2026展望：未来一年的14个火花

2026 Outlook:The Year Aheadin 14 Sparks Torsten Slok,Apollo Chief Economist D EC E M B E R 20 2 5 Table of Contents A Letter from Torsten Slok Headwinds • 45 Million People Have a Federal Student Loan• Quantifying Student Loan Balances• Delinquency Rates Rising for Student Loans Tailwinds • Weekly Bankruptcy Filings Trending Down• The One Big Beautiful Bill Will Boost GDP Growth The AI Story • AI Adoption Rates Starting to Flatten Out Across All Firm Sizes• Capex Share of Operating Cash Flow for Hyperscalers: 60%• Basically No Growth in Corporate Capex Outside of AI• Profit Margins Rising for the S&P 7 & Declining for the S&P 493 Key Takeaways A Letter from Torsten Slok Resilience Meets Momentum The main story of 2025 has been the strength of the US economy. Growth hasrepeatedly exceeded expectations, including at times my own forecasts. Thisresilience has persisted despite headwinds from trade war uncertainty and tariffs, Several tailwinds have also gained momentum. AI and the data center boomcontinue to raise investments. The dollar has weakened. And the Congressional Against this backdrop, some central themes are emerging as we enter 2026: •Brief stagflation lies ahead.Growth will likely soften over the next few quarters as tariffs continue to be implemented, •A reacceleration will follow.This slowdown will most likely be followed by an AI-fueled recovery. Put another way, weare not in for a recession. Although as of this writing, the consensus is predicting a 30% recession risk for the US in •A continued K-shaped economy.We expect ongoing strength at the top of the income distribution, strain at thebottom and a widening dispersion in spending patterns in the year ahead, creating risks for the broader economy. •Global divergence.The consensus sees lower recession risk in the Eurozone than in the US (20% risk vs. a 30% risk)and falling inflation that supports earlier rate cuts, while Asia remains a strong buyer of US yield and AI-linked •AI as a central macro force.AI and data center investment remain a primary driver of business spending, marketperformance and foreign investor interest. The bottom line is that despite significant turbulence, the US economy continued to hold up in 2025, and with moresigns of improvement, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the momentum going into 2026. At the same The following pages take a deeper look into these themes across a series of charts and data analysis, similar to theDaily Spark newsletter, but with a broader look that encompasses the critical forces driving the US economic outlook I hope you find this format useful. And of course, as 2026 unfolds, my team and I will be closely monitoring andreporting on these trends (and more), so please be sure to sign up for our Daily Spark emails at the link below. Thank you for following along in 2025, and we look forward to hearing from you in the year ahead. Wishing you a Torsten SlokApollo Chief Economist Headwinds 45 Million People Have a Federal Student Loan Quantifying Student Loan Balances Delinquency Rates Rising for Student Loans Savings Across Income Distribution A K-Shaped Economy for Consumers Spark 1 45 Million People Have a Federal Student Loan The moratorium on federal student loan repayments that began during the Covid pandemic in 2020 ended in May of 2025. Putdifferently, in the second half of 2025, nearly 45 million Americans experienced a significant shift in their personal financialpicture. With the spending power of close to 20% of the population potentially impacted, overall softening in consumer Sources: FSA, Apollo Chief Economist What this meansfor 2026 The restarting of federal student loan payments is a notable headwind for a sizableportion of US consumers, especially for middle and lower-income households. Spark 2 Quantifying Student Loan Balances What is the net balance of student loans at the moment? As shown in this chart, about 11 million households have a studentloan balance between $10,000 and $25,000, and 9 million households have a balance in the $25,000 to $50,000 range. At What this meansfor 2026 These loan balances are significant and broad reaching.Restarting payments on loans of this magnitude will have real consequences Spark 3 Delinquency Rates Rising for Student Loans This chart shows what is happening with delinquency rates across different types of consumer credit categories. Followingthe red line reveals a notable jump in student loan delinquencies. But also note the light blue line (credit card delinquencies),which is also climbing. The same trend is happening with auto loans, represented by the orange line. Why? Because the US What this meansfor 2026 Even before student loan payments restarted, many consumerswere already in distress, especially those with more debt, Spark 4 Savings Across Income Distribution Savings levels are another important piece of this picture. This chart explores savings amounts across incom