Unexpected exogenous shocks – like surprise assaults by world powers on other sovereign states – have every chance of influencing global geoeconomic and financial trends in the year ahead.
One forecast that already looks more likely comes from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which projects the price of gold to reach US$5,000 an ounce. The US asset management firm notes that international concerns around fiscal sustainability and geopolitical risks have driven rising demand for gold, and recommends that reserve managers should continue buying gold to further diversify their portfolios.
Simmons & Simmons predicts that the year is set to be shaped by a risk environment that is “fragmenting on multiple fronts – regulatory, technological, geopolitical and financial”, with macro and geopolitical pressures driving volatility and potentially upsetting asset valuations. These valuations and the recent high concentration of market gains centre on a handful of mega-cap technology stocks linked to artificial intelligence.
Oliver Wyman’s assessment of asset management trends for 2026 notes that “AI-mania continues to roll”, and that AI adoption in asset management is still not yet yielding across-the-board improvements in profit and loss performance. This may tally with Simmons & Simmons’s concern over “AI-washing” in both asset management and stock valuations.
Moody’s outlook for global asset management points to growing revenues overall, but with competition squeezing margins. The ratings agency also warns of greater volatility in AI and related industries, risking a slowdown after years of outperformance.
Warnings of a possible AI bubble were common enough in the past year, in spite of the potential for the technology to transform industries, including asset management. But the lessons of the dot-com bubble is that both can come at once.
Out of the top ten US companies by market cap, eight are tech firms, beneficiaries of the dot-com era. Their growth continued long after the dot-com bubble burst, and through subsequent boom-and-bust cycles. Asset managers and investors should do well to remember how past technology promise played out.
Meanwhile, for now, expectations of the impact of US actions in Venezuela on energy prices are relatively sanguine. Venezuela’s underexploitation of its oil reserves, the largest worldwide, creates ample room for production upside. Events there or elsewhere may yield different outcomes, though.
Right now, 2026 is already looking very unpredictable.
