2026年展望：14个火花中的未来一年

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• Savings Across Income Distribution• A K-Shaped Economy for Consumers Tailwinds • Weekly Bankruptcy Filings Trending Down• The One Big Beautiful Bill Will Boost GDP Growth• Strong Foreign Demand for US Assets After Liberation Day 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• 2026 Earnings Expectations Revised Up for the Mag 7 & Down for Everyone Else• Slowdown in Growth in Data Center Construction Key Takeaways About the Author 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,immigration restrictions and the restart of federal student loan payments. Several tailwinds have also gained momentum. AI and the data center boomcontinue to raise investments. The dollar has weakened. And the CongressionalBudget Office (CBO) projects that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will raise GDP byalmost a full percentage point in 2026.1 Torsten Slok, PhDPartner, Apollo Chief Economist 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,while inflation remains above target at 3%, keeping interest rates higher for longer. •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 in2026,2which should keep us all on alert. •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)3and falling inflation that supports earlier rate cuts, while Asia remains a strong buyer of US yield and AI-linkedtechnology. •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 sametime, high inflation, higher-for-longer interest rates and uneven growth create a complex backdrop, akin to the 1970s. 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 outlookacross the overarching themes of headwinds, tailwinds and the impacts of AI. 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 aHappy Holiday season! Torsten SlokApollo Chief Economist Subscribe to the Daily Spark here. 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 consumerspending could result. There are even deeper consequences, both for borrowers and for the broader economy, for those missingpayments or slipping into delinquency. 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. Return to Table of Contents Spark 2 Quantifying Student Loan Balances What is the net balance