Ken Fisher’s 2026 Mid-Year Market Update
Ken Fisher provides a mid-year 2026 market update, noting that markets are up about 9% year-to-date, performing slightly better than his beginning-of-year forecast. While most predictions have held true, AI-related tech has significantly outperformed expectations, and non-tech US equities are lagging their overseas counterparts more than anticipated.
Summary
Ken Fisher discusses Fisher Investments' performance against their 2026 beginning-of-year forecast at the mid-year mark. The overall market is up approximately 9% year-to-date for both US and non-US markets, which broadly aligns with expectations, though the timing of strength differs from predictions. Fisher had forecasted a weaker first half with strength building toward the fourth quarter, but strength has arrived earlier than expected. Fisher attributes this acceleration partly to congressional gridlock arriving earlier in the year than typical midterm election year patterns would suggest, which historically benefits markets.
A significant deviation from the forecast is the exceptional outperformance of AI-related technology stocks. Fisher notes that tech in aggregate is performing about 4% better year-to-date than the US market overall. He uses this data to illustrate that non-tech US equities are actually underperforming their non-US counterparts, which is somewhat surprising given that non-US markets have very little technology exposure and are predominantly value-oriented. This suggests that value stocks in the US are lagging value stocks overseas more than anticipated.
Fisher acknowledges several forecast misses and hits: the Iran war was not predicted, interest rates have remained stable as forecasted, and the European Central Bank's spring rate hike was unexpected but not materially significant. Overall, Fisher characterizes 2026 as tracking reasonably close to the original forecast, with some components performing better and others worse, but without shocking deviations.
Key Insights
- AI-related tech stocks are performing approximately 4% better year-to-date than the overall US market, which is a more significant outperformance than Fisher's original forecast anticipated.
- Non-tech US equities are underperforming non-US equities more than expected, despite non-US markets being predominantly value-oriented with very little technology exposure.
- Congressional gridlock arriving earlier in the year than typical midterm election year patterns may have accelerated market strength into the first half, potentially leaving less gains for the latter part of the year.
- The back quarter of midterm election years and the first couple quarters of the following year historically tend to be quite strong, a pattern that Fisher has observed for years but notes few investors believe.
- Year-to-date market performance is approximately 9% for both US and non-US markets, slightly exceeding initial forecasts for the first half of 2026.
Topics
Transcript
[0:03] [music] >> So every year at the beginning of the year we provide a forecast of what we at Fisher Investments think the year will mostly look like and inherently as the year progresses people wonder how's that working out? And this year is working out pretty well, not perfectly. The uh year is a little stronger in the first half of the year than we thought it would be. [0:33] Our forecast called for a back and forth sort of not too strong first half of the year uh with strength building in the back of the year and particularly in the fourth quarter. Uh the market's up about 9% as I speak. And that's true for both…
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