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With fears of a looming economic slowdown or even a full-blown recession on the rise, predictions of a new stock market crash in 2026 have once again started to emerge.
It goes without saying that a crash isn’t a particularly pleasant experience, especially for those going through it for the first time. However, with the right strategy, investors can use the volatility to propel their portfolios to record highs and drastically expand their wealth. Here’s how.
Volatility creates opportunity
Let’s assume the worst and say the stock market suddenly falls 20% next week as investors start to panic about the geopolitical and economic climate, selling off their stocks. As a consequence, index fund investors see a large chunk of their portfolios get wiped out quickly while stock pickers likely endure even more volatility with some of their stronger growth positions falling more than 50%.
While not a market crash, that’s precisely what happened during the 2022 US market correction, with growth stocks like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) falling by 55% over the space of a year.
Uncertainty about inflation, combined with a rapid rise in interest rates and a cost-of-living crisis, hit businesses across the board four years ago. And while the catalysts for a potential crash in 2026 are different (tariff inflation, supply chain disruptions, rising unemployment and steep valuations), it would nonetheless create a similar long-term opportunity.
Instead of recognising that Amazon’s long-term strategy and growth potential weren’t compromised by temporary macroeconomic uncertainty, most investors rushed for the exits and sold their Amazon shares.
Yet the intelligent long-term investors who recognised the bargain that the market volatility had created scrambled to buy Amazon shares while everyone else was selling. The result? Since December 2022, Amazon shares have almost tripled as the economies started recovering.
As Amazon demonstrates, while scary, capitalising on these rare and wonderful buying opportunities opens the door to fantastic market-beating returns. And more importantly, it accelerates the wealth-building process, allowing some investors to potentially retire much earlier.
Still worth considering in 2026?
As we enter 2026, Amazon shares are once again looking a bit frothy with a price-to-earning ratio of 35. That’s certainly not as high as it was back in late 2021, but it does open the door to elevated volatility if something goes wrong. And there are a few potential weak spots for investors to dig into.
A big concern is the group’s aggressive capital expenditure plans for upgrading and rolling out new data centres and AI infrastructure. For the time being, AI demand’s proving to be a handy tailwind for its hyperscaler services.
But if companies begin pulling back on AI initiatives due to a lack of tangible value creation, Amazon could end up with capacity underutilisation issues.
As for the e-commerce side of the business, a slowdown in consumer spending equally doesn’t bode well. And we’ve already seen some weakness start to creep in, with its July and October 2025 Prime Day sales failing to meet expectations.
Nevertheless, the latest results show encouraging momentum for its data centre arm, and its long-term e-commerce trajectory still looking strong, Amazon shares could definitely be worth a closer look. Especially if the stock market does indeed decide to throw a tantrum later this year.
