2026 is shaping up to be a Stock Market Boom!

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Sell signal

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I bet you're fun at parties.

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Wouldn't surprise me if the new FOMC chair in May calls for an emergency meeting at lowers a full 100 bps and housing starts go crazy.

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Inflation is 3% after rising the past few months. Why would you drop the fed rate 100bps? Unless you want 5% inflation.

Inspiration after just looking at my Fidelity Account again just now.

Sure, you would hope AI buildout, data centers, and reshoring are some of the real growth drivers into 2026. Housing starts are likely to rise gradually, not explode, and Fed policy shifts happen in 25–50 bp steps—100 bp cuts are crisis-only. Short-term volatility stings, but long-term fundamentals should remain strong.

Everything that goes down must go up, and vice versa, when it comes to the economy, stock market, interest rates etc. EVENTUALLY. Depends on your time horizons, when you need access to capital etc.

I'm retired and don't really share that enthusiasm personally, at least in my timelines.

Rates will be cut because unemployment is about to skyrocket. Jobs are getting cut and not being replaced, be people at least.

As much liquidity as they are pumping into the economy, the stock market can only go up. There is no where else to dump it into that’s somewhat stable. Crypto is obviously not the answer. Bitcoin is also going to slow down as the cost of energy falls due to AI.

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Because the job market is in shambles. The 3% inflation is kind of shite because the CPI is too subjectively weighted. I feel like they can manipulate the CPI based on the narrative they are trying to create.

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So CPI can be manipulated but job market numbers can’t?

In truth, inflation is going up and job numbers are going down. It’s pretty much stagflation and the fed only has one lever they can pull. The tiller needs to be somewhere in the middle. Maybe a small cut here, maybe no cuts for a minute, maybe a small increase. A 100bps cut at one time like the OP said would be terrible for inflation right now.

And the old assumption that cutting rates will help job numbers is going to be tested going forward as large companies are trying to replace workers with AI and generate profits.

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As much liquidity as they are pumping into the economy, the stock market can only go up. There is no where else to dump it into that’s somewhat stable.

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Agreed. I don’t know if we will see the rate of increase we have the last two years, but I don’t necessarily see a downturn at the moment either.

You can’t be serious…

We just lost 150,000 jobs in October. The largest single month decrease in 20+ years. Auto loan and credit card delinquencies aren’t getting nearly enough media attention. Builders in my area can’t offload new homes even when buying the rates down. So the FOMC cutting rates won’t do shite. And forget selling your existing home when competing against builders doing that. I know more well educated and experienced people without a job than at any point in my adult life. And I went through the dot.com crash and global financial crisis. There’s people driving Porsche’s and Lexus’s in my Aldi parking lot lately.

Given that an estimated 70% of US GDP is driven by consumer spending; how exactly do we arrive at a boom when the majority of consumers have no money? The companies reporting gains have pulled their last levers; gutting payrolls to pad profits while banking on AI tech that currently doesn’t exist.

I truly hope you are right; but, my instinct is 26’ is setting up to be in the negative.

That 150k number isn’t jobs lost — it’s planned layoffs. Net employment fell by maybe 9k. Always check what the stat actually measures before declaring a collapse.

Nobody’s saying layoffs are good — just that the “150k jobs lost” claim was inaccurate. Announced cuts don’t equal a collapse in employment or spending.

Consumer spending and payroll data are still running positive year-over-year: retail sales are up around 2–3%, wages up 4%+, and total payroll employment remains near record highs with unemployment under 4.5%. Job openings still exceed job seekers, and household balance sheets, while softening, haven’t cracked.

Layoffs make headlines, but the broader data still show a cooling economy — not a crashing one.