Asset Manager

The first trading day of 2026 left no room for doubt. While many investors were still recovering from the champagne, chip stocks surged worldwide and set new records.

When United States forces seized President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, the political shock was immediate. The market reaction was not. Oil prices barely moved, investors stayed largely on the sidelines and attention quickly shifted from what had happened in Caracas to what it might reveal about how Washington now intends to wield power beyond its borders.

The US government is moving to scale back the influence of proxy advisers ISS and Glass Lewis, casting the firms as ‘foreign-owned political actors’.

Debt is no longer rising quietly in the background of the global economy. For investors, the question is how much additional issuance markets are willing to absorb, and at what price.

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

Interest in private banking was high last year among Investment Officer’s Belgian readers. The overview of the ten most read articles of 2025 in Belgium shows that readers were primarily interested in people, organization and the strategic challenges facing the sector.

After a volatile year, the question arises where the best risk-return profile will be found in the coming years. That is why this month’s question to our Market Talk panel, on this occasion with all seven members present, is: what will be your favorite asset class in 2026, and why?

Eight of the fifteen most read Investment Officer Netherlands articles in 2025 focus on developments at, and the ambitions of, the major Dutch private banks: ABN Amro MeesPierson, Rabobank, Van Lanschot Kempen, ING and InsingerGilissen.

Something strange is going on. The US economy is growing, but no jobs are being added. In fact, unemployment is rising to 4.6 percent. Normally, it works like this: first jobs are created, then wages rise, then spending increases. Now that order has been reversed. People are spending money they have not earned.

For the average institutional investor, the appeal of lottery-like stocks—shares with a low price, high potential returns, and extreme volatility—is a mystery. But poorer investors simply reason very differently.