BlackRock's 2026 Forecast

516: Stocks To Watch, Nigeria Strike, Crypto Pause

Morning all,

Hope you had a great Christmas and holiday season. These days are always interesting ones as we slowly creep into New Year’s Eve. Some folks are slammed at work and some have checked out until January 5th or 6th.

I didn’t want to do a blackout between now and next week so today we’re going to cover just the essential market and news updates from the past 48 hours that many might have missed due to the holiday.

We will do ONE more markets preview of 2026 for paid subs on Tuesday before the new year as well as the next episode of Risk On. If you want a preview of some of the themes we will cover Tuesday ahead of the new year, our most read of 2025 - paid post below is a good primer:

Today we’re going to go over:

• BlackRock’s Recent 2026 Global View (AI, Crypto, etc.)

• Equities I am buying before the end of the week

• My Crypto thoughts right now

• Top global news stories to monitor right now

I need to go stock up on some tequila and appetizers to ride out a storm this weekend so let’s get it.

---

Markets

So what are markets doing before 2025 fizzles out?

Metals have quietly tightened up into year-end leading the idea that people are scrambling to hold hard assets in this environment.

Gold is stubbornly bid as investors keep one eye on geopolitical risk and the other on the global debt spiral with prices bouncing around the $4,400–$4,500+ per ounce range in recent trading. Right now most prediction markets, including Polymarket have most people expecting a price around $4,600 by year end.

Gold Price Predictions before year end

Silver, the leverage-on-liquidity cousin of Gold, is trading around the $75 per ounce area, having just hit some fresh all-time highs.

Copper has firmed up as well, reflecting the uncomfortable truth that AI, electrification, and defense manufacturing are material-intensive realities.

Palladium also joined the year-end metals surge, trading in the $1,800–$1,900 per ounce range this week. The move looks less speculative than silver’s blow-off and more grounded in real-world demand especially from the auto sector and emissions technology.

Palladium’s strength definitely reinforces the theme that investors are rotating toward scarcity assets as geopolitical and credit risks stay elevated as we move into 2026. Personally I am not chasing any of the metals move, just staring longingly at my collection of Gold coins in my safe.

If crypto and risk on climbs in 2026 we might see some air let out of metals in the first half of the year.

BlackRock’s 2026 Outlook

This week BlackRock released their 2026 Market Outlook marrying the trends we have all been following on crypto, AI, tech, and macro.

They had some important nuances to understanding where we are likely headed in 2026.

BlackRock is basically saying the quiet part out loud.