Analysis by Mari Pinardo
“With fewer risks, better earnings prospects, lower inflation and lower interest rates, it makes sense for the stock markets to rise further” – this is how Bankinter’s analysis team summarises its outlook for the remainder of 2026, presented on Tuesday by its director, Ramón Forcada. At his traditional press briefing, Forcada noted that the markets have become accustomed to living with risks and that the environment for equities shows considerable improvement compared with his last strategy presentation.
Corporate earnings will continue to underpin valuations; indeed, the bank has revised its outlook for 2026 upwards: by around 7 per cent in the United States and 4 per cent in Europe, bringing expected growth to 23 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.
“Given that, in the medium term, stock markets tend to reflect the performance of corporate earnings, this dynamic provides solid support for the valuations of the various indices.”
Since “in the medium and long term, stock markets follow corporate earnings” – barring anomalies in other factors – with this support and a constructive news flow, Bankinter considers that the environment remains pro-market and conducive to risk-taking.
On this basis, its analysts expect the Ibex 35 to rise by 12.2% by the end of 2026 and by 14.9% by 2027, with an estimated level of 22,328 points.
As Ramón Forcada has explained, only three factors could prevent equities from continuing their strong performance: higher interest rates in the future, which could cause valuations to fall; excessive complications in geopolitical issues (Russia–Ukraine, US–Iran); or that optimism surrounding initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector ultimately proves to be excessive. However, Bankinter does not consider any of these three scenarios particularly likely.
It has indicated that its view is that the ECB’s next move will be a rate cut; furthermore, inflation should begin to fall once oil prices stabilise, and the market has become accustomed to living with two wars. As for oil, they believe prices should return to normal next year, forecasting a return to $80 per barrel.
No fear of AI
And with regard to IPOs by AI companies, it points out that the problem lies in valuation – “as in the case of cryptocurrencies” – and that the course set by the recently listed SpaceX will be decisive for the rest; in fact, it considers it encouraging that OpenAI has decided to wait before going public, “it adds a touch of rationality; the influence of IPOs by companies that aren’t making a profit but are hypothetically very highly valued would create a lot of noise for the rest of the companies, and if that noise is postponed, so much the better”.
Despite this, Bankinter believes that these companies will manage to make a return on their investments, for several reasons: demand for data consumption is enormous and goes beyond personal use; semiconductor companies have already started to generate profits and it will soon be the turn of the hyperscalers; and, furthermore, these are companies that have been giants for quite some time, which means they have sound balance sheets with investment capacity.
