Hedge Funds
M&A activity finally reaccelerated in Q4 2025—it’s just the start. Macro Hedge Funds have outperformed with top-decile performance from Discretionary Macro—but that’s towards the end. We move Macro from overweight to underweight and Event Driven from neutral to overweight.
Understanding asset performance across Growth and Inflation regimes helps investors construct and manage balanced portfolios. Our first G&I Catalog report examines Hedge Fund strategies. Global Macro and Managed Futures offer the strongest protection in Stagflation-like periods, when traditional assets typically struggle. Since 1998, these regimes have occurred less than 10% of the time—but that may not hold true going forward.
European euphoria is overdone. The most exceptional asset class in Europe is Infrastructure, but granular opportunities span other asset classes by sector and country. Venture Capital is a North America and Asia-Pacific play. We downgrade Private Credit, and upgrade Global Buyouts. Time to take profits on Long-Short Equity Hedge Funds.
It is easy to hate Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds—they are no underdogs. The truth is they have been cheap, not expensive. Going forward, they come at a higher cost not just in the form of fees. The biggest risk is not to financial markets but to investors. We remain underweight cyclically, long structurally.
Asset class expectations show mixed shifts from 2024, with Real Estate seeing substantial upgrades and Private Equity benefiting from Venture Capital improvements. Private Credit return expectations decline from 2024 but remain relatively attractive. Infrastructure shows varied dynamics across sub-strategies, with Value-Add offering strong return potential. Within Hedge Funds, Long-Short Equity shows higher tactical returns while Multi-Strategy leads strategic projections.
We are growing positive on Growth assets with recession expectations increasing our optimism on entry points. Equities are led by APAC Private Equity, North America Venture Capital, and Europe Buyouts. Our outlook continues to improve on CRE within the Inflation & Diversification bucket while we are underweight Multi-Strategy amongst Hedge Funds. We maintain an overweight to Senior Direct Lending for Income with a preference for North America.
Investors often misjudge Global Macro managers. We outline key manager evaluation criteria and highlight the power of combining Macro Hedge Funds and Private Equity. Even for those who are not Macro Traders nor invest in Hedge Funds, this report may change the way you assess potential employees, partners, and even yourself—the most critical elements of any investment strategy.
We go overweight Late-Stage Venture Capital and APAC Private Equity but remain underweight North America Buyouts. We maintain our neutral outlook towards Hedge Funds and are positive on Long-Short Equity, Event Driven, and CRO strategies. We are cooling towards Direct Lending strategies as competition and relative opportunities increase. CRE’s downturn continues to unfold; we are starting to be buyers.
Investors should be tactically tilting allocations towards Direct Lending, Distressed Debt, and Directional Hedge Fund strategies at the expense of Real Estate, Private Equity, and Diversifier Hedge Funds. Structural opportunities are emerging in Real Estate and Venture Capital.