Macroeconomic uncertainty is contributing to a blended funding sentiment, based on a WealthManagement.com survey.
Respondents recognized inflation and rate of interest adjustments (57%) as probably the most influential pattern that may form portfolio methods in 2026. That was adopted by tech disruption (48%) and geopolitical tensions and commerce insurance policies (41%).
Because of this, there’s no clear consensus on threat tolerance for 2026. Respondents had been roughly evenly divided on whether or not this is able to result in “risk-on” (38%) or “risk-off (31%) methods. An additional 31% had a impartial view on that query.
The most typical funding allocations in surveyed advisors’ shopper portfolios are passively-managed broad market indexes (71%). (An additional 5% stated they deliberate so as to add these in 2026.) That’s intently adopted by money or money equivalents (69%) in addition to investment-grade company bonds (58%).
The survey additionally discovered that 39% of respondents embrace non-public belongings in shopper portfolios, with an extra 9% saying they deliberate so as to add these in 2026. In all, respondents anticipate a imply of 9% of typical shopper portfolios invested in alternate options subsequent yr. As well as, 45% of respondents stated they anticipate to extend various publicity subsequent yr, with anticipated will increase evenly break up between lower than 5% (23%) and greater than 5% (22%).
Different anticipated changes embrace rising publicity to crypto and digital belongings (43%), though an extra 11% of advisors stated they deliberate to lower publicity to that asset class. Remaining respondents stated allocations remained unchanged.
Moreover, 39% stated they plan to extend non-public market allocations (with 7% saying they deliberate to reduce). That was adopted by commodities and treasured metals (26% plan to extend), investment-grade company bonds (25%), actual property (24%) and high-growth tech shares (22%). By way of declining allocations, 20% stated they deliberate to scale back publicity to money, adopted by 13% to high-growth tech shares and 12% to Treasuries.
Lately, some advisors have additionally talked of decreasing the variety of asset managers they work with, however the survey discovered solely 5% of respondents (throughout all asset varieties) plan to scale back the variety of relationships in 2026. Most plan to take care of their present stage, with about one-fifth saying they plan to make use of extra managers.
By way of their very own funding processes, 74% stated they deliberate to include AI in 2026, mostly enhancing workflow effectivity (47%), adopted by funding analysis (38%), shopper communications (37%) and portfolio evaluation (32%).
Click on via the next slideshow to dig deeper into the survey findings.
Methodology: Starting on Nov. 21, 2025, WealthManagement.com emailed invites to take part in a web based survey to lively customers. By Dec. 12, 2025, WealthManagement.com acquired 311 responses.
