Investment considerations for financial intermediaries 2026 

As markets transition from an era of abundant liquidity and synchronized policy to one defined by higher funding costs, structural divergence, and accelerated innovation, advisors are being asked to do more than allocate capital.

They are being asked to interpret complexity, protect clients, and deliver resilient outcomes in an environment where every investment decision carries both opportunity and operational risk.

In our long-term outlook, Themes and Opportunities 2025: Post Consensus, underscores this transformation. It highlights a market shaped by competing forces that increasingly challenge the foundational assumptions of the past few decades. Free trade, central bank independence, Western technological leadership, and the trajectory of the energy transition have all become subjects of renewed debate, each with the potential to reshape global capital flows and portfolio outcomes. For financial intermediaries, this environment demands a recalibration of approach: balancing long-term conviction with operational discipline and an unwavering focus on client protection.

As allocations to private markets expand, driven by opportunities in AI, healthcare innovation, data infrastructure, and impact-oriented themes such as the circular economy and biodiversity, the need for robust oversight has intensified. Identifying top-tier managers is necessary but no longer sufficient. Advisors must evaluate how those managers operate: their governance frameworks, valuation practices, cash controls, technology resilience, and third-party dependencies. Operational Due Diligence (ODD) has become the cornerstone of fiduciary integrity, protecting client capital in an increasingly complex ecosystem.

Across asset classes, similar principles apply. In liquid markets, hedge funds are evolving from diversifiers into deliberate return enhancers in a higher-for-longer world. Equity hedging is being re-examined as a flexible mechanism to preserve capital without disrupting allocation policy. And within private markets, investors are discovering new avenues for resilience and liquidity through secondaries and the emergence of Private Debt 2.0.

Over the next year, the emphasis for intermediaries will be on mastering this balance, between opportunity and oversight, innovation and prudence. Those who embed operational excellence alongside strategic insight will be strategically positioned to navigate an era defined by divergence, complexity, and change.

The top considerations for financial intermediaries, in this environment, focus on five key areas:

1. Protecting Clients in an Evolving Private Markets Landscape
2. Hedge Funds: From Diversifiers to Return Enhancers in a Higher-for-Longer World
3. Equity Hedging: Practical Applications for Challenging Markets
4. Four potential benefits of adding Secondaries
5. Private Debt 2.0: Opportunities beyond direct lending