This Money Pro Sees Higher Stock Prices and More Rate Cuts in 2026

Nancy Curtin, chief investment officer at A1Ti Tiedemann Global, helps wealthy families invest for the long term. An “innovation” bull market helps.

Nancy Curtin, chief investment officer of AlTi Tiedemann, says the S&P 500 index could rise another 10% next year, fueled by earnings growth. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM PAPE)

Bull markets generally last five years and produce an average cumulative return of about 178%, says Nancy Curtin, chief investment officer of AlTi Tiedemann Global, citing Strategas Research. But bull markets fueled by the growth of innovative technologies like today’s “accelerated compute revolution,” as AlTi Tiedemann calls it, tend to last longer and produce even better returns, she says.

Curtin is helping clients of AlTi Tiedemann, an $82 billion wealth and asset management firm, capitalize on the boom years through a variety of strategies favored by institutional investors such as endowments, foundations, sovereign-wealth funds, and pension funds. Tiedemann’s clients have an average of $50 million under management.

A New York native now based in London, Curtin was CIO of Alvarium Investments in the U.K. before it merged in 2023 with Tiedemann Group, a U.S. multifamily office. She has spent more than 25 years managing and investing in both traditional and alternative assets at firms including Close Brothers Asset Management (now TrinityBridge), Schroders, and Barings, all in the U.K.

Barron’s recently spoke with Curtin about how today’s tech innovations will continue to brighten the outlook for markets and the economy, and how the firm is guiding its clients. An edited version of the conversation follows.

Barron’s**: Why do innovation-driven bull markets last longer than typical bull runs?**

Nancy Curtin: They last longer because innovation forces corporate investment, and investment is a form of economic growth. Innovation bull markets are supportive of productivity. In an innovation bull cycle, output per worker improves, which means labor costs go down. Inflation, then, tends to be more benign, and earnings growth tends to surprise on the upside.

What are the risks to companies and investors?

Companies have to invest. In the dot-com era, they had to invest in fiberoptic. Now, it’s in digital infrastructure and power. Not all the investment will deliver the required return. We have to be mindful: Who is investing wisely and who isn’t?

Also, as this sort of investment cycle matures, companies rely for financing on both equity and debt. Some companies go a little too far with debt and take on financial risk.

In an innovation-driven cycle there are winners and losers, and investors have to continually reassess. It creates a lot of stock volatility. Consider Alphabet . It suddenly has become a stock market darling, and Oracle , Broadcom , and CoreWeave are down 20% to 35%. That kind of volatility is typical because investors are trying to figure out who has financial risk, whose capital expenditures will deliver a return, and so on.

You’re optimistic about the U.S. economy. What encourages you?

In the U.S., 70% of gross domestic product is tied to consumption. The consumer—particularly the mid- to upper-end consumer—has an enormous wealth cushion, due in part to three years of a bull market and rising house prices. That isn’t so good for the people who live paycheck to paycheck. But mid- to upper-end consumers account for about 88% of consumption.

Even if we get a corrective phase in the market, there is such a large wealth cushion. Also, it looks like there will be about $150 billion of tax refunds coming between February and April. That helps consumption.

We expect investment spending to surprise on the upside because of the buildout of digital infrastructure. The largest tech companies are going to spend about $520 billion. That has secondary and tertiary effects, because spending on digital infrastructure boosts demand for power turbines and cooling equipment, as well.

Also, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed earlier this year, has tax incentives that encourage corporate investment. And if only a fraction of all of the companies and countries that promised President Donald Trump that they would invest in America come through, that will also bring investment spending.

Investment spending on technology brings increased productivity, which can reduce the demand for workers. The data are messy, but there are signs the labor market is cooling. That means the Federal Reserve, which has already eased interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point, may cut rates once or twice more in 2026.

Could all of this add up to too much stimulus?

The biggest risk is that we get too much of a good thing—too much economic growth and supply-demand imbalances that cause prices to go up.

Analysts are projecting 14.5% earnings growth. I don’t know if it is going to be 14.5%, but what I do know is that is a good number. Markets normally go higher in line with earnings growth, and earnings growth will be much broader than it has been. It won’t be concentrated only in the Magnificent Seven tech stocks.

Do you have a target for the S&P 500 index this year?

Our sense is that the S&P 500 could be up another 10% in 2026. The average target among market strategists is around 7,500, which would represent roughly a 9% gain from current levels.

Is the Fed on the right track?

The Fed is trying to balance price stability with maximum employment, and the inflation numbers are fuzzy. Goods inflation is largely related to the tariffs, and that is a one-time event. We will see fewer price increases in 2026 because we aren’t increasing the tariffs. We are seeing signs of disinflation in the service economy, which is a much bigger part of the consumer price index and the Fed’s inflation basket than goods. We are of the view—which it seems Fed Chair [Jerome] Powell is, as well—that we’ll get to something like 2.6% CPI next year and 2.2% the year after. Inflation is moving in the right direction.

I agree with Treasury Secretary [Scott] Bessent that the current Fed is focused on backward data. The Fed will have to develop a way of thinking about a future with technological innovation. It will have to become more forward-looking in its assessment of what is happening with productivity and the neutral rate in the economy. What is the break-even rate for jobs? These are hard to get your head around. You can’t just look at backward data when the economy is changing shape.

You have said your mission is to bring institutional investment techniques to your clients. What fits this bill?

We offer clients the full range of asset classes—not just stocks, bonds, and credit, but hedge funds and commodities and real estate, infrastructure, and private equity and co-investment. Everything is customized to individual circumstances. Does everybody get the Yale model? [Yale University’s endowment pioneered the use of alternative assets.] No.

When we think about individual clients’ needs, we focus on the risk-and-return objectives, the reference currency, and what kinds of funding or capital needs they have. This is usually multigenerational wealth, so we discuss with families the purpose of the wealth.

How much do your clients typically allocate to alternative investments?

What typically see allocations of about 30% to 35% across risk profiles.

What should the wealthy know about investing in private equity?

Performance dispersion in private markets is significant. In private equity, the difference between top quartile and bottom quartile [performance] can be as much as 5% or 6%. In venture capital, it can be 10%. If you are down at that bottom quartile, you haven’t taken advantage of the asset class.

Also, within each of the private asset classes, there are significant differences in sub-strategies and a lot of differences in risk. The bottom-up understanding of the manager, strategy, and risk you’re taking and how that risk relates to other risks in your portfolio, is hugely important.

Private equity has struggled in recent years. Is it poised for growth now?

I don’t know if it is going to boom in 2026, but I see signs of recovery. Because the U.S. economy has been growing, private-equity owned companies are improving. As they improve, PE valuations will begin to catch up with the public markets.

Also, the value of merger-and-acquisition transactions was projected to be up by 60% by the end of 2025. The Trump administration has a friendlier attitude toward mergers and acquisitions. And, we’re beginning to see the green shoots of a better initial-public-offering market.

Thank you, Nancy.

Write to Abby Schultz at abby.schultz@barrons.com