{"text":[[{"start":5.69,"text":"Pessimists are losing confidence. After financial markets and the global economy withstood US President Donald Trump’s tariff deluge, stretched tech stock valuations and geopolitical turbulence in 2025, investors have entered this year feeling largely bullish. Global asset managers’ cash holdings fell to a record low at the end of last year, according to a survey by Bank of America. The S&P 500 is expected to rise around another 10 per cent this year, according to the average forecast of nine major investment banks polled by the FT in December. The extraordinary US operation in Venezuela last weekend has done little to change the mood."}],[{"start":51.72,"text":"There is reason to be optimistic about 2026. Capital expenditure in AI — which helped offset strains on the US and global economy last year — is expected to continue. America’s cooling labour market is likely to motivate the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates further over the year, while tax refunds from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will provide another economic boost. In Europe, there is hope that a lower cost of credit, fiscal stimulus in Germany and higher defence spending will support growth."}],[{"start":87.9,"text":"Investor ebullience also reflects an adjustment from excessive gloominess last year. Many economists underestimated just how resilient and versatile businesses and global supply chains can be amid rising tariff barriers and uncertainty. Analysts are right to be wary of making the same mistake this year. But they should be cautious about overcorrecting too."}],[{"start":114.60000000000001,"text":"First, the pain from trade duties is not necessarily over. Mitigations from frontloading imports, stockpiling and cost absorption last year could give way to more price rises for consumers in 2026. Investors are pretty confident that the Supreme Court will imminently rule as illegal the tariffs imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Powers Act, which account for the bulk of America’s tariff revenue. But the White House is ready to deploy other legal tools to rebuild trade barriers, which will come with their own uncertainties. A revival of US-China trade tensions, which panicked markets last year, also remains a risk."}],[{"start":158.88,"text":"Next, there is growing pressure on AI to prove it can drive productivity gains and profits. Adoption rates across US firms of all sizes have been flattening out recently. Any sign of large language models not living up to their hype could trigger stock market sell-offs and a pullback in data centre, chips and electronics investment. The global economy would, in turn, lose a key driver of growth and trade. For now, fund managers are mostly worried about not having enough exposure to the potentially transformative technology."}],[{"start":197.41,"text":"Then there are the harder-to-price risks, the scope for which has expanded greatly with Trump’s unpredictable second term in the White House. The continued erosion of Fed independence and fiscal ill-discipline risks a revival of inflation while pushing up bond yields in the US and beyond. Regulators have also been sounding the alarm over excesses in opaque private markets, not least their growing role in funding the AI boom."}],[{"start":227.14,"text":"After last year’s resilience, reiterating these economic and market fragilities may seem like doomsterism. It is also true that negativity can sometimes command too much of our attention. Markets may well continue to boom. AI may deliver, and supply chains could rewire smoothly. Still, Wall Street’s optimistic conviction sits uneasily when uncertainty around policy, technology and geopolitics are high. Extrapolating from 2025 should be done with caution. As investors know well, past performance is not the best indicator of future results."}],[{"start":275.46999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1768175290_8883.mp3"}