Building Portfolio Resilience: Three Financial Plays Poised to Outperform Beyond the Tech Rally

Strategic Rotation Away from Artificial Intelligence Dominance

Throughout 2025, artificial intelligence captured investor imagination and drove market returns, with technology stocks commanding the lion’s share of capital flows. Yet as momentum potentially shifts, a compelling case emerges for portfolio rebalancing. Financial sector equities demonstrated surprising resilience last year, buoyed by favorable monetary policy adjustments and easing inflation pressures. The macroeconomic environment entering 2026 suggests an even more fertile ground for financial stocks to flourish—particularly those positioned to diversify concentrated tech-heavy portfolios.

Three standout opportunities merit attention: SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI), S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), and UWM Holdings (NYSE: UWMC). Each offers distinct catalysts that could drive meaningful returns.

SoFi Technologies: The Fintech Darling Ready for Explosive Earnings Acceleration

SoFi Technologies presents an intriguing paradox. While technically rooted in fintech innovation, the company has evolved into something fundamentally different—a diversified financial services institution that operates more like a traditional bank than a pure-play tech enterprise.

This transformation from single-service fintech to comprehensive financial platform has proven a market winner. Over the past twelve months, SoFi’s stock price has approximately doubled, reflecting investor confidence in its evolving business model and path to profitability.

The earnings trajectory tells a compelling story. The company reported $0.15 earnings per share in 2024. Sell-side consensus projects $0.37 per share for 2025—a remarkable 147% increase. But the real excitement lies ahead: 2026 analyst forecasts call for $0.57 per share, representing another near-doubling of earnings power.

At 46 times forward earnings, SoFi trades at a premium valuation. However, this price-to-earnings multiple appears justified when viewing the explosive earnings growth pipeline. Investors paying a richly valued entry point today may find themselves rewarded handsomely as profitability metrics catch up to the stock price.

S&P Global: Valuation Compression Creates Opening for Multiple Expansion

S&P Global experienced a peculiar 2025—shares essentially treaded water, moving sideways as the market struggled to reconcile valuation concerns against genuine growth potential.

The dynamics have shifted entering 2026. The company’s valuation multiples have notably compressed, contracting from 30 times forward earnings to 25 times. This compression creates an asymmetrical risk-reward scenario for investors seeking to diversify portfolio exposure.

Multiple tailwinds could drive outperformance. Growth catalysts within the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives remain intact. Simultaneously, its bond ratings division and equity indices segments possess their own expansion opportunities. If management successfully executes across these fronts, results could exceed Wall Street expectations.

Such an outcome would likely spark a dual-engine return dynamic: first, earnings growth driving absolute share price appreciation, and second, valuation multiple expansion as investor perception shifts from “fairly valued” to “undiscovered.” This scenario isn’t merely theoretical—the valuation compression already partially occurred, suggesting the market has begun repricing the opportunity.

UWM Holdings: Housing Market Rebound and Strategic Merger Provide Dual Catalysts

America’s largest mortgage wholesaler has endured a punishing period. The housing market’s sluggish recovery combined with investor skepticism surrounding the company’s announced merger with Two Harbors Investment created a persistent headwind.

Yet 2026 may mark an inflection point. Two factors support this thesis.

First, the prospect of lower interest rates should meaningfully improve mortgage demand dynamics. After years of elevated rates crushing volumes, a normalization in the rate environment could unlock pent-up demand and trigger a meaningful earnings recovery cycle that clearly needs to happen.

Second, the pending Two Harbors combination—despite lingering uncertainties—could prove transformative. Uniting the nation’s premier mortgage wholesaler with one of the country’s largest mortgage servicing operators creates powerful synergies. Cost reduction opportunities abound through operational consolidation, while growth synergies emerge from cross-selling opportunities and market share gains.

Portfolio Diversification Through Sector Rotation

The case for rotating capital into financials to diversify technology-concentrated holdings appears increasingly compelling as 2026 unfolds. These three opportunities represent different expressions of this thesis—fintech disruption maturation (SoFi), valuation rerating potential (S&P Global), and cyclical recovery combined with M&A catalysts (UWM Holdings).

Together, they offer exposure to divergent financial sector dynamics, providing both the specificity of individual opportunity thesis and the broader benefit of portfolio diversification away from artificial intelligence-dependent equities.