More than 350 asset managers and asset owners from around the world say they’re uncertain where the global economy is heading, according to a live poll conducted last month at Mercer’s Global Investment Forum (GIF) US. The three most likely scenarios identified were: 1, a potential period of economy-wide overheating (26 percent); 2, stagflation (24 percent); and 3, a hard landing (22 percent).
Greater than half of attendees (58 percent) also said they believed that their equity portfolio structure should be meaningfully different from the market-cap weights now, and more than 75 percent said their portfolios are now on a carbon-transition path.
Diversification will play a critical role as the economy and markets continue to respond to headwinds, including those driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and China’s zero-COVID policy, as well as globally tight labor markets and other supply-demand imbalances amid ongoing reopening from the global pandemic, according to