Investment Officer Belgium

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?

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.

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.

The Cambrian explosion of AI-driven life forms has begun. Under the collective label of artificial intelligence, an ecosystem is emerging that is evolving faster than many people realize. Its impact is still often underestimated, both in scale and in speed, but it will permanently shape the second half of the twenty twenties as a structural force.

De Europese antiwitwaskaders behoren formeel tot de meest uitgebreide ter wereld, maar in de uitvoering blijven er kwetsbaarheden bestaan, zo blijkt uit de Basel AML Index 2025.

For the second time, the editorial team of Investment Officer conducted a year-end survey among large asset managers operating in Europe. The aim was to assess their outlooks for 2026 based on a standardized set of proprietary questions. The common thread is that risks have become structural, without leading to a flight from risk assets.

The private markets model is edging into the US retail retirement system, where policymakers are moving to allow 401(k) investors to gain exposure to private assets, potentially opening up a trillion dollar market to alternative managers as early as February.

The Democrats are on track to win the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. For investors, that is usually just noise. Now, however, even the most committed progressive has to admit the timing is terrible. Things were going so well.

There was eager anticipation for a new US labor market report. And not only because the flow of macro data from the United States is still lagging as a result of the shutdown. The US labor market is what can still obscure the real reason why rates were cut by another quarter point. But that argument does not hold either.