Stock Market’s 2026 Plunge: A Financial Jig of Doom and Gloom?

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The esteemed head of technical strategy at Fundstrat, Mr. Newton, has cast a pall over the financial horizon, suggesting that the year 2026 may be less of a joyride and more of a trudge through the financial thicket, with the stock market likely to behave with the enthusiasm of a recalcitrant spaniel faced with a bath.

In a recent interview on Thoughtful Money, Mr. Newton enumerated a litany of gloomy omens, including the mid-term election year, a period traditionally more conducive to tea-soaked siestas than stock market revelry. “We’ve had three consecutive seasons of gains so robust they’d make a vicar’s sermons seem pedestrian,” he intoned, with all the cheer of a man informing you that his aunt has decided to host a croquet match in the middle of your most private reverie.

“I think we’re setting up for much more of a choppy year than we’ve seen in years past,” he declared, as if announcing that the teapot at Blandings Castle had developed a leak. “The market, I fear, will resemble a particularly irritable penguin, flapping about and dousing all in its vicinity with icy indifference.”

Mr. Newton, with the solemnity of a man forecasting not just the market’s mood but the very weather of Wall Street, predicts a downturn commencing in late February or early March, a decline so pronounced it would make a maiden’s blush seem a mere trifle. “It won’t be a straight shot,” he assured us, “but rather a series of stumbles, missteps, and the occasional full-bodied pratfall into the abyss of uncertainty.”

By May or June, he imagines a rally “into the summer,” though this is to be followed by a third-quarter correction that would make a scolded schoolboy’s posture look positively buoyant. “Consolidation,” he called it, though one suspects the only thing being consolidated is the shattered confidence of investors.

The strategist also noted that sentiment among the investing classes has “reached higher levels of optimism,” a phrase that might as well be a warning label. “By the end of the month,” he mused, “we may find ourselves in the throes of speculation so fervent it would make a Victorian parlour game of charades seem tame.”

As for the tech sector, Mr. Newton observed that its momentum has “noticeably slowed,” a development he likened to “a gazelle who’s just realized it’s participating in a race against a tortoise with a head start.” “I think,” he concluded, “this is going to be the year where we do see some weakness in technology.” One can almost hear the sound of a thousand IPOs sighing in unison.

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2026-02-17 11:22