7 Predictions for 2026 That Will Reshape How You Invest

Hi ,

Every year tells us a story. In 2025, we watched AI take center stage while public markets acted out in volatile ways. 2026 is teed up to accelerate the narrative we’ve been watching build up for months as volatility continues to define public markets and retail investors increasingly look to private market fundamentals for the long term. 

As I reflected on everything I’ve seen this year, it got me thinking about the smart money moves that will happen next. So, in this issue, I’m going to dive into my top predictions for 2026 markets.

I know predictions never land perfectly. But owning our predictions forces us to study the underlying structure before the rest of the market notices it. That perspective is often where real edge can originate. The conditions for 2026 are taking shape and laying out a clear path to ride the waves. 

Across conversations with operators, lenders, and investors this fall, three forces kept appearing. So I dug into the data and explored where the paths may lead next year:

• Pillar One: Public markets are approaching peak uncertainty.

• Pillar Two: Private markets will become the primary engine of long-term wealth building.

• Pillar Three: The decade-long transfer of ownership presents a unique opportunity.

If there’s one idea to anchor the year, it’s this:

Investors who understand the structural shifts will be the ones who compound through them.

Everything outlined in this issue is derived from data patterns, real-world deal flow, and the structural pressures we’ve been tracking all year. Once you see those dynamics clearly, the noise becomes easier to ignore and eventually, the opportunities become easier to act on.

Take the ride with me and see if you are feeling the same way about 2026.

— Walker Deibel
WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author of Buy Then Build
Founder, Build Wealth

P.S. If you want to see how I’m investing through the end of 2025 and beyond check out our offerings at Build Wealth. Our open credit, energy, and real estate funds are perfectly aligned with how I see 2026 playing out.

PREDICTION 1

A Valuation-Led Correction Cycle Begins

I’ve been watching public markets long enough to know when the numbers stop matching the story. And right now, they don’t match. The Shiller CAPE crossing 40 puts us in territory I’ve only seen at the late stages of major bubbles. Earnings multiples are stretched. Index levels sit far above long-term trends. And the weight of the entire market is resting on a small group of AI megacaps carrying more responsibility than any sector should.

Markets can stay irrational longer than anyone expects…until they can’t. When valuations detach from fundamentals at the same time volatility rises and leadership narrows, the setup is clear. You don’t need a timestamp on the correction to know that the next major move is more likely to be down than up.

I talk to investors every week who are still allocating like it’s a decade ago: buy the dip, trust the index, assume earnings catch up. That playbook works when you’re first building wealth and you have a time horizon of a lifetime. For people who want their money to work as hard as they do, overexposure to public markets becomes a liability.

There’s one more factor worth keeping on the radar. Public-market visibility is weakening. Reporting standards are shifting, political signaling is harder to interpret, and long-term investors tell me they feel like the information flow has more noise than signal right now. When clarity fades, volatility accelerates, and corrections tend to move faster than people expect.

You’ll only avoid this cycle by stepping out of the blast radius before everyone else realizes it’s there.

PREDICTION 2

Rates Fall, and Commercial Real Estate Enters Its Next Cycle

Every cycle turns the same way: real estate doesn’t wait for the economy to recover. It responds the moment financing conditions shift. And right now, all the signals point to the early stages of that turn.

Labor markets are softening. Policy pressure is rising. The Fed is preparing to ease. The first rate cut is never a celebration. It’s the announcement that the cost of capital has changed, which is all commercial real estate needs to reprice and reload. Historically, the adjustment happens before anyone feels like “the recession is over.”

I’m already seeing it in underwriting models. Deals that didn’t pencil at 2024 and 2025 interest rates start to breathe again when you drop the cost of debt even modestly. Refinancing options return. Buyers who sat out for two years begin running numbers. Sellers who held firm suddenly have decisions to make.

This doesn’t mean commercial real estate will explode in 2026. It means that 2026 is the start of something more important: the next cycle. And this is the moment when sophisticated investors position for it. The worst of the correction is behind us. The opportunity ahead is about entering early, not chasing late.

Commercial real estate rewards investors who understand sequence. Rates fall, financing opens, and the market realigns long before the headlines declare a recovery. 2026 is that alignment year.

If you want exposure to this cycle, the positioning window is now.

PREDICTION 3

Private Credit Builds Steadily (Despite “Panic” Headlines)

If you’ve been watching the headlines, you’ve seen the stories: several large private credit shops are taking losses, deal structures are cracking, and some of the biggest players are scrambling to refinance positions they never should have touched in the first place. I pay attention to all of that. But remember not to take headlines at face value: you have to understand what actually happened.

A wave of institutions stampeded into private credit chasing yield, not underwriting discipline. They moved too fast, leaned too hard on leverage, loosened their covenants, and took risks that didn’t fit the real purpose of private lending. They behaved like equity investors in a credit market. That’s where the blowups came from.

The fundamentals of private credit didn’t break. The execution did.

The structural backdrop hasn’t changed. Banks are still tightening. Regulatory pressure is still rising. Loan books at traditional lenders are still constrained. Companies still need capital fast and predictably. Private lenders are still the only group who can meet that need at scale. 

The best deals are over-collateralized, with borrowers who hold tangible assets and predictable, cash-steady operations. The structures matter here. When underwriting is disciplined, collateral is real, and covenants mean something, private credit becomes one of the most stable engines in the entire private markets stack.

And that’s the dividing line heading into 2026. The capital that survives in private credit is the capital that stays disciplined. The big headlines aren’t a verdict against the asset class. They’re a verdict against sloppy structures.

Smart lenders win this cycle. Smart fund managers win this cycle. And investors who understand the difference between speed and discipline are the ones positioned for durable yield.

Private credit is clarifying its long term position in our portfolios.

PREDICTION 4

Retail Investors Accelerate Their Move Into Private Markets

The most important shift in investor behavior right now is coming from households, not institutions. Retail investors who spent decades anchored to traditional portfolios are reallocating toward private markets at a pace we haven’t seen before.

U.S. household allocation to private investments is projected to rise from roughly $100 billion in 2024 to more than $2.4 trillion by 2030. That scale of movement signals a new mindset among high earners. They want less volatility. They want real cash flow. They want steady and productive assets that are tied to fundamentals.

I’ve seen this firsthand at Build Wealth. Over the last 16 months, more than $30 million has come into our funds, and every investor came from traditional platforms such as Merrill Lynch, Vanguard, Schwab, Chase, and Bank of America. They weren’t chasing yield. They were looking for vehicles that offered stability and tangible value creation. Once they found access to private-engine opportunities, the shift felt obvious to them.

Infrastructure supporting this migration is improving too. Private-market platforms are maturing, diligence is easier to perform, and investors are discovering opportunities that used to be available only to institutions and family offices. As access increases, so does conviction.

In 2026, this migration will become part of the financial mainstream among sophisticated individuals. Once someone participates in a private credit fund, a real-asset investment, or an operating business, the experience reframes how they think about compounding. They understand their own potential to take control over cash flow and outcomes.

Retail capital is moving with purpose, and the momentum is accelerating. Investors are signaling that the foundation of their portfolios belongs in private markets.

2026 is the year when everyday investors start behaving like small family offices.

PREDICTION 5

Gold Holds Its Place as Psychological Insurance While Bitcoin Becomes the Spendable Store of Value

Gold’s rise past $4,000 an ounce reflects a growing discomfort with the stability of the dollar, not a shift in the metal’s usefulness. You can’t spend gold. It doesn’t generate income or strengthen an operator’s balance sheet. Its value comes from belief. A global, shared expectation that during periods of uncertainty, gold will hold purchasing power. Network externalities drive the price, and those externalities grow stronger whenever confidence in fiat weakens.

That belief is clearly visible in the data. Central banks are accumulating reserves at a pace not seen since the 1960s. Futures markets are pricing continued strength. And many investors I speak with want at least one anchor in their portfolios that does not depend on corporate earnings, political decisions, or market structure. Gold fills that psychological role.

But psychological insurance and inflation protection are not the same thing. When investors want to defend long-term purchasing power, commercial real estate has a far stronger historical track record due to replacement costs and rental escalators (see Prediction #2). Gold stabilizes confidence. Real assets stabilize value.

Bitcoin sits in a different category altogether. The halving in April 2024 reset the supply curve, and the strongest part of the Bitcoin cycle has historically arrived twelve to twenty-four months later. The pattern points directly to 2026. The first half of the year is likely to bring a reset as liquidity tightens and early speculators exit. The second half carries the conditions for acceleration as supply meets rising institutional demand.

That demand is growing quickly. Infrastructure is more robust than at any point in Bitcoin’s history. Custody, liquidity, and regulatory pathways have matured. Tiger 21 members — a leading indicator of UHNWI positioning — recently doubled their Bitcoin allocation from one percent to two percent, and Harvard University’s endowment increased by over 3x. These investors move carefully, and their allocation shift signals confidence, not speculation.

Bitcoin now occupies part of the psychological territory gold once held, with a significant difference: it can be transferred, held, and used as a functional digital asset. That combination of neutrality, portability, and utility gives it relevance during both the defensive and expansionary phases of the cycle.

Gold anchors fear. Bitcoin anchors optionality.
Both continue their respective roles in 2026 as the cycle unfolds.

PREDICTION 6

The $10 Trillion Boomer Business Transfer Accelerates — and Independent Sponsors Step Into the Spotlight

A demographic shift unlike anything in modern economic history enters full motion in 2026. More than 500,000 Baby Boomers are expected to exit the economy each year for the next several years, many of them owning the small and mid-sized companies that produce nearly 30 percent of U.S. GDP. 

When I wrote Buy Then Build, this movement was still forming. The idea that entrepreneurs could acquire established businesses instead of starting from scratch was an insight shared by a minority. Today, awareness has caught up with the macro-trend.

And for good reason: these businesses have strong bones, real cash flow, and decades of operational memory behind them. Further, they are coming to market in record volume because the generation that built them is retiring.

We’ve assisted hundreds of acquisition entrepreneurs acquire over $1B in SMB transactions at our elite accelerator, Acquisition Lab, but there is a new focus for me as I observe the M&A landscape.

Independent sponsors are able to close deals in the thinnest part of the market. These companies are often too large for individual financial buyers and too small for institutional acquisitions. However, the targets tend to be less risky. They are larger, better run, and have enough cash flow for a meaningful management team and J-curve investment.

The data supports this trend. Sponsor-led transactions have increased steadily over the last five years. Family offices and HNWIs continue to grow as capital partners. And deal flow in the sub-$10 million EBITDA range remains one of the most fragmented—and therefore most accessible—parts of the private markets for buyers who know how to navigate it.

The top sponsors now operate with coordinated ecosystems of operators, lenders, advisors, and LPs. That ecosystem lets them win two categories of opportunities at once:

• larger, stable businesses entering clean succession transitions, and

• complex, relationship-driven deals in the thinnest part of the market that institutions consistently fail to close.

From where I sit, the alignment is too strong to ignore. The demographic surge, the modernization opportunity, and the capability of today’s sponsor ecosystems point to a decade of activity that favors flexible, relationship-led buyers. 

At Build Wealth, we are actively building infrastructure to back the teams positioned to lead this shift. Expect an announcement from us in 2026. ; )

PREDICTION 7

Exit Activity Returns as Buyers Seek Stability in a Volatile Market

A correction in the public markets doesn’t shut down exits, it redistributes them. When valuations fall and volatility rises, strategic buyers and seasoned operators don’t wait for stability — they move toward assets with real earnings and tangible infrastructure. This cycle is no different. The early signs showed up in 2025. In 2026, the shift becomes unmistakable.

Strategic acquirers lead the way. Corporates have rebuilt balance sheets, delayed major initiatives, and now face pressure to grow in environments where organic expansion is harder. Acquiring proven operations becomes the most reliable path forward. Deals that stalled in 2024 and 2025 return to life as financing conditions ease and buyers see enough clarity to transact.

Private equity gains momentum beside them. With more than $2.6 trillion in dry powder, sponsors need both deployment and liquidity. Continuation vehicles, bolt-ons, and secondaries all create exit pathways. And as credit markets stabilize, high-quality businesses flow more fluidly through the system.

This is also the year IPOs reopen selectively. Not broadly, not recklessly — but selectively for businesses with credible financials, strong infrastructure, and exposure to durable categories like healthcare, fintech, and AI-driven infrastructure. The IPO window isn’t a floodgate. It’s a filtered channel. And companies with the right fundamentals finally see a path to the public markets again, even as the broader indices recalibrate.

This is where insiders have a real advantage. A correction creates hesitation among the crowd, but it sharpens opportunity for the people closest to the assets. Insiders understand which companies have resilient earnings and which have operational leverage left to unlock. They recognize where the risk is priced correctly. They move early, before sentiment recovers, because they can see what others can’t yet articulate.

2026 doesn’t promise peak multiples. It offers the conditions for exits that match the fundamentals — and enough stability for the people who drive the market to act with conviction. Strategic buyers return. Sponsors recycle capital. Select IPOs clear. And operators find the transitions they’ve been waiting for.

A correction challenges the public markets. It creates opportunities for the private ones.
In 2026, insiders are positioned to take the first swing.

For the first time in years, the IPO window opens for businesses with real financials.

WEALTH REBELLION

Wealth now favors the investors who step out of the public chaos and into private-market ownership engines: early, intentionally, and with conviction.

Let’s go.

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