As investors stare down the start of 2026, one thing is clear: the playbook that worked over the last decade won’t cut it in the next.
Between stubborn inflation fears, a ballooning US national debt and relentless innovation in digital finance, the lines between Wall Street, Washington and Web3 are blurring fast.
That’s exactly the crossroads where Jac Arbour spends his time.
Arbour, a CFP and ChFC, is the founder and CEO of J.M. Arbour Wealth Management, a firm he launched in 2007 that now serves more than 1,300 individuals and families.
He has been watching three powerful currents gathering speed: institutional money moving into tokenized real-world assets, a potential rotation away from mega-cap growth darlings into small and mid-cap value, and renewed momentum in gold and utility-focused crypto assets like Ethereum.
In an exclusive interview with Invezz, Arbour unpacks why these shifts matter, how they could reshape portfolios in the year ahead, and what forward-looking investors should be watching as 2026 comes into view.
Excerpts:
Invezz: What should investors actually be doing differently heading into 2026? What’s changed versus what’s just noise?
Jac Arbour: What has materially changed going into 2026 is the rate of change in key macro variables, particularly liquidity, earnings breadth, and the global rate-cut cycle.
Markets are transitioning from a narrow, liquidity-driven environment to one that increasingly rewards selectivity, diversification, and disciplined risk management.
What has not changed is investor behaviour as people still overreact to headlines and underestimate the durability of long-term trends.
The key here is not to always follow the crowd to the point where pricing can be justified solely by fundamental analysis.
At J.M. Arbour, we are advising clients to upgrade their portfolios rather than overhaul them.
Rebalance into strength, trim concentration risk, and add exposure to assets that benefit from a moderating inflation, stable-growth backdrop.
Upgrading quality is essential, and so is a dose of high-quality private assets.
The biggest mistake is treating 2026 as a reset year; as most signals indicate, it is actually a continuation of the same structural trends, with more volatility in certain sectors, which could be good or bad depending on other variables.
Price-to-earnings will likely stay high, and tracking volatility-based returns should zoom into focus.
Invezz: Why should first-time investors consider digital assets in 2026? What real problem do they solve?
Jac Arbour: The noise around digital assets can be overwhelming, but the underlying value proposition has never been clearer:
Digital assets solve three problems traditional financial instruments struggle with:
- 24/7 global settlement without intermediaries, and done insanely fast
- Programmable ownership that enables new forms of yield, collateralization, and governance
- Access to emerging technologies and networks in a way that equities can’t fully capture
For someone new to the space in 2026, the case isn’t speculation but rather portfolio efficiency.
Tokenized treasuries, stablecoins, and high-quality layer-one networks provide liquidity, diversification, and asymmetric upside with increasingly institutional infrastructure behind them.
All the big boys are on board and working fast behind the scenes to be the leaders in the space, whether they discuss it or not.
Our stance is conservative: start small, focus on utility-driven assets, and treat crypto as a complement, not a replacement, to traditional holdings.
Even if you start with 1% of investable assets in this asset class, the asymmetric rewards it offers could impact 20% or more of the downside on the other 99%, should it happen.
Worst-case scenario, I view it as a hedging tool. The use of option collars is a way for investors to grab some exposure with limited downside.
Invezz: Mega-cap tech has dominated for years. Is diversification finally relevant again? How are you positioning clients?
Jac Arbour: Mega-cap tech remains foundational. The cash flows, balance sheets, and AI infrastructure advantages are real.
We’re seeing improving technical and fundamental signals in industrial automation, cybersecurity, energy infrastructure, and certain parts of healthcare.
Diversification will always matter; not because mega-caps will collapse, but because other sectors are ready to participate in the growth cycle.
Also important to note: the speed at which other sectors can become increasingly significant is faster than we have seen in previous decades due to the technology to which all sectors have access.
For clients, we’re suggesting consideration of:
- Maintaining core exposure to the largest tech platforms
- Rotating incrementally into sectors with improving earnings revisions
- Using alternatives such as private credit, venture capital, all-cap value with small and mid-cap core/value concentrations, digital assets, and managed futures to counter single-sector concentration risk.
It’s not about abandoning what’s worked; it’s about building a more resilient return stream for the next three years.
Invezz: Gold near all-time highs: still a hedge, or too expensive? How are you protecting clients from inflation in 2026?
Jac Arbour: Gold’s strength isn’t about inflation alone. It is also about global uncertainty, fiscal dominance, and declining real yields.
While it’s elevated, it is not overextended from a macro-cycle standpoint. We still view gold and gold-linked assets as a valid hedge, though position sizing matters more at these levels.
Our 2026 inflation-protection framework blends:
- Gold and miners (measured allocations, not oversized bets)
- Global Inflation-linked assets
- Energy and infrastructure equities
- Selective digital-asset exposure has behaved increasingly like a hedge against monetary debasement.
The goal is to protect purchasing power without anchoring the entire portfolio to a single outcome.
Invezz: How much are client conversations about defence vs. growth? Are investors too optimistic?
Jac Arbour: Right now, it’s roughly 60% risk management, 40% growth. People are aware of the geopolitical noise and fiscal issues, but they’re also seeing resilient earnings and improving liquidity conditions.
Clients generally aren’t too optimistic about the broad spectrum. Those asking the right questions, in my opinion, are becoming narrow in their focus.
When a person is too uncertain of their approach, it can be costly. Sitting on the sidelines during periods of elevated volatility has historically led to underperformance.
And right now, volatility is high. It’s time to be a sniper. Put the shotgun in the vault. And don’t be greedy.
Our message is consistent:
The macro backdrop warrants caution, not paralysis. A defensive bias is healthy, but it must be paired with a plan to capture upside when markets resume or maintain (which is very possible) broadening.
Invezz: If someone is sitting on cash or an outdated portfolio, what’s the one move they should make before 2026?
Jac Arbour: The single most impactful action is to modernize the portfolio’s core allocations. That means:
- Reducing legacy concentration risk without diluting quality
- Incorporating assets that benefit from today’s rate and liquidity dynamics.
- Building exposure to structural themes like AI, digital infrastructure, and tokenized assets. Like it or not, understand them or not, these assets are here to stay.
It’s less about finding “the trade of 2026” and more about making sure the portfolio is aligned with today’s market regime, not yesterday’s.
Cash is not a long-term strategy. A modernized, diversified allocation is worth consideration.
The post Interview: ‘the biggest mistake is treating 2026 as a reset year,’ Jac Arbour on modernising portfolios for next market regime appeared first on Invezz