2026: A Market Still Moving Forward, But With Fewer Free Passes
After a strong 2025 in the markets, I keep hearing the same question from investors.
Does this continue, or is this where things start to get harder?
My view is simple. The opportunity is still there heading into 2026. What’s changed is how selective the market has become.
Most global forecasts still point to a positive year for equities. Earnings growth remains intact. Investment in AI and digital infrastructure continues to accelerate. Interest rates are expected to keep moving lower, which supports risk assets. Returns should still be positive, but they’re going to depend far more on where you’re invested and why.
This isn’t a year to throw darts and hope everything goes up. 2026 looks like a year that rewards selectivity, patience, and a clear understanding of where capital is actually flowing.
What investors keep coming back to now is simple. How does the business actually make money, and how clear is that path? If that answer isn’t obvious, skepticism shows up fast, especially in areas where valuations are already stretched.
The takeaway heading into 2026 is just as clear: The tailwinds remain, but the market isn’t handing out free passes anymore. Execution, transparency, and capital discipline matter more than they have in a long time.
Key Sectors I’m Watching Closely in 2026
Gold, Silver, and Precious Metals
Gold enters 2026 near record levels, and what’s supporting it looks structural rather than speculative. Central bank buying remains strong, geopolitical risk is persistent, and expectations for lower interest rates are reinforcing gold’s role as a portfolio stabilizer rather than a short-term trade.
After finishing 2025 up roughly 64%, its strongest annual performance since 1979, large institutions continue to see upside. Morgan Stanley has forecast gold could reach around US$4,800 per ounce by the fourth quarter of 2026, citing falling interest rates, continued central bank and fund buying, and policy uncertainty. For me, that reinforces gold’s position as a core allocation in an increasingly selective market.
Silver had an even more volatile year. Prices surged roughly 147% in 2025, driven by a structural supply deficit and rising industrial demand. Silver’s role in AI data centres, electric vehicles, electronics, and energy infrastructure continues to expand, particularly in India and China. Export controls out of China and fears around trade disruptions have only tightened the market further.
That said, silver behaves very differently than gold. It can move much more, both up and down, which means bigger gains when it runs but also much sharper pullbacks when sentiment turns. After pushing above US$80 late last year, silver pulled back sharply in early 2026 as margin requirements increased and speculative positioning unwound. That volatility is part of the trade.
In my framework, gold remains the anchor. Silver is a tactical allocation layered around it, driven by industrial demand and supply constraints rather than sentiment alone.
Copper and Critical Minerals
When I think about electrification, copper is always the starting point. Power grids, EVs, renewables, AI data centres, they all depend on the same metal, and they’re all drawing from a supply base that isn’t growing fast enough.
Copper prices pushed to record levels heading into 2026 as the market reacted to mine disruptions, geopolitical risk, and the reality that new supply takes years to permit and build. Many existing mines are already running hard, which only increases the risk of outages at the worst possible time.
For investors, that changes the opportunity set. This isn’t about buying into the copper story in theory. It’s about knowing who can actually get metal out of the ground, on schedule, and in the right places. The gap between those companies and the rest will become clear fast.
Supply pressure is exactly why copper remains so important heading into 2026. As capital rotates toward assets tied to real infrastructure and long-term demand, copper sits at the centre of that shift.
Uranium
Uranium has moved well beyond a speculative trade. What’s driving the market now is a reset in how governments, utilities, and large power users think about energy security.
Demand is coming from multiple directions at once. Existing reactors are being extended across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. New reactors are moving forward, including small modular reactors that are designed to come online faster and closer to demand centres. At the same time, power-hungry AI data centres are forcing utilities and governments to secure reliable, baseload electricity. Nuclear is back in that conversation in a serious way.
Supply hasn’t kept up. Years of underinvestment have left the market tight, and production challenges haven’t helped. Geopolitical risk, particularly around Russia and Ukraine, has added another layer of urgency as countries reassess where their uranium comes from and how exposed their fuel supply chains really are. Governments are now prioritizing domestic and allied supply, which is reshaping contracting behaviour.
That combination has pushed uranium prices higher and kept utilities active in the long-term contracting market.
Heading into 2026, I continue to favour companies closer to production and those with real contracting visibility. This market is rewarding delivery, not just discovery.
Clean Energy and Carbon Solutions
Clean energy spending is still growing, but patience is gone.
This is now an execution market. Grids, storage, efficiency, and carbon management remain well-supported. At the same time, weaker projects and early-stage concepts that can’t prove economics are quietly losing access to capital.
Projects that work will get financed. Projects that don’t will fade out. That’s healthy. It’s how real industries take shape.
Biotech and Health Innovation
Biotech went through a painful reset and, in my view, it came out leaner and more disciplined.
Large pharmaceutical companies still need innovation. M&A interest is rebuilding. But investors are no longer paying for promise alone. The focus is tightly on clinical proof, payer relevance, and realistic paths to commercialization.
My shorthand for the sector heading into 2026 is fewer bets, better science, clearer exits.
AI, Cybersecurity, and Digital Assets
AI and cybersecurity are no longer separate conversations. AI spending is driving massive infrastructure buildouts across data centres, networks, and enterprise software. As systems grow more connected and complex, cybersecurity becomes essential rather than optional.
For investors, the shift is toward businesses embedded deep inside enterprise workflows, generating recurring revenue instead of selling long-term promises.
That same transition is happening in digital assets.
The space continues to move away from pure price speculation and toward infrastructure, custody, staking, and compliance. Institutional participation is growing. Regulation is clearer in key markets. The focus in 2026 is less on volatility and more on who earns fees from activity.
I think of this as a picks-and-shovels phase. This looks less like a price-chasing cycle and more like a build-out cycle, where value accrues to the platforms and service providers supporting the entire ecosystem.
Why Access Still Matters
Much of how these themes translate into real investment decisions comes from access, not slide decks.
Through CEM Events this year, we’re facilitating more than 1,000 one-on-one meetings between investors and issuers at each CEM Capital Event. Those conversations cut through noise quickly.
These meetings are where theory meets reality. You learn very fast who understands their business and who’s still selling hope.
Our 2026 calendar includes:
- AlphaNorth Capital Event – January 16-18
- Whistler Capital Event – February 6-8
- Scottsdale Capital Event – April 10-12
- Bermuda Capital Event – June 12-14
- TSX Venture Growth Capital Event – July 17-19
- Muskoka Capital Event – September 25-27
The Bottom Line for 2026
Markets are still moving forward. The tailwinds are still there. What’s changed is tolerance.
2026 doesn’t look like a year that rewards weak execution or unclear business models. It looks like a year that rewards investors who understand where capital is flowing, why it’s flowing there, and how companies turn those forces into durable cash flow.
That’s the lens I’m using heading into the year ahead, and it’s why the sectors outlined above continue to stand out for me as the ones worth watching closely as 2026 begins.
—Ryan Iverson, CEM Partner's Fund Portfolio Manager