Every December I get the same mix of excitement and mild dread. Excitement because putting together the annual “Stocks I’m Watching” list is honestly one of the most fun things I do all year. Dread because the moment I hit publish, the market immediately tries to make me look stupid. Last year’s list is currently up over 40% against the S&P 500, so I guess the market hasn’t succeeded yet. But there’s still a few weeks left in 2025, and I’ve learned never to count chickens.
With that caveat out of the way, it’s time to start warming up for 2026.
Why Another Watchlist, And Why Now?
People always ask why I bother doing this publicly. The short answer: accountability. When your ideas are out there for the world to judge, you think a little harder before you write them down. The longer answer is that I genuinely enjoy the conversation around ideas. Some of the best additions to my own portfolio over the years have come from readers pushing back or pointing out angles I missed.
So consider this the opening act. The full 26-stock breakdown with theses, valuations, and risk factors will drop in the next couple of weeks. Today is more of a mood board, the handful of themes and names already circling my notebook as we head into the new year.
Theme #1: The “Reality Doesn’t Matter” Trade Is Still Alive
I wrote a piece recently arguing that the strongest bull case right now might simply be that nothing matters anymore. Not valuations in the classic sense. Not geopolitics. Not even recession odds. Markets have decided that liquidity and sentiment are the only two variables that count, and both are pointed up and to the right.
Is that healthy? Of course not. Is it profitable? So far, embarrassingly so. Which means certain corners of the market, think high-growth tech, anything AI-related, select crypto-exposed names, continue to act like 2021 never ended. I’m not here to fight that tape yet. A few names in the 2026 list will lean into that momentum because ignoring it has been the fastest way to underperform in years.
Theme #2: The Slow Return of Value (Yes, Really)
At the same time, cracks are starting to appear in the magnificent trade. Breadth is widening. Small-caps and mid-caps have quietly put together a strong second half of 2025. Whenever rate-cut cycles finally get priced in for real (2026 feels like the year that actually happens), the equal-weight parts of the market tend to shine.
I’m spending more time than I have in half a decade looking at old-school value names, energy, materials, even some financials trading at single-digit P/Es with fat dividends. Not because I think growth is dead, but because mean reversion is a real force, and five years of extreme concentration rarely lasts six.
“The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
– Some British guy who clearly never met 2025 Nvidia holders
Theme #3: Commodities Refusing to Die
Gold hit another all-time high this week. Copper is acting like the AI data-center build-out is going to last forever. Uranium still has that “once in a generation” supply-demand imbalance written all over it. Even oil, despite endless predictions of peak demand, keeps finding a bid any time it sniffs $65.
I’ve been wrong on commodities more times than I care to admit, but the macro setup for hard assets in a world of endless money printing feels hard to ignore. Several commodity-related names will make the final 2026 cut.
Theme #4: The Bitcoin Maturity Trade
Crypto isn’t the wild west it was five years ago. We now have spot ETFs sucking in billions, nation-states talking about strategic reserves, and public companies putting bitcoin on the balance sheet like it’s the new gold. That doesn’t mean the volatility is gone (please), but it does mean the risk/reward skew feels different.
I’ll have a couple of ways to play it in the list, some direct, some adjacent, because pretending the asset class doesn’t exist has become the bigger career risk at this point.
A Quick Look Back at 2025 Performance (So Far)
Since a few people will ask, here’s the scorecard with roughly three weeks left in the year:
- Average return of the 25 names: ~68%
- S&P 500 over same period: ~24%
- Outperformance: >40 percentage points
- Biggest winner: up >300%
- Worst performer: down about 18% (still better than a sharp stick in the eye
No, I’m not going to tell you which one is the 300% winner yet. You’ll have to wait for the anniversary recap. Patience, grasshopper.
What I’m Not Doing in 2026
Just as important as what I am doing:
- No short-only ideas (markets that go up 70% in a year tend not to reward bears)
- No heavy China exposure (geopolitical risk still feels underpriced)
- No meme stocks (life is too short)
- No “this time is different” narratives at 100x sales (been there, lost the T-shirt)
Everything else is on the table.
The Bottom Line
We’re entering 2026 with markets at all-time highs, policy uncertainty still in the air, and a Fed that sounds determined to cut rates even if inflation doesn’t cooperate. In other words, the same cocktail of contradiction that has fueled this entire bull run.
My job isn’t to predict when it ends. My job is to find individual opportunities that can win even if the party keeps going and, ideally, hold up better if it suddenly doesn’t.
The full list drops soon. If last year is any guide, a lot of the best performers won’t be the usual suspects everyone is already piled into. That’s where the real edge still lives.
Too many people spend money they earned to buy things they don't want to impress people that they don't like.
