Expert Panel

While the average fund in the Global Large-Cap Blend Equity Morningstar category eked out a 5.8 percent gain in 2025, it was hardly an easy year for investors. Tariff turmoil, geopolitical tensions, and demanding valuations weighed on sentiment.

Risk parity investors showed renewed optimism in 2025 after several years of underperformance versus the traditional balanced portfolios.

Morningstar has refined its Japanese equity framework as persistent style dispersion forces investors to reassess growth-focused fund selection in Japan.

Prudent risk management is vital in high-yield-bond investing. As this week’s Morningstar fund comparison shows, even strategies operating in the same corner of the market can diverge sharply when stress hits.

Global flexible bond strategies cover a wide range of different approaches. Investors should tread them with caution.

According to Jan Saalfrank and Lous Vervuurt at Pinsent Masons, the Commission’s long-awaited SFDR reform introduces sharper definitions, stronger disclosures and stricter greenwashing safeguards, a step set to reverberate across Europe’s sustainable finance industry and Luxembourg.

The classic 60/40 investment strategy is still alive and well, though its merits have been a matter of debate in recent years.

One in five global dividend funds now integrates ESG criteria. Where sustainable funds in other segments have struggled to maintain their growth momentum, sustainable global dividend funds have seen strong inflows in recent years.

Top rated firms come in all shapes and sizes. Colchester Global Investors and MFS Asset Management have different specialties and histories. Both stand out for their commitment to putting investors’ interests first. This earns them both a Morningstar Parent Pillar rating of High.

The US high yield bond market returned 7.4 percent for 2025 through October (per Morningstar’s US High Yield Bond Total Return USD Index), outpacing the leveraged loans market’s 4.9 percent return (Morningstar LSTA US Leverages Loans Total returns USD Index). This year’s underperformance stands out, due to several high-profile blowups such as Tricolor and First Brands.