2026 Market Outlook: How Wall Street Sees Gold, Cryptocurrencies, and Currency Pairs — A Year of Consensus and Conflict

After navigating the volatile landscape of 2025, financial markets are now bracing for an equally dynamic 2026. Yet unlike years past, consensus among major institutions remains fragmented. While certain asset classes enjoy broad support, others spark sharp debate. Here’s what market experts anticipate across eight critical markets.

Precious Metals: Gold and Silver Rally on Divergent Fundamentals

Gold’s Continued Ascent

Gold delivered a remarkable 60% surge in 2025 — its strongest annual performance since 1979 — fueled by Fed rate cuts, persistent central bank accumulation, and geopolitical unrest. The World Gold Council expects this momentum to extend into 2026, with gold potentially appreciating 5%–15% under baseline scenarios, or climbing 15%–30% if global economic headwinds accelerate and the Fed cuts rates aggressively.

Wall Street’s major players are broadly constructive. Goldman Sachs projects gold reaching USD 4,900 per ounce by year-end 2026, underpinned by sustained central bank demand and ETF inflows. Bank of America is even more optimistic, forecasting a USD 5,000/oz target, citing ballooning U.S. fiscal deficits and debt levels as structural tailwinds. Price forecasts across leading institutions cluster between USD 4,500 and USD 5,000/oz.

Silver’s Supply-Driven Bull Case

Silver’s 2025 outperformance relative to gold — driven by a tightening gold-silver ratio and supply scarcity — hints at more upside ahead. The Silver Institute warns of a structural global supply deficit that will likely persist or even deepen in 2026, as industrial demand remains robust and investment appetite recovers while production growth stagnates.

UBS has lifted its 2026 silver price target to USD 58–60 per ounce, with potential upside to USD 65/oz. Bank of America shares this constructive view, also targeting USD 65/oz. This supply-demand imbalance provides a fundamental bedrock for silver prices throughout 2026.

Equities: Technology’s Tailwind Powers U.S. Markets Higher

The Nasdaq 100 surged 22% in 2025 — outpacing the S&P 500’s 18% gain — marking three consecutive years of outperformance. Most market observers expect this momentum to persist into 2026, anchored by relentless capital flows into artificial intelligence infrastructure.

JPMorgan points to enormous capex commitments from hyperscalers including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, with cumulative spending potentially reaching hundreds of billions by 2026. This spending cycle should benefit core Nasdaq constituents like NVIDIA, AMD, and Broadcom. Analysts project the S&P 500 could reach 7,500–8,000 by end-2026 under robust earnings growth scenarios, which in turn suggests Nasdaq 100 could eclipse 27,000 points.

Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin’s Cycle Debate and Ethereum’s Tokenization Bet

Bitcoin: Divergent Views on Cycle Theory

Bitcoin’s 2025 trajectory — hitting an all-time high before retreating near year-end — has sparked competing theories about its future. Standard Chartered recently downwardly revised its Bitcoin target from USD 200,000 to USD 150,000, attributing the change to reduced expectations that crypto treasury firms will continue aggressive purchasing, though ETF inflows should remain supportive. For those converting 150000 USD to CAD equivalents, the exchange rate environment will play a meaningful role in non-U.S. valuations throughout 2026.

Bernstein also projects USD 150,000 for Bitcoin in 2026 (with USD 200,000 by 2027), arguing Bitcoin has broken its traditional four-year cycle and entered an elongated bull phase. Morgan Stanley counters this narrative, asserting the four-year cycle remains intact and warning that the current bull market is approaching exhaustion.

Ethereum: Riding the Tokenization Wave

Ethereum experienced sharper volatility than Bitcoin in 2025 and finished the year relatively flat. Nevertheless, institutions remain optimistic about prospects. JPMorgan highlights the transformative potential of tokenization, which depends heavily on Ethereum’s blockchain infrastructure.

Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMain, is particularly bullish, forecasting Ethereum at USD 20,000 by 2026. He contends Ethereum bottomed in 2025 and is positioned for a significant upside move as the tokenization wave reshapes the next crypto supercycle.

Current data shows Bitcoin trading near $91.25K (up 1.82% in 24 hours) and Ethereum at $3.14K (up 1.27%), both trading well below the more bullish 2026 price targets.

Foreign Exchange: Divergence Across Major Pairs

EUR/USD: Rising on Policy Divergence

EUR/USD delivered a 13% gain in 2025 — its strongest year in nearly eight years — as the U.S. dollar weakened. The consensus for 2026 leans toward further EUR/USD appreciation, buoyed by divergent central bank paths: the Fed cutting rates while the ECB holds steady.

JPMorgan and Nomura project EUR/USD reaching 1.20 by year-end 2026, while Bank of America is more aggressive at 1.22. Morgan Stanley sounds a cautionary note, forecasting EUR/USD could rise initially to 1.23 before retreating to 1.16 in the second half of 2026 if U.S. economic outperformance reasserts itself.

USD/JPY: Battleground Between Bullish and Bearish Cases

USD/JPY declined initially in 2025 before rebounding, finishing the year down roughly 1%. Outlooks diverge sharply heading into 2026.

JPMorgan and Barclays adopt a bullish stance, arguing that Bank of Japan rate hike expectations are already embedded in prices, while Japanese fiscal expansion may weigh on the yen. JPMorgan projects USD/JPY rising to 164 by end-2026. Conversely, Citigroup and Nomura caution that tightening interest rate differentials will dampen yen carry trade appeal. Nomura warns that if U.S. macro data disappoints, unwinding of carry positions could trigger rapid yen strength, forecasting USD/JPY to decline toward 140 before 2026 concludes.

Energy: Oil Faces Downside Bias Amid Supply Risks

Crude oil fell nearly 20% in 2025 as OPEC+ elevated production and U.S. output climbed. Looking ahead, most institutions see downside risks predominating, particularly if OPEC+ maintains elevated output while global demand growth moderates.

Goldman Sachs outlines a bearish scenario in which WTI crude averages around USD 52/barrel and Brent around USD 56/barrel in 2026. JPMorgan similarly highlights downside exposure, projecting WTI near USD 54/barrel and Brent around USD 58/barrel if supply surpluses persist.

The Bottom Line

2026 promises to be a tale of two markets: broad optimism in precious metals, equities, and select forex pairs, tempered by caution in energy and competing crypto narratives. While institutions agree on the direction of certain asset classes, material disagreements on timing, degree, and cyclical positioning suggest volatility will remain a defining feature of markets in the year ahead.