How To Dominate in 2026
510: 2026 Arbitrage Andy Playbook Part I
Good morning size lords, savages, and kings.
Welcome to the 2026 Arbitrage Andy Playbook series.
Lot of content this week, and this series will consist of two parts:
Part I — The 2026 Playbook: How To Dominate in 2026 (dropping today)
Part II (For our paid subs) — The 2026 Execution Manual (dropping Tuesday)
Each year I usually put out a comprehensive guide and forecast for the year ahead to help subscribers:
Think about what they want to get done in the New Year
Plan for the conditions and outcomes we can anticipate
Thoughts on dating, social life, personal goals
Forecasts for financial markets, crypto/risk asset choices to hold
Risks and conditions to be aware of
Things I am ramping up for personal improvement in the new year
2026 is going to be another make it or break it year.
If 2025 was the prelude, 2026 is the chapter where the plot actually detonates.
The world is moving faster, systems are wobbling harder, and nobody is coming to save you or me.
As we approach the end of 2025 I want to provide the clearest picture of where we are, where I think we are going, and what exactly WE can do to get ahead in the New Year.
I am not a fan of waiting until the first day of the new year to think about or begin implementing these things so we’re going to get on top of it now.
There’s a metric shit ton to cover for those who want to make sure that 2026 isn’t a mediocre year, so let’s dive straight in.
The World At Present & State of Play
Most people can agree things never really returned to how they were pre pandemic. It just kind of feels like life accelerated.
Life didn’t “go back to normal”, it just hit the gas across the board. Everything started moving faster: the economy, the news cycle, the politics, even the way people think. It feels like we skipped a chapter and woke up in a different country. The pace, the pressure, the instability.
You can feel it on the roads, in the stores, in the way people interact.
The jump from the end of the pandemic to now (almost 2026) was even faster.
Society feels thinner now, stretched out to some extent. People are stuck in some super quick race to survive and “make it” before we hit some type of terminal velocity. You either adapt or get rolled by it.
It genuinely feels like America and the world hit fast-forward while the floor underneath us started to crack. You can sense it in the silence on the subway (where you hopefully aren’t being attacked by a vagrant), in the tension at the grocery store, in the way people drive like they’re in downtown Fallujah. Even in the media masturbation of the same stories, scandals, and pop culture slop.
This is the environment we’re stepping into for 2026 kings, a world moving quicker than the majority of people can process. Normies are entirely stagnant. Based lords and chads see where things are trending.
The Economy
Since Covid injected absurd amounts of money into the system and created permanent inflation (not transitory) markets have been in an insane crack fueled bender with few true crashes.
We’ve been living through this bizarre era where the stock market is signaling “everything is fine,” while the people who actually make the economy function are signaling the opposite.
The economy (not the stock market) is showing some serious red flags:
U.S. layoffs are reportedly set to surpass the Great Recession levels and on track to be the worst since Great Depression. Hiring is now on track for its 5th consecutive annual decline (KL)
Small-business sentiment is at recessionary levels, and their hiring plans are the weakest since the housing crisis.
Full-time employment is shrinking while part-time work hits all-time highs, a classic late-cycle signal
Credit card delinquencies are at 14-year highs, rising faster than any period since 2008
Household debt is at record highs. As of Q3 2025, total U.S. household debt hit ≈ $18.6 trillion
Corporate bankruptcies have hit 14-year highs
The economy is tightening, the consumer is weakening, and the Fed doesn’t have the tools to fix structural inflation without breaking the labor market further. That being said there is a 94% chance of a 25bps cut this month.
The labor market is the key variable moving into 2026.
We all know young people who are smart (Ivy League grads, good GPAs, capable, etc.) who simply cannot find a job right now. Even seasoned email job holders in their 30’s and 40’s are starting to feel the pressure.
Part of it is AI, sure. But what’s hitting the labor market now is deeper than automation. It’s the realization that corporations don’t need as many bodies or new grads as they used to, and the era of “just get a good job and you’ll be fine” quietly expired sometime around 2021. Nobody announced it, but everyone can feel it.
It’s getting harder and harder to get by for most people. A $100K salary doesn’t go as far. A $1M net worth isn’t close to what it used to be. Food, medical bills, rent, mortgage payments, utilities, and other basic costs keep rising.
There is an obvious widening gap between rich and poor: the rich keep printing perpetually on existing wealth, and those in the middle are being pushed down.
It’s the reason I am so adamant about young people having a side hustle, hedge, or business (which we will cover at length tomorrow).
I detailed quite a bit of this in my posts How to Get Rich While our System Unravels and 2025’s Final Opportunity Window.
Geopolitics & Global Developments
Crazy times across the globe.
The war in Ukraine has hardened into a grinding stalemate with Russia slowly consolidating gains, Europe losing patience (and preparing for war), and U.S. support becoming increasingly political. The Middle East continues to simmer after the Iran x Israel drama and back and forth we saw earlier this year. Israel, Iran, and multiple proxies are engaged in a low-grade shadow war that could still slip into something wider at any moment.
Africa is in the midst of a historic realignment as juntas, Wagner successor groups, and Chinese financiers carve out influence across the Sahel.
In Asia, China’s rhetoric toward Taiwan is sharper than ever, but Beijing’s economic fragility complicates any conclusions we might have there.
And in Latin America as we have seen over the past several weeks, Venezuela is collapsing into a mix of narco rule, paramilitary politics, and mass out-migration that’s now directly destabilizing the U.S. border.
The world isn’t moving toward calm, it’s shattering. Alliances are breaking down, new power blocs are taking shape, and the U.S. is juggling crises in Europe, the Middle East, and its own backyard while China quietly builds influence through ports, minerals, and military deals.
On December 5, 2025 the Trump Administration released a new spicy 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS), the first major foreign-policy roadmap under his current presidency. Among other things, It bluntly argues that Europe is sliding toward a kind of civilizational unraveling, pointing to collapsing birth rates, mass migration, a fading sense of national identity, and growing crackdowns on speech and political dissent.
In the administration’s view (and mine), the continent is drifting into cultural and demographic decline. Europe is a canary in the coal mine for what awaits the US if changes are not swiftly enacted.
I expect these issues in Europe to be major discussion points in 2026, I also expect Right-wing and nationalist parties to make major gains in multiple EU states as voters revolt against migration, austerity, and failing public services
Islamic extremism and organized crime gain traction in power vacuums. As police and intelligence resources get stretched thin, expect a rise in terror attempts, gang violence, and radicalization hotspots. Especially in France, Sweden, Belgium, and Germany
Energy instability returns as a worldwide issue, not just a European one.
China struggles to secure fuel, the Middle East faces chronic disruption, and global shipping lanes remain volatile. Nuclear gets a major political boost (we will talk about some equity picks related tomorrow)
Inflation doesn’t go away
Goods inflation cools, but services, insurance, healthcare, housing, and geopolitical-linked commodities stay elevated
2026 is shaping up to be a year defined by conflict, proxy fights, mass migration, resource grabs, and nonstop cyber activity.
My suspicion is we also see more terror linked events and some interesting “narratives” surrounding who (the countries) is responsible for them.
The West has its hands full in 2026.
Institutional trust
Another major theme to keep an eye on, and one that is fueling unrest….
Trust in the system, be it government, financial markets, universities, etc. is pretty much entirely gone.
And it should be.
The SEC can’t police corruption, the Fed misread “transitory” inflation by a mile, and the Treasury has been caught playing political games with debt, sanctions, and liquidity.
Academia lost the plot. Universities are openly activist, DEI captured, and research credibility is falling apart. Even medical institutions recklessly burned trust capital during the pandemic and never earned it back. Corporate media is polling at all-time lows. Less than 30% of Americans believe mainstream news reports “the truth,” and most assume every headline is narrative-driven.
In the UK we are starting to learn the scale of the grooming gang travesty as detailed in Risk On and several Arb Letter editions last week. What makes the systematic abuse of young girls for decades so much sicker is the response from the system. Authorities, parents, cops, judges many entirely complicit in what took place.
The common thread across every scandal is largely the same. No one gets fired, no one gets arrested, and no one is held accountable. Institutions continue to fail upward and citizens get squeezed.
The Pentagon is about to fail its eighth consecutive audit
USAID and recent healthcare scams unveiled
The Epstein File game has gone on endlessly
The FBI had previous knowledge on the January 6th Pipe Bomber, did nothing
Intelligence agencies are linked to virtually all shooting or terror events this year
Nothing has been done to counter politician insider trading
There’s no pretending at this point and it is largely a miracle things aren’t COMPLETELY falling apart at the seams.
America didn’t just lose mass faith in our institutions, many of us saw past the veil. The people running the system are still pretending it works while they enrich themselves, scheme, and continue to gaslight us. The people living in the system know something has to give soon.
“What is the biggest problem in this culture? I’ll tell you the biggest problem: no one believes the institutions are credible.”
— Palantir CEO Alex Karp
Society, Dating, People
Maybe it’s the economic environment, maybe it’s something in the air, or maybe people are just on their last straw, but people seem to be harboring some odd combination of selfishness, apathy, and “head down” vibes as of late. People have had a spiritual war waged against them.
We know the pandemic absolutely wrecked a generation of young people socially due to isolation, but as of late I’m kind of seeing it across the board.
Younger generations have an odd combination of “drone like” attention spans, they avoid hard work, and they’re terminally online.
In some regards I do feel for these younger generations (18-23). They’ve grown up in wild times. There are few driving factors FORCING them to adapt. Many don’t want a 9-5, they’ve seen people become Tik Tok streamers, influencers, onlyfans models, or twitch kings and they want that easy fix. That age group seems devoid of any grounding. Worse, many will inherit their parent’s money and find more boredom, degeneracy, and restlessness.
BTW this plays into economic opportunities we will discuss tomorrow (gambling, degeneracy, online businesses, etc.)
Boomers and older folks seem content to coast at this point and juice everything they can. This isn’t surprising to be honest. They reaped the best years in our nation and won’t be here to see the likely collapse.
Their votes however, still matter.
For the most part people roughly my age (27-35ish) seem to be in one of two camps with not much in between:
Married, kids, family
Single, grinding at work, or pursuing side quests (traveling, businesses, etc.)
The U.S. marriage rate is near a historic low, hovering around 6.0 marriages per 1,000 people, down from 8.2 in 2000. Meanwhile, birth rates for women 25–34 have fallen for three straight years, even though this has historically been the peak fertility bracket.
Single folks are hurting (or maybe they’re happy? Idk).
Dating apps, once a cheat code or low effort option, are now burned out. Over 70% of users in some studies that are under 35 say apps feel “exhausting, low-reward, or transactional.” I hear from a lot of people that the dating scene is brutal today and those looking for long term relationships are having trouble sifting through a landscape dominated by shallow interaction.
Want my hot take?
It’s going to take a real shock to the system (economic, cultural, geopolitical) for male-female dynamics to reset. Not because people are bad or broken, but because comfort, abundance, and infinite choice have completely distorted the incentives that used to govern dating and relationships.
Right now, we live in a world where:
Technology replaced community
Hyper choices replaced commitment
Hyper-individualism replaced duty
Algorithms replaced proximity
And economic pressure pushed men and women into parallel lives instead of shared ones (while telling women they can and should be men, and telling men being themselves is toxic)
Everything is optimized for the self, not the pair and ironically I think everyone is more miserable because of it.
Historically, the only thing that reverses that trend is stress.
The default future and trend I expect to continue in 2026 for most Americans under 40 is either going to be intentional family-building (with someone who has strongly shared values) or an extended solo life optimized around personal stability and income.
I will dive into my two cents on dating, sex, and relationships a bit in tomorrow’s post.
What 2026 Will Hold
We want to crush 2026 like Vikings on an unhinged war party.
We all want more plays like PLTR 0.00%↑ Bitcoin, AVGO 0.00%↑ and META 0.00%↑ in 2026 (all plays we gave paid subs).
We all want to anticipate what is going to happen politically and culturally so we can take the proper measures to remain even keeled, unemotional, and take precautions where necessary.
We all want to continue to build on the sovereignty themes I stress in Arb Letter endlessly. Why? Because if we don’t we are going to find ourselves at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole very soon.
The trial is over kings.
We need to pick it up now.
Politics
Many of our political forecasts for late 2024 and 2025 ended up coming to fruition. We had multiple attempts on Trump’s life. I dropped the Militant Left post months before we saw the anti ICE protests, murder of Charlie Kirk, Antifa attacks, recent terror flare ups, and growing unrest in migrant communities across the world.
We all like to make money but as a man (and a woman I don’t discriminate) you really need to have your head wrapped around where things are trending.
It’s not good amigo.
Politically we are going to likely see more of the same:
Media campaigns to subvert the second Trump Administration and right wing movements globally (like in Germany and the UK)
New disclosures, meant to distract or mislead people (UFO disclosure odds are soaring right now lmao) whatever happened to those New Jersey drones?
More instances of terrorism or political violence (all but guaranteed)
Increased intensity leading up to midterms
False flag types events
More street demonstrations and/or riots
More fragmentation in both parties
Adoption of socialism in Blue States
More balkanization, regional opposition to the Trump Admin
I know I go in my trademark schizo rants and most of you know my political leanings but understand that 2024 was a pivot point.
There is a major battle going on beneath (and to some extent these days above) the surface.
Surveillance states vs. free men.
Socialism vs. Capitalism.
Anarchy and crime vs. law and order
Cultural Marxism vs. Based Sovereign Chads
Populism and nationalism won and the establishment left lost in 2024 (for the time being). Globally, you are watching nationalism battle globalism and leftist doctrine. This is evident in western countries primarily and symptoms include:
Increased surveillance state, crackdowns on speech (UK)
Growing street activism and violence
“Us and them” rhetoric
Media smear campaigns
Increased demonization of the “far right”
Infighting in political parties (GOP good example)
Micro rebellions (states resisting ICE deportations and federal orders)
Backlash to immigration
It’s fine when we have the classic blue vs. red partisan politics like we had in the Bush and Obama years. But the last 10 years have been entirely loko and they are ramping up.
Political assassinations, terror plots, incitements of violence, unchecked violent crime, NGO and healthcare fraud schemes to fund terror groups, attempts to divide the military, wars overseas funded by taxpayer dollars.
Call it the Fourth Turning, a colour revolution, or uprising, collapse of Rome 2.0, I don’t care.
Point is, it’s getting increasingly kinetic.
The immigration debate, that me and others highlighted in the past 12 months will continue to be a central piece of politics.
It’s not just illegal immigration anymore either. It’s “legal” loopholes as well, and it’s obvious that immigration has been weaponized in the West.
Whether it’s Somalians in Minnesota, former CIA operatives from Afghanistan attacking national guard troops, Tren De Aragua gangs in Colorado, the H1-B abuse in tech or finance, or tens of thousands of illegal aliens receiving protection in New York City under Mamdani — this scandal and repercussions of unchecked migration are too big to hide now.
People are pissed. Things are getting tribal.
What’s rattling for normies is that for YEARS they were told any criticism or scrutiny of these policies was racist, xenophobic, not inclusive, etc. That view was echoed and enforced ruthlessly by big tech, corporations, universities, and others. “The US is a nation of immigrants!” they cried as millions of military aged men from third world countries flooded in with ZERO desire to assimilate.
Now, more and more people see the consequences unfolding before us. So far 59 people have already been convicted in the recent Minnesota Somali scandal for wide-ranging frauds totaling $1 billion. Some of that money was literally sent to finance a terror group in Africa. The real number could be much higher.
We have Muslims in Dearborn Michigan on camera chanting Death to America.
A high ranking Venezuelan government official in a recent note to the US and President Trump told us our nation is festering with Cuban and Venezuelan agents, some doing the bidding of Iran, Russia, and China.
The University of Michigan has repeated instances of Chinese Communist Party spies on campus (including a conspiracy to smuggle biological material).
It is not hyperbole to say the phenomenon of unchecked/unvetted immigration and loose border policy may be the gravest crime ever facilitated against the US and other Western nations like the UK.
You cease to have a nation if it remains unchallenged.
We will not be able to escape the topics I covered last week on Risk On.
Mass migration is theft of the American Dream.
— JD Vance
Markets & Finance
The big question of course for 2026 is, are we going to see a logic defying grind even higher or will the perma bear Michael Burry types be right about a big pullback/recession?
I recently took a look at AVGO 0.00%↑ again along with other equities we have picked here and the charts are hilarious lol. NVDA, META, PLTR, GOOGL, etc.
Just absolutely vertical. Broadcom was like $23 when I was a senior in college. Just insanity.
My gut still tells me we are going higher next year, particularly in crypto.
Risk on assets are going to be the primary focus for all of us who want to ensure we can achieve fat gains and prosperity in 2026.
Tomorrow in Part 2 we are going to get into specific asset picks, sleepers, crypto, and more.
Today I want to outline the major market themes I expect in 2026:
Fed Overhaul (for better or worse) - 2026 will be defined by the most radical shift in U.S. monetary leadership in modern history. Trump replacing Jerome Powell and restructuring the Fed will probably trigger a complete repricing of risk, rates, liquidity, and political influence over monetary policy. Trump can’t afford down only markets leading into mid terms
AI Megacap Domination Continues with a Caveat - The “AI Seven” will shrink.
2–3 megacaps will massively outperform (NVDA, MSFT, GOOGL favorites)
2–3 will stagnate or get re-rated down
A new round of AI infrastructure companies to break out (semis, cooling, data centers, robotics, inference hardware)
Robotics & Automation Enter Their First True Bull Market - I think media coverage, labor shortages, and collapsing white-collar trust will fuel more robotic adoption and a bull run will spawn from it
Tokenization Boom - BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan, and SSGA are already talking about tokenization (which you should be all over!), but 2026 is the year it becomes a full media frenzy. I expect this to coincide with BTC/ETH running again and a broader bull run for alts. BlackRock CEO Larry “fat stacks” Fink and COO Rob Goldstein recently said tokenization is emerging as a transformative force across global markets, comparing its potential impact to the rise of the early internet (TheBlock)
Small Caps Catch a Bid - The small-cap space is historically cheap. Everyone in media knows it. Everyone I talk to is watching them closely.
2026 likely brings:
A violent small-cap rotation
Financial media campaigns around “undervalued American enterprise”
Some incredible asymmetric trades in microcap AI plays
Real Estate - We can pray for an apocalyptic real estate drawdown but unfortunately I don’t think that comes. Real estate is entering a true split market for the first time in decades. What happens in 2026 won’t be national, it will be regional, political, and brutally uneven.
Desirable regions continue to moon (Northeast, Florida, etc.)
Urban blue-state real estate stagnates or collapses (NYC case study shows what’s to come for others led by the left)
Commercial real estate crisis deepens and finally becomes mainstream news
“Uninsurable America” becomes a storyline (fires, floods, crime)
We will expand on all of this tomorrow.
Part 2
Now that we have some picture of what 2026 might hold, what do we do?
We prepare to act before the new year arrives. Think about trades we can take, moves we can make, and how we want to approach the year. What is worth prioritizing? What can we cut out?
Tomorrow is Part 2: The 2026 Execution Manual for paid subs. Thousands of you guys read last year’s guide and had killer years so I expect 2026 to be no different.
I will cover exactly what I am doing in detail on the following fronts:
My full portfolio positioning for 2026
Crypto allocations, specific tickers, and conviction plays
Equity setups and themes I’m rotating into
What I’m avoiding like the plague
My sovereignty plans: income, health, skills, security
My goals as a father, husband, and online business degen
The exact systems I’m running to get ahead, business ideas/niches
If you’re an Arb Letter tourist this will be one of the last major paid guides of the year, so make sure to take advantage.
See you guys tomorrow morning around 7:30am ET.
Andy
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Disclaimer - I am a former trader, enterprise sales rep, and current entrepreneur with a monkey brain. Nothing I say should be considered formal financial advice or life advice, these are my opinions - always do your own research and diligence before
Solid piece as usual.. looking forward to the piece tomorrow. Always on point with what is truly happening.