The MarketVector Quarterly Thematic Update provides a bird’s eye view of trends in the global equity markets through a thematic lens. We’ve organized our family of thematic indexes into ten meta themes so investors can get a sense of the performance of which megatrends are leading or lagging, while also being able to discover the leading indexes and individual stocks within those broader themes.
Highlights
- The Energy metatheme gained +2.80% QoQ in Q2 2026, though leadership shifted meaningfully from the prior quarter.
- The Consumer Trends metatheme gained +4.71% QoQ in Q2 2026 as investor sentiment improved following a difficult start to the year.
- The Financials 2.0 metatheme gained +6.80% QoQ in Q2 2026 as improving risk appetite and renewed enthusiasm for digital assets more than offset weakness in traditional financial infrastructure.
- Healthcare Innovation gained +10.10% QoQ in Q2 2026 as investor appetite returned to healthcare following several quarters of underperformance.
- The Materials metatheme declined -4.83% QoQ in Q2 2026 as cyclical commodity markets softened following a strong start to the year.
- The Hardware & Communications metatheme surged +53.91% QoQ in Q2 2026 as AI infrastructure spending accelerated across the semiconductor and networking ecosystem.
- The Next Gen Software metatheme gained +20.17% QoQ in Q2 2026 as enterprise AI adoption broadened beyond foundational models into software platforms delivering measurable productivity gains.
- Regional Technology gained +13.62% QoQ in Q2 2026 as the AI infrastructure rally broadened across global technology markets.
- REITs 2.0 gained +11.01% QoQ in Q2 2026 as improving interest-rate expectations and resilient property fundamentals supported a broad recovery across real estate.
- The Industrials & Infrastructure metatheme gained +17.81% QoQ in Q2 2026 as investment continued to broaden beyond AI compute into the physical infrastructure supporting long-term industrial transformation.
Get the latest news & insights from MarketVector
Get the newsletterRelated: