Gene Munster is one of Wall Street's most seasoned and influential technology industry analysts, long regarded as a bellwether for global investors observing technology trends. With over twenty years of experience in the technology industry, he previously worked at the well-known investment research firm Loup Ventures, focusing on major tech companies like Apple, Tesla, and Alphabet, while also specializing in structural changes in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and emerging technology fields. His judgments on industry cycles, capital expenditures, and the pace of technology investment have always been an important reference for the market's assessment of tech stocks.
Recently, Monster officially released its annual market outlook for 2026, providing multiple forecasts regarding the seven tech giants, overall market trends, the development of artificial intelligence, and cloud and AI infrastructure, continuing its consistent bullish stance on technology. The content of this article is merely an observation and analysis of market trends and is not any form of investment advice.
Monster: Under the influence of AI, there is still a chance for the Nasdaq index to rise.
Despite the continuous pessimism in the market regarding the imminent bubble of many AI investments, Monster still believes that with the ongoing wave of investment in artificial intelligence, the Nasdaq index has a chance to rise by 10% or even more by 2026. Monster stated that AI trading is still in its early stages, and 2026 may be the third year of a five-year bull market. He believes that the current discussions about bubbles are actually constructive, as they help manage expectations and reduce the risk of an actual bubble forming.
PSCT is expected to outperform QQQ.
Monster predicts that small tech stocks will show stronger relative performance in 2026, with small and medium-sized tech stocks likely to outperform index funds dominated by large tech stocks. He noted that Invesco S&P SmallCap Information Technology ETF (NASDAQ: PSCT) may perform better in 2026 than Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ), which tracks the NASDAQ 100 index.
PSCT tracks the S&P SmallCap 600 Capped Information Technology Index, which consists of small and medium-sized information technology companies in the U.S. market, designed with a market capitalization weighting. The constituents cover various tech sub-industries, including software, semiconductors, hardware, and communications. Monster believes that under the backdrop of the ongoing expansion of the AI investment cycle and capital expenditures extending downstream in the industry chain, small tech companies possess higher growth flexibility and are expected to stand out in the new wave of technology market.
Optimistic about Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL).
In terms of individual stocks, Monster predicts that Apple will launch a new version of Siri before the end of April 2026, and CEO Cook will remain until the end of 2027. Benefiting from iPhone 17 and advancements in AI services, Apple has the opportunity to become one of the best-performing 'seven giants' in the first half of 2026; looking at the entire year, he is optimistic about Alphabet, believing that Google has the strongest competitiveness in the integration of AI technology stacks and the advancement of the Gemini model.
In the field of autonomous driving, Monster predicts that Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) will launch a safety driver-free Robotaxi service in five cities in 2026, and may expand to 8 to 10 cities by the end of the year. However, he also pointed out that Tesla's delivery volume may be lower than the market's original expectations, but the long-term investment value still comes from fully autonomous driving, Robotaxi, and the Optimus humanoid robot.
Additionally, Monster also expects that Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, will reach one million paid autonomous rides per week by the end of 2026, becoming an important milestone in the industry. Alphabet is expected to be one of the best-performing stocks among the 'seven giants' in 2026.
It is worth noting that Monster predicts that several top AI private companies will still choose to remain unlisted, including Databricks, OpenAI, xAI, and Anduril. He believes that the AI industry is still in a healthy expansion phase, rather than approaching its peak.
This article predicts that Wall Street technology industry analysts foresee that in 2026, PSCT will outperform QQQ, with Google as the leader, first appearing in Chain News ABMedia.