Joe Kalish, chief global macro strategist at Ned Davis Research, says 2026 has had surprising narratives but unsurprisingly solid results, and he expects that to continue, without significant recession risk or big trouble ahead. Kalish discusses often overlooked economic numbers, like a financing gap where demands to fund capital expenditures outstrip available capital and the level of real gross value added for non-financial corporations (essentially, GDP for things other than financial companies), to explain how and why this economy looks healthier than the worrywarts think it is. He does outline his concerns, but thinks the economy can overpower most or all of them in fairly short order.

David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, says that the new wave of huge initial public offerings like SpaceX and Anthropic puts index-fund investors in The Danger Zone, noting that indexes are considering changing rules to quickly accommodate the new stocks, which creates artificial demand that will further drive the prices of the stocks up. That creates potential for index investors to effectively be overpaying to get into the IPOs, and also leaves them vulnerable if the stocks fall off after the initial excitement. While the rules changes are up in the air, Trainer says the pressure to change rules and include fresh IPOs changes the landscape for the future.

In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses the market's message to Broadcom, which exceeded earnings expectations but failed to raise future guidance on AI-driven revenues; he says the market is punishing "sandbagging," a practice of understating expectations so that they are easy to beat, but he says the big price drop created a buying opportunity for investors. He also discussed the heightened volatility around the positive jobs report, which he says is based on the fear of a hike in interest rates that he says long-term investors should not be too worried about. Plus, he examines Bitcoin, which has lost about one-quarter of its value in less than two months, which he says is testing traders faith, but which isn't making him nervous as a long-term buy-and-holder.