Ideas for Finance and Value ETFs in 2026

The US economy and US dollar seem set to improve in 2026. Trump is calling for swingeing cuts in the Fed interest rate. This should be better for US stocks. US banks and credit card companies have not performed particularly well in 2025 for UK investors, partly because of the  USD/GBP Fx rate but this should change in 2026. The GBP\USD Fx rate should not change so much over 2026.

So apart from my previous buys in gold, silver and copper miners, I have been looking at the US Finance ETF XSFN (dist.) which is similar to IUFS (acc.) and also Value ETFs.

Finance ETFs

The companies I like the most in this ETF are Visa and Mastercard and these two companies could be bought separately if you did not want to hold them in the ETF. I can see people in the USA struggling to pay their credit bills in 2026 as the cost of tariffs on imported goods hits home and perhaps AI will cause job losses.

The EU STOXX ETF BNKE has done very well in 2025, but I am not sure if it will continue to do well in 2026.

Value (low price) ETFs

Whilst Quality ETFs focus on financially strong companies with stable earnings, low debt and high profitability (high ROE), aiming for consistent performance and stability, while Value ETFs target stocks priced cheaply relative to their intrinsic worth, seeking big gains when the market recognizes their true potential, often during economic recoveries, representing different philosophies: quality emphasizes company strength while value emphasizes low price. 

Many people believe that some (e.g. tech) stocks are overvalued at the moment, so buying quality or value ETFs makes sense for 2026.

The ones below are nearly all distributing Value ETFs because I want to buy and hold these long term in my GIA account.

XDEV (acc.) and IWVG (dist.) are pretty much identical in performance and have similar holdings. XDEQ is a Quality ETF and is included for comparison only.

Of these, I like IWVG (or XDEV), IEDL (Europe) and PSRU (UK) the most. These three give me a diverse spread of companies and countries (as a UK investor) - although the tobacco company BAT is in all three.

If I was just picking one for my GIA it would be IWVG (or XDEV which is accumulating and so OK to hold inside an ISA/SIPP).

I am just waiting for a market correction and then I will buy more of these (I already hold some IWVG and PSRU).

Let me know if you have a good Value ETF for 2026.

The above is not financial advice - please do your own research.

Currently, my T212 ISA is showing an IRR of 27% and my T212 Invest GIA has an IRR of 60%. I tend to buy single company stocks in the ISA for short term trading whereas in the GIA I buy mostly long term ETFs. Both accounts are less than 1 year old.

Tips

Caterpillar make heavy machines for the mining and construction industry. They are now adding AI into their machines but they also produce large turbines for AI data centers and have a full order book. I have been buying them for a few months now...

Micron were another previous tip and which are doing nicely for me too...

Happy hunting!