Your 2026 market predictions are in: Insights from nearly 5,000 investors

For the tenth year running, we asked Australian investors how they’re positioning for the year ahead. With inflation proving stickier than expected, global markets diverging sharply, and AI, commodities and crypto dominating headlines, expectations for 2026 are anything but dull.

Nearly 5,000 Livewire and Market Index subscribers shared their views in our annual Outlook Series Survey. Here’s what they told us, and what it says about risk appetite heading into the new year.

1) Investors remain broadly bullish

67.9% of respondents expect equity markets to keep climbing in 2026, while 32.1% are bracing for negative returns.

That’s still a healthy majority in the bullish camp, but the bearish cohort is large enough to suggest some caution is warranted.

2) Materials dominates sector expectations

When asked which ASX sector will deliver the best returns in 2026, Materials ran away with the vote (35.8%). That view is consistent with how readers are positioning for the year ahead: five of the 10 most-tipped ETFs for 2026 are Australia- and resources-centric.

Materials was followed by:

This question offers a strong clue to how investors are thinking about the cycle; readers are leaning into real assets, commodities and cyclicals, while defensives and consumer-facing sectors remain firmly out of favour (a potential opportunity for the contrarians).

3) Offshore exposure: most investors aren’t rushing to change

Despite international shares beating the domestic market in 2025 (the MSCI World delivered a total return of around 16%, compared to 10.32% for the ASX 200), nearly half of respondents (46.1%) plan to keep their offshore allocation unchanged.

Investors recognise the importance of global diversification, but they’re not blindly chasing last year’s winners. Instead, the results reinforce that many readers believe the best opportunities in 2026 lie closer to home.

4) Inflation is the biggest fear - not markets

When asked about the biggest risk to their financial future, inflation topped the list for readers.

• 27.1% are worried higher-than-expected inflation will erode their purchasing power
• 22.9% are concerned about further changes to superannuation taxes
• 22.8% feel it's getting hard to generate enough income from the ASX
• 19.6%: are fearful of a sharp AI/tech/Bitcoin crash

Fewer than 10% of respondents cited housing affordability for themselves or their children as a key concern. The interesting thing here is that readers are more worried about hard-earned dollars buying less and less, and super policy risks, than they are a market correction.

Based on prior years' data, we know Livewire readers tend to keep a decent amount of cash on the sidelines, which helps explain the result. When you’re not fully invested, drawdowns matter less - but spiralling living costs and the risk of tax tinkering hit regardless of where markets go.

5) Australian small caps stand out as the place to invest

Of course, broad themes only get you so far. We also wanted to know where readers are actually leaning in.

The most popular opportunity call for 2026 was minerals-rich Australian small caps (44.6%), well ahead of the ASX 200 (33.3%) and gold (31.3%).

The message is consistent with earlier responses: investors are positioning for a broadening of market leadership - away from a handful of mega-caps and toward more cyclical opportunities.

6) The most popular contrarian bet: CSL (ASX: CSL)

When forced to take one contrarian position, investors overwhelmingly chose “Long CSL” (32.7%), despite the stock being down almost 35% year-to-date.

The rest of the field was split across:

• Short Nvidia (14.4%)
• Short gold (14.0%)
• Long oil (17.1%)
• Long Bitcoin (12.4%)

It’s a classic pattern among the audience: investors are seemingly comfortable being contrarian in high-quality names they already trust.

7) Most investors want the RBA to hold

With inflation higher than expected, 56.8% believe the RBA should hold rates, while 37.2% think further hikes are needed. 

Only 6% are calling for cuts.

This lines up with the forecasts coming out of the major banks, which are tipping one to two rate rises in the first half of 2026, suggesting the market is slowly coming to terms with the idea that rates may stay higher for longer.

The key takeaways from the latest survey

In a nutshell, Livewire and Market Index readers remain optimistic that the bull run can continue this year - but they’re being far more selective about where they take risk.

Investors are taking some money off the table from last year’s winners - AI, technology and the broadening S&P 500 trade - and reallocating towards the ASX and commodities, asset classes that have historically performed better in more inflationary environments.

Importantly, readers are also increasingly focused on protecting their hard-earned wealth — both from the corrosive effects of inflation and the ongoing tinkering with the superannuation system.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dig deeper into how professional investors are positioning portfolios around these themes - and where they disagree with the crowd.

All the best in 2026!