Will 2026 Be The Year The Stock Bubble Bursts? | Kevin Muir

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Adam Taggart** (0:29)
You're about to make a trade, which you do listen to?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:32)
Is it get optioning those options? Or let's do a little research. Learn more at finra.org/tradesmart.

**Kevin Muir** (0:44)
Is it an AI bubble? 100% and like anybody that tells you that when the world's largest stock trades at 33 times sales, not earnings, sales, okay? This is the world's largest stock. And it's basically just an AI stock at this point. I know they do other things. Nvidia does, they sell GPUs for video cards and there's a lot more, but in reality, it's trading on the AI hype. That is obscene.
It is going to end in tears. Is there going to be a correction? A hundred percent. You go through, look through time. These Mag 7 names, they aren't volatile names that regularly go through 50 or one third to 50% haircuts. And it is going to happen and it's going to be brutal and it's going to be difficult.

**Adam Taggart** (1:41)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. After two years of 20% plus returns for the S&P in both 2023 and 2024, 2025 looks like it will close with another big double-digit performance. Three back-to-back-to-back years of performance like this is somewhat rare in markets. So what's the likelihood the streak will continue in 2026? Or is performance more likely to mean revert? To discuss, we're fortunate to speak today with market veteran Kevin Muir, founder and editor of The Macro Tourist, the highly acclaimed newsletter that currently ranks as one of the top financial sub-stacks in the world. Kevin, thanks so much for joining us today.

**Kevin Muir** (2:22)
Well, it's my pleasure. Always fun chatting with you, Adam.

**Adam Taggart** (2:25)
Thank you, Kevin. Well, same here. And I appreciate you making the time around the Christmas holidays here. I know it's a busy time for you, but very much appreciate you coming on.

**Kevin Muir** (2:33)
It's always fun. And I always love you and your listeners. They're a great bunch of folks.

**Adam Taggart** (2:40)
Oh, thanks. It's right back at you, buddy.

**Kevin Muir** (2:42)
All right.

**Adam Taggart** (2:43)
Well, look, I don't ask this question too much anymore, but since it's been a while since you've been on the program and because you have a bit of an outsider's eye when it comes to the US because you live up in Canada.

**Kevin Muir** (2:54)
Yeah.

**Adam Taggart** (2:55)
What's your current assessment of the state of the economy and the financial markets right now?

**Kevin Muir** (3:00)
Oh, it's tough. It is a very, very strange time, and there's all sorts of different cross currents, and it's easy to get kind of bogged down into one little, you know, niches. You know, some people telling you the dollar is going to collapse, and we're going to hyperinflation. Others telling you there's a funding crisis, and then there's the folks that are saying that there's going to be a new Fed, and it's going to be this big bubble. And it's difficult. There's probably never been as much noise as there is right now in terms of the different things. And not only that...

**Adam Taggart** (3:34)
You forgot to mention the administration loudly shouting, the golden age has started.

**Kevin Muir** (3:39)
Well, that's what I was going to say is that not only that, we have some pretty dramatic changes in terms of how the economy operates, how the world financial system operates. And so one of the things that I've been telling people is if anyone tells you with any sort of certainty that they know for sure that this is going to happen in the coming year, you should probably stop listening to them.
Because the reality is that there is so much uncertainty out there and it is so difficult. It doesn't mean that we can't make some educated guess. It doesn't mean that we can't have views about which way we're going. But it's important to make sure you stay, you know, nimble. Like, let's just rewind back to the point where Trump was elected at that kind of in that early January 2025 period. Everyone was super bullish on the US. It was this, you know, euphoria. It was one of the most kind of exuberant periods that we've had. Within four months, we had the, you know, Liberation Day. It went from exuberant to basically hugely pessimistic. That's massive sell off. I was looking the other day at the Bank of America Global Fund Survey, and I thought it was like 45% of respondents. And these are institutional respondents, people that should know expected a hard landing within the next year. And now, you know, fast forward in eight months from there and from then, and we're back to the point where only 3% of those respondents expect a hard landing. So that is just a hugely emotional swing. It is difficult. And so when you ask me, like, how do I, what do I see in the markets and the economy? It's not something that's very clear. And I can say to you, for sure, we're going to have this. And for sure, the economy is weakening and for sure, this is occurring because there's so many different parts that are happening. Like, for example, let's just take immigration. We had a recent uptick in unemployment. The unemployment rate was one of the, I think it was an uptick there. And then in terms of inflation, we had a downtick. So you would look at this and you would say, oh, you know what, this actually the economy is doing poorly. And yet we have the stock market racing to do highs. We have a lot of folks talking about the golden age of the American economy.