Private credit markets are under growing stress, fuelling fears of a financial crisis that could spill over to the real economy. But a closer look at the evidence suggests predictions of a meltdown are running well ahead of the facts.

CIMA Society membership gives you access to multiple sources of quality "approved" CIMA CE hours that are stored in your Forum MyCE and reported automatically to IWI on your behalf – and CIMA Society pays any applicable reporting fee.

These tutorials relate to the IMAC 2026 lectures and are available to CIMA candidates enrolled in the CIMA Certification Asia Pacific Program 2026.

Markets can remain stable at the index level even as risk becomes more uneven, more concentrated, and more difficult to hedge. This week's signals suggest that is now the dominant dynamic.

Markets are currently pricing stability. But the underlying system remains constrained and market structure is becoming more fragile. The gap between pricing and reality is where risk tends to emerge.

If asked today whether a high-quality unlisted property fund would outperform the S&P 500 over the next 10 years, most investment advisers would, without hesitation, back the S&P 500. However, they may be wrong.

A market can absorb volatility for a long time. It can absorb headlines, short-term oil spikes, and contradictory policy signals. What is harder to absorb is a shift from price disruption to actual constraint.

Jonathan Pain, Author and Publisher of The Pain Report, is a regular key note presenter at Portfolio Construction Forum's continuing education programs. Over the years, he has debuted new investment theses and challenged delegates about how to build better quality investor portfolios...

What began as a disruption to energy flows is now transmitting through inflation expectations, bond markets, liquidity conditions, and cross-asset relationships. Importantly, the adjustment is not occurring in a linear way.

The shift this week is subtle, but important. Markets are beginning to transition from a world where policy drives outcomes, to a world where physical constraints and geopolitical realities drive outcomes. The distinction matters.

Following US President Trump ordering a strategic Bitcoin reserve be established, private companies, investment banks, and scholars have begun urging major central banks to do the same. The idea is not quite as far-fetched as it may seem.

The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has forced markets to confront how dependent the global economy remains on physical infrastructure - shipping lanes, energy flows, and industrial supply chains. Yet equity indices have remained relatively resilient, suggesting investors still assume the disruption will prove temporary.

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.

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.

Established in 2009, Portfolio Construction Forum Markets Summit is THE investment markets scene setter of the year. It will help you better understand the key drivers of and outlook for the markets, and the opportunities and risks ahead on a three- to five-year view, to aid your search for return and to help them build better quality investor portfolios.

Markets are not panicking. They are re-learning what uncertainty costs. The key signal is not that “something happened". It is that diversification is becoming more conditional. Those constructing portfolios need to be explicit about what they own, why they own it, and what they expect it to do when escalation risk becomes live.

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Markets Summit 2026 (Wed 25 Feb) helped delegates understand the key drivers of and outlook for the markets and help you build better quality investor portfolios. AI has kickstarted a fourth industrial revolution that will fundamentally change the way we work and live once more. Simultaneously, US President Trump is weaponising national economic policy and the US-China race for supremacy in AI and control of rare earths is adding further fuel to their titanic geopolitical struggle, reshaping the global geopolitical, economic and trade order. In short, immense societal and economic upheaval is upending the outlook for investment markets. It's a whole new world (again)!

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.