Disruptive Forces in Investing

As 2023 comes to a close, with its turbulent and challenging market conditions, we look ahead to navigating the complex yet hopefully rewarding landscape to come. How can investors manage volatility and risk, and still find promising investment opportunities? What does the process of creating the ten themes entail? And what strategies can investors adopt to navigate these ever-changing financial m...

As the end of the year approaches, many of us consider what we can we do for those in need. Charitable contributions are a vital source of capital for non-profit organizations, but how do investors consider allocating to these causes within their portfolio construction effectively? And particularly during these times of volatility, how can donors optimize their philanthropic efforts? On this Givin...

  As we continue to navigate the challenged market environment, investors have been exploring what their options are for liquidity in their portfolios. Secondary Private Equity investors in particular have a lot to grapple with: from the undercapitalization of the secondary market to the shifting goals of buyers and sellers in the space. However, could the undercapitalization in the secondary mark...

There have been countless disruptions to the asset management industry in the last century with many groundbreaking innovations along the way. From the modernization of the '40 Act to the transformative impact of generative AI, how can we strive for excellence in this incredibly complex environment? Is there a way to have positive systemic impact? And what challenges and opportunities exist in the...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm, capturing our curiosity and driving massive investment in technology infrastructure. With the democratization of AI capabilities, the possibilities are endless. However there are also challenges and limitations, including the need for responsible use, data security, privacy, and regulatory frameworks. Which industries could be transformed...

A shift into higher rates globally over the latter part of 2023 has created a new investment regime in the fixed income markets; prompting investors to reassess their strategic asset allocation. Despite the reset of fixed income yields to much higher levels, making the asset class look attractive, how can investors be prepared for potential rate cuts while balancing the exciting opportunities that...

With this year's bank failures and the continued rise of interest rates, questions loom about where our economy is headed and how best we can prepare ourselves for what is next. With concerns of a recession and commercial real estate defaults, what can investors do to better prepare themselves for what is to come? How will the opportunities weigh against the risks? On this episode of Disruptive Fo...

In the last decade, we've have seen many shifts. One in particular that predates the market volatility of today is something known as the Great Wealth Transfer. This ongoing phenomenon came to fruition as baby boomers began to retire and started passing down their wealth to the next generation. But how are the heirs of this wealth deploying their capital differently than the generations before the...

Index funds give investors broad exposure to the market at an accessible price point and have taken equity markets by storm in recent years. As index companies make decisions about how to construct their indices, we wonder if those decisions are more active than market participants realize. What is known for its passive flair may actually be more active than it appears, so is there more to indexat...

The Emerging Markets sector has not been immune to today's market challenges. Between the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, factors such as the cost of living and food inflation have caused an adverse impact on sovereign balance sheets. As a result, many of these countries have failed to meet external liabilities, inciting a wave of sovereign debt default. So what's next for this asset class? O...

With the broad awareness of the energy transition across the globe, investors are looking for ways to position their portfolios to capture the transition. However, some question whether portfolios exposed to the business of extracting more raw materials from the earth can meet the objectives of all investors. While commodity investing has been known to be an excellent inflation hedge, can this ass...

As the commercial real estate landscape continues to evolve out of the many crises that hit the sector, namely with COVID and regional banks, investors are evaluating what their next move is within this asset class. While headlines may seem gloomy, and default rates could continue to be a concern, is it still possible to have optimism in commercial real estate despite market fears? Or are there si...

Japan, an outlier across the G10 nations, is truly an intriguing economy. While rates continue to remain high in many other developed markets, the Bank of Japan still employs its accommodative monetary policy and sees a lower impact of inflation. Given this unique backdrop, what can Japan offer to its investors? How else does this economy differ from the rest of the world? And how might Japanese i...

Interest in sustainable investing has significantly increased in the past decade. Morningstar estimates the number of sustainable open-ended mutual funds and exchange-traded funds nearly tripled between 2014 and 2019. However, the consideration of financially material sustainability factors is not a new phenomenon – it draws on a long history of socially responsible investing, from the faith-based...

Event-driven investing, a set of strategies that include merger arbitrage, special situations and distressed debt, has created opportunities for investors for decades. Savvy investors in space will evaluate current market inefficiencies to assess where a merger can be made. In volatile markets however, investors are able to find many of these mispricings that can bare opportunities but only if the...

Artificial Intelligence has been evolving for decades with the ultimate goal of enhancing our everyday lives. Some of the most recent iterations, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, are the most advanced and human-like AI models we've seen yet. As additional digital assistance and chatbots flood into market, we ask what these disruptive technologies are truly capable of. How could the asset management...

Natural disasters have certainly taken their toll on the environment. After Hurricane Ian decimated a large part of the American Eastern Seaboard, totaling roughly $50 billion in insured industry losses, one could ask: how is all of that getting paid for? However, in the Insurance-Linked Securities (or ILS) asset class, there have historically been pathways for investors to seize opportunities as...

Many of our clients are asset owners, including sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, who are seeking to invest for the long-term future of their beneficiaries. At Neuberger Berman, our ESG Advisory Council aims to provide guidance on the future of impact investing and sustainability topics, drawing on the latest knowledge from academia, the non-profit sector and institutional asset owners. Wh...

Private equity investors continue to experience a complex market environment, facing many macro headwinds and prolonged uncertainty. The need for rebalancing, the demand for liquidity, and the challenging fundraising and exit environments have created choppy waters across client portfolios that must be carefully navigated. But could periods of prolonged uncertainty create opportunities for experie...

2022 was filled with numerous challenges. The market saw unparalleled shifts in rates and inflation, all while the geopolitical landscape erupted. With volatility high, many investors grappled with how to approach portfolio construction in times of such unprecedented change. In light of the continued volatility we face in 2023, how could investors craft attractive portfolios? What factors should t...

As we conclude another year of volatile markets, geopolitical turmoil as well as record-setting inflation getting added to the mix, one could say that 2022 was truly an eventful year. But as we reflect on the pivotal events that occurred, what lessons can investors take away as we prepare for the year ahead? Could there be an end in sight for the volatility? And what asset classes might investors...

As we wrap up on the past year, many would agree that the predominant market trend that impacted investors would have to be inflation. In 2022, inflation levels rose to the highest we have seen in four decades. How did we get here? Looking ahead to 2023, we evaluate how today's inflation story could play out. When might we expect this principle of gravity to come to fruition? Or is this a new norm...

As economies around the world are dealing with the effects of inflation, we evaluate if there are differences in how central banks globally are managing the major impact to assets. Out of the Group of Ten, or G-10, countries, one remains an outlier with its particularly dovish stance: the Bank of Japan, or BoJ. What can we take away from how Governor Kuroda is leading the BoJ, while the world expe...

As we continue to navigate the current challenging investment environment, we look at the aspects of various asset class categories that could provide insight. As we transition into this new regime, investor demand for diversifiers have come into focus. Could liquid alternatives such as hedge funds, which typically have low beta and correlations to traditional markets, be a part of the solution? H...

Over the last few years, the world has been through a tumultuous journey of various disruptive forces: a pandemic, geopolitical turmoil and policy shifts, among others, to which investors have had to rethink their portfolio construction. Infrastructure, a relatively newer asset class within the private equity universe, has intrinsic properties that allow investors to diversify in new ways. Headlin...