UBS On-Air: Market Moves · Client Strategy Office

House Call: Talking Equity Markets with UBS Asset Management

·16 min

The conversation opens on 2026. Ed Tran says the S&P 500 has had a sluggish start, but the tape underneath has been volatile and still looks like an early-cycle setup. He connects that view to expectations for accommodative fiscal and monetary policy, looser regulation across industries, and data that have stayed supportive so far. That backdrop matters. The point is not that every move has been strong, but that the opening months do not yet cut against the broader growth thesis. The discussion then shifts to how investors should read that kind of market. It becomes less about headlines and more about what companies are actually seeing. The bear case matters. Tran says the burden is often not proving the bull case, but trying to break the downside narrative, which is especially hard when the market is trying to price future change. Software gets special attention. He notes that fundamentals for many incumbent software vendors remain fine, even if they are not accelerating, but the bigger issue is what AI and greater competition mean for future growth, terminal growth, and terminal value. In that framing, the market has to think beyond the current quarter. He walks through a more draconian scenario in which greater productivity leads to fewer knowledge workers. That could pressure seat-based software models that may need to reprice themselves for a value-add world. The answer is conditional. A more optimistic reading is that software has gone through existential threats before and has always faced competitive pressure, including well-funded startups. Incumbents are not standing still this time either. They are adopting AI, putting it into products, and changing monetization structures over time. The conversation keeps coming back to evidence. What matters is not whether every risk disappears, but which risks are already in the price and which companies can adapt fast enough to protect their economics. The tone stays measured. It leans on scenario thinking, caveats, and market structure over slogans. The frame is broader than one day. By the end, the episode is really about how to read an early-cycle market while pressure-testing the valuation impact of AI and business model change.

As heard by us

A sober read on a sluggish market that still looks early-cycle beneath the surface.

UBS Asset Management's House Call treats the S&P 500's slow start in 2026 as a market moving beneath the surface. Ed Tran reads it as early-cycle, helped by accommodative fiscal and monetary policy, looser regulation, and soft and hard data that still support the case.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Why a sluggish start to 2026 can still point to an early-cycle market story worth tracking closely.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify