Fortunately, the Fed chair is not an absolute monarch. Warsh will have only one vote out of 12 on the FOMC. That is good news for markets, given how misguided some of his stated positions are.

For decades, investors relied on a stable, predictable world. Today, that world is being mugged by reality. Portfolios must focus on places where the rule of law still matters and identify the strategic bottlenecks that now pick the winners and losers.

2025 was likely the beginning of the end of US exceptionalism in markets. It's a whole new world (again)! – but many portfolios are positioned for the past based on an incomplete assessment of risk and reward.

Real assets, including direct lending, core real estate, and infrastructure, can help improve overall portfolio efficiency by offering positive returns during periods of economic contraction and high inflation.

Markets spent the week attempting to price a geopolitical shock whose macro consequences remain highly uncertain. The challenge is not predicting how the conflict evolves. It is recognising how shocks like this propagate through portfolios.

Private debt has grown in popularity as an alternative source of debt financing, with the asset class tripling in size since 2008. This self-paced, two-hour online short course equips you with the expertise to navigate private debt investment confidently across diverse market conditions.

Led by behavioural finance expert, Herman Brodie, the Behavioural Finance - Investment Decision-Making course will help you identify, analyse and evaluate the principal human preferences that influence decision-making in situations of uncertainty, so you can recognise and identify these preferences in others, to improve investment decision-making.

Whether markets' faith turns out to be well founded depends significantly on how Warsh handles rising bond-market risk. While reining in the Fed's balance sheet is a worthy long-run monetary-policy goal, now is not the time.

Investors should assign a higher weighting to the possibility of President Trump and President Xi striking a bargain on Taiwanese sovereignty.

Despite the US economy's strong performance in 2025 which is likely to continue in 2026, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, over the medium term, Trump's decisions over the past year will expose the US to massive risks.

Investors will look back on 2025 as the beginning of the end of US exceptionalism. Practitioners must now consider geopolitics in their fundamental analysis, alongside macroeconomic and company factors.

Rich Pickings explores the investment beliefs and philosophies of prominent professional investors. In this episode, I'm in conversation with London-based, absolute return fixed income investor, James McAlevey, BNP Paribas Asset Management...

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