prepared, have a little more ballast, will maybe even take advantage of some of that reckoning as opposed to being a victim of it. >> I love it. Eyes wide open. Well, and hopefully we'll we'll use that as the mission and help people get there. >> I hope so. That was the whole goal. We didn't do Wealthy to make a billion dollars and it doesn't even come close. We did Wealthon in part to do just this. in large part to do just this, which was make people informed. Don't be uh don't be gloom and doom. Get people educated. I get it. We're we're on TV. We have to entertain people. We can't just sit there and spout statistics. Sometimes we have to be a little histrionic, but at the end of the day, it is a missionbased channel, and this is the mission. And I hope it resonates. And if it doesn't work, go change the channel. Go someplace else. >> I love it. Stephen, thank you so much. This was fun. >> Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate it, too. Happy New Year, by the way. >> You, too. >> Bye. >> Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.com/free. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.