Where to Invest $1 Million Right Now
Four investment experts point to promising areas in a nervous market.
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Investors are having a very bad bout of AI anxiety.
Mounting concerns about whether artificial intelligence can live up to its hype and justify the rich valuations at mega-cap tech companies have many investors taking profits. At the same time, the AI “fear trade” has put the prospects of a range of industries under scrutiny and sent software stocks plunging. With the share prices of some tech stalwarts dropping by double digits, Bitcoin plunging and even gold going through some wild swings, “old economy” stocks led the Dow Jones Transportation Average to outperform the S&P 500 over the past six weeks. However, in recent days even trucking companies have been hit by the AI fear trade.
The rolling market turmoil comes on top of continued geopolitical upheaval, US labor market worries and signs of less robust spending by stretched lower-income Americans. As talk of the end of an era of US exceptionalism grows louder, it all adds up to a pronounced risk-averse mood in the markets.
When Bloomberg asked four wealth advisers where to invest $1 million right now, one described arguably boring companies — high-quality businesses with stable cash flows, particularly in health care and pharma — as looking particularly good. For other advisers, AI remains a key theme, albeit channeled through less obvious plays or companies where product demand is easier to gauge. Emerging markets, which have been attracting huge investor inflows, got the nod from one adviser, as did private-market investments in sports ventures and lower-middle market companies.
The experts also shared ideas for how they’d spend a $1 million windfall on a passion outside of the investing world. Their suggestions ranged from a walk-in wine cellar full of Italian red to buying land for conservation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and springing for a Croatian island home.
Read more: How to Maximize a Roth IRA — And Retire Rich
Kate Moore, chief investment officer, Citi Wealth
Explore Metals, Minerals, Banks
The idea: I’d take a three-pronged approach. First, I would take risk through a growth opportunity. Second would be an investment I’d consider more stable. And third, I would add an opportunistic investment that has lower correlation to the other two. In practice, that means exposure to key industrial metals and critical minerals tied to the AI capex buildout, along with industrial companies supplying the derivative businesses around data centers. For the more stable part of the portfolio, I like large, diversified money-center banks. And for the opportunistic sleeve, I’d point to gold for longer-term, structural reasons.
The strategy:
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing around a potential slowdown in AI and tech capex, and we think that concern is overplayed. This concern should have faded as companies reported earnings over the last few weeks and raised their technology capex plans. The opportunity set remains significant. We’ve been focused on resource metals for the past two to three months and our conviction has actually strengthened — even as some commodity prices have moved higher.
We see meaningful upside across resource metals, particularly on the industrial side tied to the capex buildout. We’d take a diversified approach, but copper stands out. It has the broadest applicability, and the near-term supply-demand balance looks especially compelling. Some of that story is already priced in, but we believe there’s further upside.
Across critical minerals more broadly, many are byproducts of other mining activity, which is why diversified mining exposure makes sense. And if you move further downstream in the AI theme, there’s also opportunity across the industrial complex — machinery, equipment, hardware and the technology required not just to build data centers, but to operate and maintain them, as well as the broader ecosystem of businesses around them.
The more stable investment, in our view, is large diversified banks. Many are in very strong shape and we see the macro environment as one of acceleration rather than stagnation in the first half of the year. There are also clear near-term catalysts. Capital markets activity is one of the most powerful tailwinds supporting bank earnings — IPOs, M&A and selective deal-making should be a major theme over the next couple of quarters. The second tailwind is the administration’s deregulatory push, which is also supportive of earnings.
Gold is the opportunistic investment I’d highlight. Central banks are continuing to diversify their reserves, which is an important structural support. But longer term, institutional investors are also rethinking portfolio construction — specifically how much exposure they want to US dollar assets and Treasuries. We don’t expect a wholesale shift away from dollar assets, but incremental flows are likely to move toward diversifying assets over time. In a moderate-risk portfolio, we’d target an allocation to gold of about 5%.
The big picture: On AI, I’ve been listening closely to how companies are talking about their 2026 plans, particularly where they are maintaining or increasing spending. What’s notable is that the universe of companies investing in these capabilities is expanding well beyond the hyperscalers. We expect supply constraints to emerge across parts of the machinery and equipment complex — not just for building data centers but for maintaining them. The market tends to focus narrowly on hyperscaler capex or on chips. Our message is to broaden exposure. We see the technology as transformational and we believe spending will ultimately exceed current forecasts and expectations.
Sinead Colton Grant, chief investment officer, BNY Wealth
Play the Memory Super-Cycle
The idea: US stocks still look interesting, but you have to be selective. In tech, you really need to think about who the big beneficiaries are going to be out of everything that’s AI-related. Now, there are question marks over software, but you know what is always going to be in demand is memory. Sports investing is another interesting area now.
The strategy:
Memory is the key bottleneck for AI server performance and we already know that the capacity for memory is sold out through 2026. We’ve had a number of the big tech names reference capacity issues when it comes to memory, that basically they can’t get enough of it. Demand for memory has increasingly shifted to data centers and cloud providers, which have longer cycles and better visibility on their future needs than on the consumer side. Current supply of memory is much less than demand, driving prices higher. Some participants believe tight supply conditions could last until 2028. So it looks like we’re seeing more of a memory super-cycle.
This presents a way to play AI that is more insulated from the broader concerns around SaaS [software as a service] companies. That’s not to say that these companies are completely insulated from volatility, but volatility like we have seen recently can be an opportunity to pick up some of the names in this space.
Sports investing in the US is another interesting area that is popular with some family offices we work with. These offices have been earlier to focus on areas that are nice diversifiers, and to add exposure you can think of as a quasi-inflation hedge that generates good returns. Since the pandemic, the [sports] clubs had to become more creative about how they raise capital and there are interesting opportunities, whether it’s multi-purpose use of new or repurposed stadiums or revenues from the teams themselves. These are all private investments and there is a broad spectrum of opportunities. At one end of the spectrum, you have the much more mature, big-name franchises that are private-equity kind of opportunities. At the other end of the spectrum are some of the newer leagues, whether that’s women’s basketball or women’s soccer, and that has more of a venture-capital flavor.
The big picture: Because of how cooperative the markets have been in the past few years, sometimes people lose sight of the fact that markets are volatile and it’s not unusual to have a 10% or more drawdown in a single year. For 2026 as a whole, we see robust earnings. That gives us a target of 7,500 for the S&P 500, most of which is coming from earnings, not multiple expansion. We’re seeing sectors outside of tech picking up more of the slack, so the market won’t be as tech-led as in recent years, and that’s a sign of a healthy market. That said, we see better opportunities outside the US, in developed and emerging markets.
Don Calcagni, chief investment officer, Mercer Advisors
Look to Emerging Markets
The idea: The smart money is moving far beyond large-cap US equities. We think we are still in the early innings of outperformance for emerging markets ex-China. Emerging markets have been doing well and we don’t think the trade is long in the tooth. There’s also opportunity in lower-middle market essential-services companies.
The strategy:
There’s a structural tailwind for emerging markets that’s probably going to persist for a while. The value of the dollar increased dramatically in the wake of Covid, and we thought it was simply a matter of time until it started to come back down — that, as the Fed began to reduce interest rates, the dollar would weaken and that would be a tailwind for emerging markets broadly. We recently saw the nomination of Kevin Warsh for Fed chairman and he’s very likely to push to continue to cut interest rates. Many of the advisers around President Trump want the US dollar to decline in value, so for at least the next two, maybe three years, that’s probably the tailwind we will experience.
Within emerging markets, you’ve got to be careful, though. I like emerging markets ex-China specifically because I would want to have better, deeper exposure to countries like India, Vietnam, Mexico and South Korea. I’d want a basket of high-quality emerging market countries benefiting from the nearshoring trend. Given the geopolitical tensions between the US and China, you’re seeing this change in global supply chains and those are the countries best positioned to really benefit from that broader policy environment globally. I think it’s very unlikely that China is suddenly in the good graces of existing or future US administrations.
I like a more diversified approach because anything can change, especially with this administration. A certain country could suddenly be targeted. I felt a little nervous last year when the president was talking about tariffing India. We are very bullish on India. They are likely the biggest beneficiary from countries trying to diversify supply chains away from China. India has the world’s largest population, a young population, and it’s continuing to grow. The government has been embarking on pro-business tax reforms and you see a bit of a deregulatory wind.
Another attractive area is lower-middle market private equity. We’re especially interested in essential-services companies that are deploying technology to increase revenue and expand margins. Many such sectors have significant opportunities for consolidation, where best-in-class platform-type companies can acquire smaller sub-scale firms within their industry and create value through improved economies of scale, multiple expansion and operating leverage.
The big picture: The investment thesis for US equities as a whole is largely intact, with interest rates expected to go lower and pretty high forecasts for earnings growth. But expected returns going forward aren’t going to be nearly as high as what you’re going to see in emerging markets ex-China and in lower-middle market private equity. The world has changed in interesting ways that we’re still trying to figure out and that introduces a new calculus for investors and means we should be more careful. I pay very close attention to the bond market, which is the ultimate power in the universe. If there’s a canary in the coal mine, it’s the bond market, and we should continue to pay closer attention to the yield trends in 10-, 20-, 30-year US Treasury bonds. The US has mounting debt and that could potentially become destabilizing.
Philip Straehl, chief investment officer-Americas, Morningstar Wealth
Focus on Quality, Small Caps
The idea: We see more opportunities at this stage in higher-quality stocks that are more defensive, have more stable cash flows and have durable franchises. Quality has done quite poorly, especially outside the US — the Morningstar Developed Market ex-US Quality Factor index underperformed the broad market by 12% in 2025. We think non-US quality stocks have more upside.
The strategy:
The most important measure of quality we use is a company’s economic moat — the ability to earn excess profits in a particular industry. What we call a wide-moat company is one with the ability to hang on to its competitive advantage for over 20 years. We look for quality in stable cash flows and in the variability of company earnings — we want to see how much earnings would go down during a typical economic cycle and how much financial leverage is on the balance sheet. There are higher-quality businesses we like in health care and pharma that certainly fit the profile. We also like consumer staples companies, particularly in the packaged goods area where we think valuations are quite attractive and companies have a defensive profile.
Quality companies are often a good investment because they tend to fall less in a down market than what people expect. It’s usual that on down days, if you actually see a correction or a bear market, people start realizing that hey, this company is actually able to compound its cash flow and keep growing, even during an economic downturn. That’s when investors wake up to that fact and start moving away from high-flying growth.
We also continue to like small-cap stocks. It’s a valuation story compared to other market segments since they are more reasonably valued. It’s also a diversification story around the market concentration in the S&P 500. From a portfolio construction standpoint, small caps just remove some of the idiosyncratic or stock-specific risk in the markets today. If a large company reports earnings and there’s idiosyncratic information about that company that the market doesn’t like, it has an impact on the overall market. Diversifying away from that company risk, in our minds, is a prudent strategy.
We see an emerging opportunity in some software companies. In our view, you’ve seen some indiscriminate selling. There are a number of companies, especially in the enterprise world, which are very well-integrated with Fortune 500-, Fortune 2000-type companies and the market might be overreacting to the ability of an AI agent or some sort of new platform to come in and disrupt that.
The big picture: We’ve had a really strong three-year period in equities. US equity investors are used to double-digit annual returns, with stocks outperforming bonds by 70% cumulatively over the period. It’s time to reset expectations in terms of what a realistic path forward might be. The economic backdrop in the US seems to be okay, with the big question being on the labor market side and whether we will see a continued slowdown. Our economists are not forecasting a recession per se, but we are a little concerned about the valuations being priced into markets today.