Senior investment expertise, when you need it

September brought the relationship between geopolitics, energy and interest rates into much sharper focus. The conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran has now persisted for seven months and, with meaningful disruption to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz still unresolved, the market is having to consider the possibility that expensive energy is becoming more than a temporary shock.

This week’s reads centres on a common issue for allocators: whether portfolio assumptions still hold as the cost and availability of capital change. AI financing is moving rapidly from an equity story into credit markets, monetary policy has shifted again, while new long-run evidence provides a useful challenge to the way historical returns are used in strategic asset allocation.

This week’s AdmansPraxis Reads focuses on the constraints, assumptions and operating structures that can materially shape portfolio outcomes. The selected research looks at concentration limits in active funds, manager-level due diligence across European fund groups, contrasting interpretations of the sovereign-bond sell-off, the investment industry’s evolving AI operating model, and the trade-offs embedded in downside-protection strategies.