2026 Themes Emerge Leading Into a Busy Q1 Second Half Investor Conference Season

by Christine Short of Wall Street Horizon, 2/13/26

Takeaways

  • Software’s DeepSeek AI moment, Dow 50k, a yo-yo dollar, and “sell America” are market narratives

  • Price action, corporate profits, and perhaps even jobs data buck bearish viewpoints

  • Investor conferences through quarter-end offer color on macro risks and opportunities

Is artificial intelligence (AI) eating the software world? That might be the industry-specific question investors, analysts, and executives will toss around in the months ahead. The first week of February was the China DeepSeek AI moment for software-as-a-service companies. Hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap were shed from the likes of Salesforce (CRM), Intuit (INTU), ServiceNow (NOW), Adobe (ADBE), and others. Deep red hit the space just as the AI hyperscalers announced capex numbers well above Street estimates.

Push will come to shove in the weeks ahead as tech executives take questions at key investor conferences over the back half of the first quarter.

Energy and Materials Take the Lead

But there’s more to the market’s story than just tech. In fact, Information Technology is near the bottom of the S&P 500 YTD sector performance pack. Leading the current leg of the bull market are resource stocks. Energy and Materials, both up by more than 15% in 2026, have outperformed thanks to rising oil and metals prices, a weaker dollar, and the rotation trade.

Interestingly, oil and gas companies are apparently doing more with less—profits and stock prices in the oil patch are up even with historically low WTI and Brent values. CERAWeek is the standout Energy conference to keep tabs on toward the end of March.

Dow 50,000 Challenges the Bear Case

Bigger picture, the “sell America” narrative has carried over from last year. Perhaps this storyline needs to be rebranded as “buy ex-USA.” Indeed, International equities have soared just six weeks into 2026. At the same time, with the Dow crossing 50,000 for the first time and the S&P 500 near its record high, it’s difficult to put much stock in a bearish USA theme.

What’s more, Treasury yields have dipped from a few weeks ago, while U.S. corporate bonds trade close to a multi-decade low yield spread. The dollar, meanwhile, has not been able to get off the mat. The greenback took a spill in late January when President Trump intimated that he would be fine if the dollar declined from its current level.