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Nanette Abuhoff Jacobson, Managing Director and Multi-Asset Strategist at Wellington Management and Global Investment Strategist for Hartford Funds
Supriya Menon, Managing Director and Multi-Asset Strategist – EMEA at Wellington Management
As global markets diverge from economic fundamentals, investors face a landscape shaped by tariffs, policy uncertainty, and shifting regional opportunities.
Since President Donald Trump shook the markets with his Liberation Day tariff announcement in early April, risk markets have climbed the proverbial wall of worry, with stocks bouncing back from double-digit sell-offs. Multiple rounds of tariff threats and walk-backs taught markets that the pattern of threat/détente will probably continue, but the worst-case scenario may be behind us.
John Butler, Head of Emerging-Market Equities at Wellington Management
Valuations in many markets are broadly cheap, and since a great deal of uncertainty is already priced in, there may be opportunities to consider adding to exposures in the coming months.
Two critical themes have underpinned our team’s macro research over the last few years:
1. The global economy is becoming less integrated, with higher hurdles for cross-border labor and capital flows, and growing pressure on supply chains.
2. Policymakers seem increasingly unwilling to inflict the pain needed to pull inflation sustainably back to target.
In combination, these trends are reshaping the macroeconomic backdrop, leading to higher and more volatile inflation, shorter and less stable cycles, and structurally higher risk premia1 and yields.
Amar Reganti, Managing Director at Wellington Management LLP and Fixed-Income Strategist for Hartford Funds
Marco Giordano, Investment Director for Wellington Management
Can bonds still act as defensive assets amid growing concerns over government-debt sustainability?
We started the year expecting rates to remain elevated and increased divergence across bond markets, as investors and policymakers reacted to increasingly local growth/inflation dynamics. Markets have pondered the possibility of rates staying higher for longer on several occasions since the inflation shock of 2021–2022, only to look for signals of any easing to prompt market rallies, such as in the last quarter of 2023 and last summer. The question, then, is this: Will this time prove to be any different? And what can a bond allocation offer in a broader portfolio?
Campe Goodman, CFA, Fixed-Income Portfolio Manager for Wellington Management
As conditions rapidly change, investors need to move with agility and purpose.
Did the first half of 2025 feel like a whitewater rafting trip you didn’t sign up for? If so, you’re not alone. What looked like a calm river paddle has turned into a wild ride that could’ve easily capsized markets and submerged the global economy. Yet the US economy has stayed afloat: Unemployment is historically low, and consumers are still paddling. Corporate fundamentals in the US and beyond remain solid, with healthy cash flows, limited new debt issuance, and muted merger activity.
Andrew Heiskell, Equity Strategist at Wellington Management
Nicolas Wylenzek, Macro Strategist at Wellington Management
Economic “regime change” has been underway for nearly a decade. Going forward, the global shift presents risks and opportunities for stock investors.
What US exceptionalism is depends on who you’re asking. To most people, the term captures a sense of unassailable US leadership across multiple interlinked dimensions, such as geopolitics, military might, economic growth, fiscal spending, rule of law, technology and AI, and equity returns. As equity investors, we see US exceptionalism as the consistent outperformance of US equity markets relative to global counterparts. A shift in any of the dimensions that constitute US exceptionalism is likely to challenge many of the assumptions that have supported the US dollar’s dominance, creating implications for not only currency considerations and Treasuries, but also US equities.
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Global Macro
Nanette Abuhoff Jacobson, Managing Director and Multi-Asset Strategist at Wellington Management and Global Investment Strategist for Hartford Funds
Supriya Menon, Managing Director and Multi-Asset Strategist – EMEA at Wellington ManagementAs global markets diverge from economic fundamentals, investors face a landscape shaped by tariffs, policy uncertainty, and shifting regional opportunities.
Since President Donald Trump shook the markets with his Liberation Day tariff announcement in early April, risk markets have climbed the proverbial wall of worry, with stocks bouncing back from double-digit sell-offs. Multiple rounds of tariff threats and walk-backs taught markets that the pattern of threat/détente will probably continue, but the worst-case scenario may be behind us.
John Butler, Head of Emerging-Market Equities at Wellington Management
Valuations in many markets are broadly cheap, and since a great deal of uncertainty is already priced in, there may be opportunities to consider adding to exposures in the coming months.
Two critical themes have underpinned our team’s macro research over the last few years:
1. The global economy is becoming less integrated, with higher hurdles for cross-border labor and capital flows, and growing pressure on supply chains.
2. Policymakers seem increasingly unwilling to inflict the pain needed to pull inflation sustainably back to target.
In combination, these trends are reshaping the macroeconomic backdrop, leading to higher and more volatile inflation, shorter and less stable cycles, and structurally higher risk premia1 and yields.
-
Fixed Income
Amar Reganti, Managing Director at Wellington Management LLP and Fixed-Income Strategist for Hartford Funds
Marco Giordano, Investment Director for Wellington Management
Can bonds still act as defensive assets amid growing concerns over government-debt sustainability?
We started the year expecting rates to remain elevated and increased divergence across bond markets, as investors and policymakers reacted to increasingly local growth/inflation dynamics. Markets have pondered the possibility of rates staying higher for longer on several occasions since the inflation shock of 2021–2022, only to look for signals of any easing to prompt market rallies, such as in the last quarter of 2023 and last summer. The question, then, is this: Will this time prove to be any different? And what can a bond allocation offer in a broader portfolio?
Campe Goodman, CFA, Fixed-Income Portfolio Manager for Wellington Management
As conditions rapidly change, investors need to move with agility and purpose.
Did the first half of 2025 feel like a whitewater rafting trip you didn’t sign up for? If so, you’re not alone. What looked like a calm river paddle has turned into a wild ride that could’ve easily capsized markets and submerged the global economy. Yet the US economy has stayed afloat: Unemployment is historically low, and consumers are still paddling. Corporate fundamentals in the US and beyond remain solid, with healthy cash flows, limited new debt issuance, and muted merger activity.
-
Equities
Andrew Heiskell, Equity Strategist at Wellington Management
Nicolas Wylenzek, Macro Strategist at Wellington ManagementEconomic “regime change” has been underway for nearly a decade. Going forward, the global shift presents risks and opportunities for stock investors.
What US exceptionalism is depends on who you’re asking. To most people, the term captures a sense of unassailable US leadership across multiple interlinked dimensions, such as geopolitics, military might, economic growth, fiscal spending, rule of law, technology and AI, and equity returns. As equity investors, we see US exceptionalism as the consistent outperformance of US equity markets relative to global counterparts. A shift in any of the dimensions that constitute US exceptionalism is likely to challenge many of the assumptions that have supported the US dollar’s dominance, creating implications for not only currency considerations and Treasuries, but also US equities.
Download the PDF to read all of our 2025 Midyear Outlooks.
1 Risk premia is the investment return an asset is expected to yield in excess of the risk-free rate of return.
Important Risks: Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. • Foreign investments may be more volatile and less liquid than US investments and are subject to the risk of currency fluctuations and adverse political, economic, and regulatory developments. These risks may be greater, and include additional risks for investments in emerging markets. • Fixed income security risks include credit, liquidity, call, duration, and interest-rate risk. As interest rates rise, bond prices generally fall.
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