Market Update - December 2025

Summary

The 2025 market environment marked a decisive return to fundamentals, with real assets, energy, precious metals, and global diversification driving returns as leadership broadened beyond technology. Looking ahead to 2026, MLD remains responsibly bullish, focused on disciplined portfolio construction, structural scarcity, and risk-managed long-term compounding.

Key Insights

• Fundamentals and Scarcity Reasserted Control
• Inflation moderation, stabilizing rates, fiscal expansion, and geopolitical tension shifted capital toward assets tied to supply constraints. Gold, energy, defense, and infrastructure benefited as investors repriced resilience, cash flow visibility, and scarcity economics.
• Global Leadership Broadened Beyond the US
• Germany’s fiscal activation and Japan’s corporate reforms marked a structural shift toward global multi-polarity. A softer US dollar further supported international equities, reinforcing the need for global diversification rather than US-centric portfolios.
• Structure and Discipline Matter More Than Yield
• Stress in private markets highlighted flaws in liquidity mismatches and poorly designed products. MLD’s emphasis on institutional-quality structures, realistic liquidity, and disciplined underwriting insulated portfolios and underscored the value of process-driven investing.
  

Highlights

• Market leadership in 2025 expanded to real assets, energy, financials, industrials, defense, and utilities.
• Gold and precious metals entered a renewed bull market driven by sovereign demand and a weakening US dollar.
• Energy fundamentals tightened after years of underinvestment, creating durable cash flow and return potential.
• International equities, particularly Germany and Japan, re-emerged as core portfolio contributors.
• Defense, infrastructure, and power became strategic, long-duration allocations rather than tactical trades.
• Private credit exposed structural weaknesses, reinforcing the importance of liquidity and manager discipline.
  
  

Conclusion

2025 rewarded investors who stayed disciplined, diversified, and anchored to fundamentals while exposing weak structures and speculative excess. As 2026 begins, MLD’s strategy remains focused on real assets, global diversification, and resilient portfolio construction designed to compound capital steadily through cycles rather than chase short-term trends.