Amy Cheung
Asia Capital Introduction Representative
Originally published by Alternative Investor
Moderating the iConnections Global Alts Asia session on global allocator trends at the end of last year offered a timely window into how investment teams are navigating one of the most unpredictable market environments in years. Those conversations, combined with ongoing dialogue across Marex’s 15-person global capital introduction team based in Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East, point to a striking degree of alignment in how allocators are thinking about portfolio construction.
While investment teams operate within different local, regulatory and market contexts, the forces shaping their decisions are increasingly global.
Liquid alternatives and uncorrelated strategies are back in focus
The renewed focus on liquid alternatives and uncorrelated strategies reflects a shift in the market environment. For a long period, equity-heavy portfolios were supported by low interest rates, abundant liquidity and largely one-directional markets – conditions that limited the opportunity set for many diversifying strategies.
That backdrop has now changed. Markets are displaying greater dispersion, clearer interest-rate differentials, and more genuine two-way behaviour. These conditions are far more conducive to strategies such as macro, trend-following, multi-strategy, alternative risk premia and equity market-neutral approaches.
These strategies are able to deliver differentiated outcomes, particularly during periods when traditional equity and credit markets struggle. Their appeal is straightforward: they offer the potential for return streams with low or no correlation to equities, credit or broader growth cycles. In an environment where balanced portfolios require more than directional equity exposure, the case for liquid alternatives has strengthened.
Long-horizon themes: climate transition, sustainability and AI
Another consistent theme is the growing importance of structural investment drivers that extend beyond short-term macro cycles. Allocators are increasingly aligning capital with areas such as energy transition, decarbonisation and sustainability, alongside the technologies enabling these changes. Many also point to the rising influence of AI and national resilience as long-term investment drivers.
These themes are not being viewed as trends but as multi-decade transformations reshaping economies, industries and capital flows. Portfolio construction is increasingly focused on building exposures that are less reactive to near-term market noise and more closely linked to the forces expected to define growth over the long-term.
Regional perspectives shaping allocation decisions
While strategic priorities are broadly shared, it is important to understand the nuanced, regional dynamics that are influencing allocators.
Europe – European investors continue to favour specialist expertise, particularly within equity separately managed accounts (SMAs), where sector and regional specialists remain in demand. Within SMAs, market-neutral strategies remain the dominant theme. In addition, investors are often factor-aware, given the utilisation of leverage in SMA structures. Interest spans opportunities from energy transition related cyclicals and industrials managers to regional specialists focused on Europe, emerging markets and Korea.
In this region, macro and commodity strategies are also gaining traction both as alpha sources and portfolio diversifiers, with some investors seeking macro exposure as a hedge against potential shifts in the strong equity beta environment. Commodity strategies remain attractive for their orthogonal return profile, and we are also seeing allocators prioritising specialist managers who combine deep domain expertise with robust risk management.
The US – The dominant themes in the US are diversification and a renewed search for alpha. Those objectives are showing up in allocator activity across a number of areas such as commodities, where investors are looking to diversify portfolios and hedge macro and inflation risks, and non-US/European exposure, reflecting efforts to reduce US concentration and broaden geographic diversification. Healthcare stands out as a particularly fertile area for idiosyncratic, bottom-up alpha. Allocators are also showing greater openness to backing newer or smaller managers in pursuit of more differentiated returns. This mindset is extending to small-cap strategies, where dispersion and market inefficiencies are perceived to be higher, as well as to long-only strategies, which are increasingly used to complement hedge fund allocations when conviction is strong and after-fee outcomes are compelling, with tax efficiency an important consideration. At the same time, we will see the continued expansion in the use of SMAs, driven by demand for greater transparency, customisation, and capital efficiency.
Asia – Asia remains a compelling long-term growth story, supported by rising middle-income populations, economic expansion and growing demand across infrastructure, consumption and technology. However, public market performance has not always reflected this structural potential. Policy shifts, currency pressures and periodic disconnects between economic growth and market returns have led to uneven outcomes. As a result, interest in Asia remains strong but increasingly selective, with investors favouring long-term approaches such as private markets, partnerships and bottom-up strategies that align more closely with underlying fundamentals.
Diversifying away from the US looks to be a trend that is set to continue. Asian investors are looking for alpha opportunities elsewhere, and are allocating to non USD share classes, namely JPY and EUR. Asian investors also find China investible again, with validations having been depressed for a long time. Uncorrelated strategies are also often mentioned including commodities, market neutral/multi strats.
Middle East – Middle East investors are entering 2026 with increased appetite for liquid alternatives, with hedge funds continuing to gain traction. Given the prevailing market environment, allocators are favouring longer-vol hedge fund strategies including global macro. Multi-strat demand is expected to persist, led by family offices that are newer to the asset class. Event-driven strategies are also gaining traction as tariff volatility eases and capital markets activity picks up. Similar to other regions, equity focus has shifted away from the US, with particular interest in China, Japan, Korea, and European markets amid reforms and more attractive valuations.
Priorities for 2026
The direction of travel is clear: greater emphasis on diversification, more robust risk management, deeper alignment with long-term structural themes, and a more deliberate approach to sourcing returns that behave differently from the traditional equity-rate cycle. For those of us working closely with allocators across regions, it is important to understand how capital is likely to be positioned in 2026 and how global portfolios are being reshaped for a very different world.
