Themes and opportunities 2026 

In recent years, the foundations of the global economy have begun to shift in ways that few could have anticipated even a decade ago. The assumptions that once anchored market confidence in the post-Cold War era, unencumbered trade, coordinated monetary policy, action on threats to environmental commons, relatively stable currencies, information reliability and a broadly shared belief in the benefits of globalization, are no longer secure. Instead, the world is entering an age where regions are going their own way, institutions struggle to maintain legitimacy, and new rules of engagement are being written in real time. This we term the “Post-consensus” era.

This year’s overall theme captures a landscape in which the norms that guided portfolio construction, risk management, and strategic allocation for decades are being reconsidered, re-examined, and in many cases overturned. 

Through the course of this paper, we outline some of the key themes and opportunities we see over the next five years and beyond. To make sense of this evolving landscape, we categorize our themes as follows:

• Regime change — One-off, enduring shifts in conditions.
• Supercycles — Current position in classic economic supercycles (debt and commodity cycles) and the supercycle of socioeconomic paradigms (Kondratieff waves or Strauss-Howe saecula).
• Megatrends — Multi-decade transitions gradually reshaping the world.

This year, the report focuses on eight themes that play out across different timeframes and pathways but are set to have a profound effect on investor portfolios.

Periods of uncertainty have always pushed investors toward perceived safe havens, with the US dollar serving that role for decades. Yet while the dollar still trades near multi-decade highs, its behavior has become less predictable, at times moving in tandem with risk assets and blurring its traditional defensive function. The search for stability has also broadened, as growing interest in gold, stablecoins, and bitcoin reflects a wider rethinking of where resilience and value reside.

This evolving behavior among major currencies signals more than a temporary adjustment. It reveals the fragility of the monetary order established since Bretton Woods, as heavy debt loads, persistent inflation, and geopolitical fragmentation test the post-Nixon era of dollar dominance. Central banks’ gradual diversification of reserves adds further weight to the question of whether new stores of value could emerge alongside traditional havens such as gold or farmland.

For decades, globalization operated along an east–west axis, built on open trade, just-in-time supply chains, and deep financial interdependence between advanced and emerging economies. That framework is now being redrawn. Geopolitical competition, regulatory divergence, and a renewed focus on security are pushing trade and investment toward a north–south orientation. Developed markets in North America and Europe are strengthening links with resource-rich and fast-growing economies in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia, seeking greater reliability and new engines of demand. This shift marks a move from efficiency to resilience. Nations are diversifying partners and reconfiguring supply chains to operate in a more fragmented global system. For investors, this creates a landscape of both challenge and opportunity: fragmented production networks and regional inflation pressures heighten risk, while the expansion of new trade routes, investment in critical minerals, and infrastructure for southward integration open long-term avenues for growth.

Global supply chains are under pressure, and long-standing assumptions about efficiency and abundance are being redefined. Trade tensions, shifting alliances, and resource constraints are prompting both companies and policymakers to reconsider how goods are produced and secured. The emphasis is shifting from maximizing efficiency to embedding resilience, with less dependence on global integration and greater focus on building adaptive, resource-efficient systems. The circular economy, which reduces waste and recycles materials, represents one path forward, while advances in material science, such as substitutes for critical minerals and bio-based products, expand the options for creating more durable industrial models.