Key takeaways

• Visibility is improving, but selectivity remains essential.
• Debasement supports allocations to gold and other real assets.
• Digitization drives opportunities across AI, semiconductors and infrastructure.
• Decarbonization reinforces the need for reliable energy and materials.
• Public, liquid income strategies can complement private credit exposure.

“Visibility means risk on” is the headline of CEO Jan van Eck’s 2026 investment outlook. While our views are grounded in long term structural changes rather than short-term market calls, a defining feature of VanEck’s model portfolio approach is the ability to remain adaptive, seeking to participate in upside while actively managing risk across both frothy markets and oversold conditions.

In this blog, we translate Jan’s 2026 outlook into portfolio implementation. We’ll outline the macro backdrop and show how we are allocating across the key theme within our model portfolios.

Three Themes Driving 2026 Positioning

VanEck’s investment framework is built around identifying durable themes that shape markets over time. Heading into 2026, three themes sit at the core of our portfolio construction:

• Debasement: The global search for alternative stores of value and diversification away from the US dollar amid elevated debt, deficits, conflict and inflationary pressures.
• Digitalization: The continued expansion of AI as it moves from infrastructure build-out to adoption and ultimately proliferation, reshaping productivity across industries.
• Decarbonization: Less about energy transition and alternative energy, and more about energy addition, focusing on capacity, reliability and efficiency as the world demands more power to support electrification, AI and growth.

These themes form the foundation for how we think about asset allocation in 2026.

Macro Dynamics Reinforcing Our 2026 Themes

The Federal Reserve (Fed) remains caught between the risk of reaccelerating inflation and a potential inflection in the labor market. While labor conditions have softened, they have not deteriorated enough to warrant significant accommodation. Inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target, and a neutral rate in the 3% range seems prudent in an environment of slightly elevated inflation, assuming nominal growth continues to be supported by policy and fiscal support.

At the same time, debt and deficit dynamics are contributing to a weaker US dollar and a flatter yield curve with elevated long-term rates. While near-term fiscal restraint may improve headline deficit numbers, the structural problem is not going away. In a highly politicized environment, we expect policy headlines to create volatility across both equity and fixed income markets, particularly in a historically volatile midterm election year.

Another notable dynamic is the K shaped economy. Spending, wage growth and asset ownership remain concentrated in the higher income cohorts, while inflation, housing affordability and student debt are continuing to pressure younger people and lower wage earners. Policies aimed at addressing the bottom of the K is likely to be deficit expansionary and potentially inflationary, but also may play a decisive role in upcoming elections.

As we discussed in Jan’s outlook last year, the world has been over-indexed to the US dollar for over a decade. That dynamic began to shift in 2025, as some of the best performing assets included precious metals and international equities.Diversification remains a powerful tool for managing risk, particularly as returns become more concentrated, and investors may benefit from reassessing where risk and returns are truly coming from in their portfolios. If a small handful of companies are driving the majority of returns in a “globally diversified” portfolio, it may be time for a portfolio review.

Translating Themes to Allocations in Our Wealth Builder Framework

VanEck’s Wealth Builder Core Portfolios and Plus Portfolios are designed to translate these macro and thematic views into diversified, multi-asset allocations. While the models maintain long-term structural tilts, they are also built to be adaptive by rebalancing, managing exposure after rallies and adding opportunistically during periods of dislocation.

Risk management is central to this process. Using ETFs within the model portfolios as implementation vehicles, the models seek diversified exposure across asset classes, regions, and risk factors.

Debasement and the Case for Gold

There is an old adage in investing: “Don’t fight the Fed.” But what happens when there are 20 of them? There are over 20 global central banks today actively diversifying their reserves, with gold playing a central role in their efforts. In addition to central bank demand, gold has benefited from its safe-haven characteristics and diversification benefits, as traditional stock and bond indexes trade near historical highs.

Within the Wealth Builder model portfolios, we maintain exposure to both gold bullion through the VanEck Merk Gold ETF (OUNZ) and gold equities through the VanEck Real Assets ETF (RAAX). Physical gold bullion, with its lower volatility profile and diversification characteristic, represents a larger share of exposure relative to gold mining equities, which historically exhibit higher volatility and a higher correlation to equities.

With risk management at key to our process, as gold prices moved higher, the models capitalized on upside volatility to trim exposure into strength, while remaining structurally overweight relative to traditional benchmarks.

Digitization Beyond the AI Hype Cycle

AI adoption continues to accelerate at a historically unprecedented pace. With such rapid growth, market forces will naturally question the sustainability of the valuations. Instead of reacting to the boom-bust hype, we continue to view AI adoption through our three phase model.

Phase one is the infrastructure arms race, where hyperscalers invest aggressively to avoid falling behind competitors. At the end of 2025, expectations began to reset as markets punished companies facing rapid debt accumulation, slowing earnings and weaker guidance. As irrational exuberance gives way to more rational growth expectations, a company’s ability to show both growth and profitability by generating returns above the cost of capital becomes increasingly important.

Phase two is the adoption phase, where AI agents move meaningfully into everyday workflows, driving efficiency gains and productivity improvements that support profitability and margins. A few leaders are moving into this phase.

Phase 3 is the automation phase, where the convergence of AI and robotics redefine labor and productivity, and the first signs of this are beginning to appear. Each of these phases has specific company, sector and geographic dynamics to consider, reinforcing the importance of diversified exposure.

Within the Wealth Builder models, AI exposure is expressed through a combination of semiconductor companies, which we hold through the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), broader technology allocations and emerging areas like quantum computing. At the same time, we find it prudent to own complementary exposures that are less sensitive to AI-driven volatility, including defense, infrastructure and critical metals. These long-cycle growth themes are supported by policy, geopolitics and supply chain fundamentals, and historically exhibit lower correlations to pure-play AI returns.

Decarbonization as Energy Addition

Even without AI, global energy and infrastructure were already facing a structural supply-demand imbalance. AI has acted as an accelerant, significantly increasing projected power demand as data centers and advanced computing expand. Old world assets, like raw materials and commodities, needed to build new world infrastructure and the digital economy.

Nuclear power is central to these theme due to its high capacity factor, competitive cost, cleaner carbon profile and more reliable uptime relative to other alternative energy sources. As the market grapple with valuation concerns amid the massive investment implications, our Wealth Builder models have actively managed exposure, trimming during rallies and adding during periods of dislocation, to maintain long-term conviction in this theme. For exposure across the nuclear value chain, the model holds the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR).

Income Positioning in a Changing Credit Landscape

Outside of equities we continue to see selective opportunities in income-oriented assets, particularly as private credit competes for investor attention and capital. Crowding into less liquid segments of the credit market has pushed some investors toward riskier corners of credit. Early cracks in this boom cycle were felt in 2025 with the bankruptcies of First Brands and TriColor, which sparked calls for a broader acceleration of defaults and downgrades.

Publicly traded business development companies (BDCs), given their liquidity and transparency, acted as a release valve for investors looking to reduce private credit exposure. The resulting selloff pushed valuations below book value across much of the sector, creating a potentially attractive setup for income investors for 2026. VanEck’s Wealth Builder portfolios hold the VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD), which the models use to gain exposure to a diversified index of BDCs and can be used as a complement or replacement for private credit and leveraged loans.

Turning Visibility into Action

“Visibility means risk on” underscores the importance of disciplined diversification, active risk management and thoughtful implementation. By anchoring portfolios around the themes of debasement, digitization and decarbonization, we believe investors can participate in long-term opportunities while remaining mindful of evolving risks. VanEck’s Wealth Builder model portfolios offer a way to put that framework into practice in 2026.