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Every December, the financial media makes its stock market predictions for the coming year. There are charts, bold numbers, and confident faces on TV. It’s a circus, and we’re all invited to watch the show. Here is Business Insider’s roundup of the stock market predictions 2026.
The real question is do they ever get those stock market predictions right?
Ten Years of Misses (And Counting)
We gathered a decade of “expert” S&P 500 predictions and compared them to what actually happened. Spoiler: not even close, frequently wrong on direction AND magnitude.
- Rebound years (like 2019) massively undershot.
- Deep drawdowns (like 2022) weren’t called.
- Strong years (2023–2024) were capped by cautious targets.
This is where Katie and I get super excited because it’s time to create some graphs. We spent hours collecting the data from over the years and then Katie has visualised it into interactive charts for you to play with.
This first chart shows each year. Use the drop down at the top left to choose a year and it will show you all the “expert” predictions. You can then use the little toggle to show the actual returns for the year which then show up as a yellow bar amongst the blue prediction bars. Have a play now.
Katie’s next chart is one of my favourites. It shows you the average of all the “expert” predictions for each year and then compares that to what actually happened that year.
This way you can quickly see how close the “experts” where on average each year! Scroll down to see all the years!
The Misses Are the Message
Every year, the average prediction looks neat and reasonable, until reality shows up. The S&P 500 routinely delivers surprises, swinging far above or below the consensus. The lesson? Even the collective wisdom of Wall Street can’t see the future.
The final chart to play with shows the “expert” predictions over the year. Use the drop down menu to select Barclays or Bank of America and you can see their predictions versus what actually happens. If you know someone at JP Morgan or one of the other firms feel free to send them this chart with a smiley face! Scroll down to see all the years to 2026.
Why Smart People Still Get It Wrong
If teams of analysts with models and PhDs miss this badly, what chance do the rest of us have?
Three simple reasons that it is wrong every year:
- Incentives & herding: It’s safer for experts to stick together. If everyone predicts a similar number and they’re all wrong, no one stands out. That’s why you see predictions clustering around the same figures, even if reality ends up somewhere else.
- Narrative temptation: We all love a good story. Experts (and the media) are great at building convincing stories about why the market will go up or down. But stories aren’t the same as facts. Just because a prediction sounds logical or exciting doesn’t mean it will come true. The market doesn’t follow a script, it does its own thing, often surprising everyone. The market will do whatever it can to embarrass the most people possible!
- Complexity: The stock market is complicated. It reacts to thousands of factors, news, politics, technology, even random events. Trying to predict exactly where it will go is like trying to predicting the traffic on a motorway a year from now. You can guess based on patterns, but accidents, roadworks, and new routes can throw everything off.
Consensus Isn’t Clarity
When you average out all the expert forecasts, you get a number that feels safe and sensible. But the market doesn’t care about consensus. In strong years, the average prediction undershoots; in tough years, it misses the downturn. Herding together doesn’t make the forecast any more accurate.
The Rebel Finance School Way
No one knows where the market goes next. Not the experts. Not your mate at the pub. Not your favourite bloggers (even the Donegans!). So we build a plan that doesn’t require guessing:
- One simple global index fund. No picking countries, sectors, or “winners.”
- Automatic monthly investing. Set it. Forget it. Let time do the heavy lifting.
- Ignore the noise. Headlines are entertainment, not instructions.
- Time in the market > timing the market. This is a core Rebel Finance School (RFS) principle. It means don’t try and guess what the market will do since you’ll probably get it wrong, just get your money invested and leave it for the long term
Found this article but have no idea what Rebel Finance School is? It is our free course to help you take control of your finances.
How We Measured
For the charts above: we used published year‑end S&P 500 targets from major banks/strategists and compared them with actual annual returns for each calendar year from 2015–2025.
Business Insider publishes articles every year with stock market predictions that we were able to find all the way back to 2015 and then we used other media outlets and stories to fill in the gaps.
Win a hour zoom chat with the Donegans
Play: What’s YOUR Prediction?
Think you can beat the experts? Drop your best guess for the S&P 500’s 2026 annual return in our Rebel Finance School sweepstake. Closest to the final result wins an hour’s chat with us, or if you don’t want to talk to us, a Colin the Caterpillar cake instead. 🍰
- Enter here
- Or if you want to leave it to chance, spin the wheel on this page and submit whatever number it gives you (because that’s as good as “predicting”).
Spin the Rebel Finance School fairground wheel for a random S&P 500 prediction between –50% and +70%. Feeling lucky? Submit your number to the competition!
Donegan 2026 Predictions
As I am typing this I can feel an emotion coming up of “I don’t want to predict as I know I will get it wrong and people will use the prediction to judge me”!
Isn’t it interesting?! I am going to have a go anyway as if I win then I can send myself a Colin the Caterpillar cake! The whole point of this competition is to be fun and also to show how close we as a group are to the real results. It will be a fun thing to report on in January 2027!
Alan’s 2026 S&P 500 Prediction
My reasoning:
- The world is a little bit crazy at the moment, with geopolitical tensions (like Venezuela and tariffs) creating uncertainty.
- I am optimistic about the impact of AI, healthcare advances, and technology and I believe these will drive growth.
- Corrections can happen anytime, but I will not let fear dominate my outlook or life.
- I don’t care what the experts are predicting, because I know their track record is poor.
- I am a confident and optimistic human being, and I prefer to bet on progress rather than pessimism.
Alan’s prediction: 14% growth
As I typed this I almost didn’t type the word growth after the 14% so I could pretend that if the market went down 14% then I could claim that as well! lol. Slippery Alan. I hate predicting because I know it is all made up!
Katie’s 2026 S&P 500 Prediction
I am going to use the spin the wheel for my prediction because I want to emphasise the fact that nobody knows what will happen so you might as well spin a wheel or pluck a number from the air. (I’m now nervous and in my head giving myself 3 turns at the wheel just in case I don’t like the first answer. Cheating?!)
Katie’s spin the wheel prediction: 28.4% growth
For transparency, I did just go with answer from the first spin! My initial reaction was “that’s a bit high isn’t it” but who am I to disagree with what the wheel gods have decreed?!
AI’s 2026 S&P500 prediction (Copilot)
Copilot: “My AI call for 2026 is +11%. The consensus points to earnings‑led growth with strong AI tailwinds, but high valuations and policy surprises mean it’ll be a bumpy ride. Expect rotations and volatility—yet on balance, profits and productivity win.”
S&P 500 2026 price return: +11%
Year‑end level: ~7,700
If Ai wins the prediction competition do we have to zoom Copilot or send it a Colin the Caterpillar cake?
Closing thoughts
Over the past decade, average forecasts have missed both the direction and the size of market moves. The truth? No one knows what the market will do next.
That’s why the Rebel Finance School approach is simple: ignore the noise, invest in a global index fund, automate your contributions, and let time in the market and compounding do the heavy lifting.
Think you can do better than the experts?
We’re running the Rebel Finance School S&P 500 Crystal Ball Competition for 2026!
Enter your best guess for the S&P 500’s annual return using our quick Google Form (or spin the wheel for a random pick).
The closest prediction/random guess wins a prize and, more importantly, you’ll help us gather real data for Katie to analyse next year. The more entries we get, the more fun and insightful the results will be.
Ready to play? Enter your prediction now and be part of the experiment!
Competition closes 31st January 2026
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Another thought-provoking article. I don’t know of any other field where the so-called experts are so very poor at predicting future trends. I tend to agree with your analysis that there is probably a mixture of herding behaviour and also group-think. If you surround yourself with people like yourself you’re less likely to have views that are considered ‘deviant’ by the group.
There is another field with the same level of prediction rate: weather forecasts.
Ha ha I love this article! Brilliant and thought provoking! I do wish I had invested 10 years ago though, still we finally bit the bullet in 2025 so am looking forward to the ride! Thanks for all the articles – they are really helpful.
Emma you are amazing. it is our pleasure. Thank you for reading and we ALL wish we had started sooner! lol. Alan
Great Article & Katie TX Charts..:-))….Do we know what our fave Vanguard past and future predictions were or are for ref…I beat all these professional highly paid experts regardless…perhaps i can win a classic Artic Roll as my prize to go with my d.i.y pineapple …keep rockin it…FIREman..xx
Ross, Vanguard run 10 year predictions every September ish and they are always doom and gloom! so we couldn’t show them next to these predictions. We wanted to as those are the 10 year predictions we always get from people with doom and gloom. They predicted 5-8% at the begining of that decade which was terrible! Artic roll? Of course! You are AWESOME. Alan
I love you guys for helping to educate those of us who wish we had found you years ago x You make everything simple and less scary with your common sense approach so thank you so very much x
Lynda thank you for commenting and that is the missions and the plan! Let’s see if we can do it to help more people! Thank you for replying. Alan
Hi guys. Thank you for sharing this. It is so insightful. Started following you guys last year and have learned lots from your RFS. IJust out of interest, s it better to invest monthly, fortnightly or weekly?
Thanks guys.
Hey Steffan, thank you. Most people invest monthly but that is purely a function of when they get paid and when they have money to invest. The key is time in the market, so if you have money then invest it when you can as soon as you can! Does that make sense… Alan
Such a needed reminder and the data makes it so clear — thank you for this new resource!
Jessica, Thank you. We had so much full pulling it all together and the data is so compelling! Sending you happiness. Alan
I love this! I spun the wheel. But really I feel if I measured a Colin the Caterpillar cake nose to tail and multiplied it by 2 this would be a more accurate and scientific way of predicting the outcome :)
Sheryl, LOVE that way of predicting the score. Let’s try that for this year coming and see if the colin the cake method beats the pros! love it