Global Market Risk & Performance – Q1 2026

What drove risk and return in Q1 2026 and what does it mean for your portfolios? It was a quarter marked by US equity underperformance, a global rotation to lower-risk stocks, and a geopolitical shock in March that reignited inflation fears and sent gold to new heights.

Watch Melissa Brown and Christoph Schon from the Investment Decision Research team in two dedicated sessions as they dive into the key themes across equities and multi-asset markets.

Session 1 - Equities – Melissa Brown (45-minutes)

• Despite the market decline, US equity volatility remained low, a result of a steady downtick in index returns and asset correlations remaining quite low - in contrast to many other markets, most notably Emerging Markets, where risk soared
• As a result, the US contribution to global risk fell substantially, not only meaning a bet on the US was less risky than it has been recently, but also increasing the potential for adding value to a global portfolio outside the US
• There was a move toward lower volatility and lower beta names, as most style factors behaved more or less as expected

Session 2 – MAC – Christoph Schon (45-minutes)

• How last month's surge in oil prices propagated through higher inflation expectations and tighter monetary policy projections into tumbling stock and bond prices and a stronger dollar — and what all of that means for the risk profile of your global multi-asset class portfolio
• Why gold and sovereign debt sold off in the middle of a geopolitical crisis — and what that tells us about investor sentiment
• How stress tests based on 2022 correlations accurately predicted the current market impact on Europe and the US — and why they got it wrong for Asia