Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler, says three consecutive years of stock market gains aren't going to come to a dead stop, but he does think the market's pace will slow down in 2026, where he has a target for the Standard & Poor's 500 of 7,150. Johnson expects a strong first quarter, but suggests investors might want to start building up cash for a pullback that could occur in the second or third quarter, noting that this market is "acting more like a light switch than a dimmer," meaning it will have on-off volatility rather than more gentle moves.

David Goerz, chief executive and chief investment officer at Strategic Frontier Management, sees the market reaching a similar peak — he picked 7,200 on the S&P as his target — and also forecast a correction or downturn in the spring or early summer, but he says that the fundamentals behind his process suggest that small-caps and international stocks will be the areas that ultimately carry the market higher.

In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses how Venezuela — in the news due to the arrest of its president — should not be overlooked for its economic impact, despite being a frontier market, discusses how energy markets will sort out the issues there and talks about how capitalism continues to show its dominance over socialism.

Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments, returns to the show to discuss his 10 forecasts for the year ahead, when he is expecting "a good, but not a great year" as the market navigates "a high-risk bull market." Doll, a Wall Street veteran who has been making annual forecasts and predictions for decades, says that every year has plenty of uncertainty, but he says it feels like there is more now. He's expecting positive economic growth, sticky inflation and earnings that are lower than analysts expect, which will put a cap on the market's ability to generate gains.

John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors — the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance — reviews the forecasts he made a year ago for 2025, grading his wins and losses on everything from inflation levels and Treasury yields to discount levels and the performance of five funds he identified as potential buys.

Plus, Chuck talks about how investors are caught in a cyclone of emotions — suffering from higher inflation while benefiting from a stock market that has been defying gravity — and how a straightforward to-do list for the new year can provide more financial stability and clarity for 2026 and beyond.

Phil Rosen, co-founder of Opening Bell Daily, discusses his recent piece on "The 10 stocks Wall Street is most bullish on for 2026" — as well as the ones analysts think will underperform the most. These aren't his picks — in fact, Rosen is clear that they're not in his portfolio -- but instead they represent where analyst estimates are most disconnected from the current stock price; while that condition could mean the stocks are poised for take-off, it also means they could be particularly impacted by an earnings miss or any problem that shakes up analysts.

Justin deTray, managing director at Wealthspire Advisors, discusses how the biggest determinant of returns is investor behavior — managing loss aversion, recency bias, anchoring and other personality traps — rather than asset allocation, and what that means for how investors should re-position their holdings entering the new year.

Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, revisits three of his "ETF of the Week" picks from 2025 to note which ones worked particularly well in terms of both performance but also in terms of attracting assets in a crowded ETF landscape. (Warning, one of these picks is a fund that can be labeled as "boring" due to its assets and investment style, but where returns are enviable compared to peers.)

Plus, Chuck talks about five ways he hopes to improve his life — the behaviors he wants to change or things he wants to get done — that will help him in 2026 but also, he believes, for all the rest of his years.

Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Hi Mount Research, says that investors may be expecting too much from the domestic stock market, which makes it more likely to disappoint them even if it delivers modest gains. He's more excited about the prospects of international stocks and the commodities market, where he says the values — relative to the domestic market — remain attractive and there is more room to run.

With year-end upon us, Chuck talks about some personal finance realizations he has made this year that have him adjusting his thinking for the future, to better balance money and happiness. He's discussing research which shows that how someone receives their income may be a bigger determinant in their happiness than how much money they have, and how financial security is not just about the number at the bottom of a net worth statement.

Plus, Stephen Akin, founder of Akin Investments brings his stock-picking mix of technical momentum indicators and fundamental analysis back to the Market Call.

Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says that while artificial intelligence dominated the media landscape for moving the market in 2025, he says that monetary policy was a bigger story for investors, moving gold, silver, precious metals to much bigger gains. "Commodities told the story of 2025," Marolia said in "The Week That Is," and while he expects AI to continue to be a big story, he said investors should be paying more attention to gold and precious metals. Marolia also talks about the year ahead, one where he expects increased merger and acquisition activity, improvement for value stocks and small companies, a rebound in cryptocurrency and more.

Chuck talks about goals versus resolutions for the year ahead, advocating for having a personal system that helps provide focus on personal growth and progress so that you can make the most of the year ahead.

Plus, the show revisits a recent conversation with Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research,who said that the bull market after celebrating its third birthday is in a position to keep running and producing positive returns for longer. He's expecting a modest up year in 2026.

John Cole Scott, President of CEF Advisors, relies on his massive stores of data to look ahead for 2026, and he foresees no recession, lower inflation and modest GDP growth for 2026, with less volatility due to the interest-rate picture but more market tension due to the global macro picture. Scott also discusses what he sees happening in the closed-end fund industry, and he selects five funds — including one that has been in the news recently for problems that raised its discount — that he's expecting big things from in the year ahead.

Long-time business journalist Allan Sloan — a seven-time winner of the Loeb Award, business journalism's highest honor — returns to the show to discuss his recent piece for Barron's in which he discussed his admiration for the way Michael and Susan Dell recently committed $6.25 billion of their own money to give 25 million kids $250 each to invest in mutual funds. But he doesn't like the mechanics of the new Trump accounts that are the vehicle for those young savers and he says their impact on changing lives will be much more limited than the hype is making it out to be.

Plus, Chuck talks about avoiding mistakes that result in financial punishments if not completed by year's end: failing to take required minimum distributions and failing to spend down dollars set aside in Flexible Spending Accounts. He cites Vanguard data showing that the RMD problem is much bigger than many people expect, and he suggests ways that heatlh-care savers can legally spend down their accounts while there is still time.

Steve Sosnick, chief market strategist at Interactive Brokers, is a market veteran who wasn't allowed to make annual forecasts until this year, and he's starting with an outlier, calling for the Standard & Poor's 500 to lose about 7% in 2026. Sosnick says a key issue for the market is investor expectations which are now so high that "it's hard to outpace that." Sosnick doesn't think the market is going in the tank, but he says that if investors see it struggle and lose some of their "buy-the-dips" nerve, it will create headwinds that will be hard to overcome.

Travis Prentice, chief investment officer at Informed Momentum, brings his stylized investment methodology — which tries to find the stocks that are outperforming, but that also represent businesses that are improving — to the Market Call, and talks about where he is "finding the mo" now.

Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, reviews the year in exchange-traded funds, from the growth in the industry and the action in new funds to the emergence — thanks to new rules — of ETF share classes for established funds, a change that could be the defining story in the industry in 2026.

Gene Peroni, founder and president at Peroni Portfolio Advisors, expects a "broad-based, well-balanced market advance" with a number of sectors and themes doing well in 2026. Peroni expects the small- and mid-cap advance that we have seen late this year to become full-blown leadership in the new year, but he's not down on large-caps either, putting a target of 53,000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the year, which would represent roughly a 10 percent gain. He is concerned about heightened volatility, but does not see any oversized drawdowns in the offing.

Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments, returns to the show to put his forecasts from a year ago up to scrutiny. In a long career on Wall Street, Doll has become known for making 10 annual predictions — and he will unveil his forecasts for 2026 on the first show of the new year — and it looked in the middle of 2025 that his picks were all going to be on the money. The end of the year put a wrench into those plans, but he explains why and where things turned.

Allison Hadley discusses a study done for Howdy.com based on a search that has been rising dramatically in popularity on Google, about "Is college worth it?" The survey found that holders of computer science degrees overwhelmingly felt that college was worth the expense, but a shrinking number of people think that degrees will be as valuable in the future, with many noting that artificial intelligence reduces the need for formal education.

Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, says 2026 will be a year in which valuations and fundamentals really matter, as the broad market will see more volatility and will have less momentum. After three straight years of gains around 20% annually, Jacobsen says investors will need to curb their enthusiasm and settle for gains that, at best, he thinks will only get to high single-digit levels. He says that valuations in large-cap stocks "have created too many vulnerabilities for us to really sleep well at night," which is why he favors international, small- and mid-cap stocks and value stocks for the year ahead.

David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, puts the focus squarely on stock pickers in this week's Danger Zone, discussing the benefits — or more importantly the drawbacks, behind active management.

Plus, in "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, tells the tale of two tech stocks — one living through the best of times, another the worst of times — covers the evolving battle for content creators and distributors, and offers a holiday wish and suggestion for investors.

Brent Schutte, Chief Investment Officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co., sees "a lot of different parts of the U.S. economy that aren't working," and while the market and economy have overcome those concerns to this point — and may have the strength to keep that up — he is concerned about the potential for a fall and says investors need to be diversified properly to ride out the year ahead. "Diversification doesn't pay all the time," Schutte says, "but it often times makes up for all the costs that it has in periods where whatever you want to concentrate in actually doesn't work. And that's where I think diversification going forward is not only a risk management tool, but it's also a return enhancer." Schutte sees the market broadening out but delivering only modest gains, and says he is more concerned about recession than most experts, because many analysts and investors are so focused on the upside that they have missed warning signs.

Alessandro Valentini, fundamental portfolio manager at Causeway Capital Management, says that the gains in foreign stock markets this year were not just about currency fluctuations and he believes there is more potential for growth in 2026 as concerns over tariffs continue to diminish, the dollar produces a smaller tailwind — or at least no resistance — and low valuations create more potential for upside.

Richard Stone, chief executive officer for The Association of Investment Companies — the British equivalent to the Active Investment Company Alliance — discusses differences in the activist investor cultures in the United States and Great Britain, including how "venture capital trusts" — the British equivalent of business-development companies — have tax advantages that make private credit investing much more palatable, but also why interval funds (known in England as "long-term asset funds") are a model that has stirred some controversy with investors.