2025 was likely the beginning of the end of US exceptionalism in markets. The US dollar is likely to weaken further over the years ahead as investors increase hedge ratios and reduce exposure to US assets. Developed market yield curves are likely to steepen, as bloated fiscal deficits further expand. Further complicating the medium-term outlook, seismic geopolitical shifts are likely to force investors to reassess risk globally. It’s a whole new world (again)! – but many portfolios are positioned for the past based on an incomplete assessment of risk and reward. It’s time to overhaul our operating assumptions for the economy, geopolitics, and markets.

At Strategies Summit in August 2025, Oliver delivered the inaugural Da Vinci Lecture, called Leonardo’s Legacy. It ended with a warning: the rules that had governed the international order for four centuries were being quietly emptied of content. The architecture was still standing but the foundations were shifting. Six months later, that warning looks timid. This lecture picks up where Leonardo’s Legacy left off. The diagnosis remains the same. But this time, we attempt an answer to the practical question – what should investors do now? The thesis is stated without qualification. Investors must adapt to a more tribal less rational world. Unfortunately, this is not a forecast of what might happen. It describes the world we already inhabit.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This session explores a mix of perspectives on the drivers of and outlook for Australian and global fixed income.

The dominance of passive investing and mega-cap concentration has created a widening structural opportunity in small-cap equities. As index flows channel capital toward ever-fewer large companies, the 5,000 smaller companies that represent 90% of developed-market listed securities receive less institutional attention, less analyst coverage, and less capital - deepening mispricing’s that have historically driven long-term outperformance. These dynamics are accelerating - sell-side economics continue to deteriorate, coverage gaps are widening, and the proportion of small caps with no analyst coverage now exceeds 30%. The result is the widest inefficiency in public equity markets and a compelling return outlook for investors with the patience and depth of knowledge to exploit it. Small-cap alpha is structural, not cyclical, and the conditions that generate it are strengthening.

The value factor has underperformed for a decade and frustrated allocators have increasingly abandoned the style, with global equity portfolios heavily tilted towards factors and regions trading at historical extremes. Value is too often perceived as low quality, cyclical, economically sensitive and littered with disrupted former titans. But allocators willing to take a more contemporary approach to identifying value can build in diversifying ballast within global equity portfolios, particularly against a backdrop of increasingly concentrated passive exposure. Markets are entering a whole new world (again!), a turning point where the next cycle’s winners will look very different from the past decades. AI is hardly the only activity reshaping the world – geopolitical realignment, energy transition, and aging demographics are creating profound mispricing, offering asymmetric opportunities and, in turn, diversification and downside protection against passive core portfolios overweight the ‘old world’.

While investors chase the latest market darlings, Global REITs - an asset class with a proven long-term track record of competitive returns and reliable income - have become arguably the new world’s most overlooked asset class. The valuation disconnect between REITs and broader equities is at levels only seen during the GFC, yet the underlying real estate fundamentals tell a very different story. A global undersupply of housing is driving persistent rent growth, an ageing population is fuelling demand for healthcare and senior living properties, and new construction across key sectors is falling, setting up well-capitalised landlords to benefit from tightening supply. For investors willing to look past short-term sentiment, this whole new world of disruption has created arguably the world’s most overlooked asset class - it’s time to ‘buy-the-dip’ in high quality global real estate.

A changing equity market structure is emerging, driven by changing investor behaviour and advances in AI. As markets become broader, more inefficient, and increasingly complex, this environment requires a complete rethink of how markets function and how alpha is generated. Global small-cap equities sit at the centre of this shift. They represent one of the last frontiers of inefficiency in public markets, where dispersion, limited analyst coverage and wide breadth continue to create pricing inefficiencies. With valuations in many regions still below large-cap peers and earnings growth broadening, the asset class presents a compelling long-term opportunity over the next three to five years.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This session explores a mix of perspectives on the outlook for real assets, global absolute return debt, and Australian and international private credit.

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.

Headlines everywhere highlight the growing demand for power generation, largely driven by digitalisation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation. A topic less spoken about is the undersupply of infrastructure needed to support it – and how this could provide a real market opportunity for investors. To meet this demand, trillions of dollars would be necessary over the next five years, creating what could be a generational investment opportunity in core infrastructure assets, offering attractive current yield, the opportunity for diversification, and potential relative downside protection.

The first order impact of post-GFC bank retrenchment trimmed corporate credit risk from their balance sheets and bore the Direct Lending boom. We are now in the early innings of ABF filling a similar void of capital. ABF touts an +11tn TAM with less than $500bn of dedicated fund manager AUM currently addressing the opportunity set across a wide variety of Hard Assets and Financial Assets.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This session explores a diverse mix of perspectives on the outlook for on the outlook for global equities and liquid alternatives.

The world changed in January 2025 with Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president. Shortly after taking office, Trump threw a hand grenade into the engine room of the global economy with his Liberation Day tariffs. Yet the 47th president of the United States is transactional, not ideological, and by the end of 2025 the US had reached a trade deal with China. While the trade war between the world’s two largest economies may be over, an artificial intelligence and electrification arms race is in full swing. This battle is creating a complex economic environment in 2026, with huge capital investment by technology majors boosting both growth and inflation, while cheap Chinese exports and crude oil weigh on consumer prices. Meanwhile, Wall Street is likely to test the resolve of incoming Fed chair Kevin Warsh later this year, further fuelling the prospects for market volatility. We are living in an age of exponential change and radical uncertainty, turbo-charged by rapid advancements in AI. We must prepare ourselves (and our portfolios) for the seismic societal and economic shocks that are hurtling our way – we’re witnessing the mother of all disruptions.

Together, these two articles shed light on important micro and macro challenges facing the growth of ethical responsibility in investment and wealth management.

This paper looks at the impact of repetition on our perceptions of unethicality and truth. It finds that the more times we hear about a wrongdoing, the more we may believe it - but the less we may care.

Rather than treating ethical decision-making as a cognitive issue, investment professionals should develop "ethics muscle memory", increasing the chances of successfully navigating moral predicaments in the moment.

Individual investors have long responded to the public communications of well-placed, popular investment experts. This paper offers a new understanding of how the rise of "finfluencers" is reshaping the information landscape.

Private market assets can complement traditional equity and fixed income allocations, helping investors participate in the upside of favourable equity markets while mitigating drawdowns in difficult ones.

A complex array of issues is changing the outlook for economies and investment markets. It is time to make a move to better understand these issues so we can better manage risk and uncertainty, and design portfolios capable of improving the financial well-being of individuals.

From the origins of Western order in the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, five interconnected crises now threatening its foundations. Our choice is simple – optimise within decline, or rebuild the foundations that made our prosperity possible.