The Critical 5: Key Themes Investors Shouldn’t Ignore in 2026
21 min readIntroduction: Turning the Page—Who’s at the Controls in 2026? By Lance Pan, CFA If 2024 was the year of the “soft landing,” 2025 became the year the U.S. economy decided to run a marathon in spikes. Fueled by an insatiable demand for Artificial Intelligence investment and adoption, real GDP growth defied gravity, accelerating to 3.8%…