At the end of 2024, US technology stocks have supercharged the equity markets return and pushed the MSCI ACWI index to an impressive 24 per cent gain. The bond market return, while subdued compared to 2024, also ended up in positive territory. As a result, the percentage of asset owners confident in meeting their return target (86 per cent) has reached a three-year high in 2025, and less are taking more risks to get there.

The percentage of CIOs who are making allocation changes remain elevated but is on par with last year, at 47 per cent. Broadly, slightly more asset owners are planning to decrease equity allocation than those increasing it, and more are planning to increase fixed income than those decreasing it.

The wariness around equities is a sign that asset owners are starting to address their concerns about elevated valuations in the portfolio. The planned net allocation change is negative for both active and passive equities but the withdrawal from active equities is significantly more pronounced.

Within fixed income, active core/core+ and active unconstrained strategies have the highest planned net allocation increase. Demand for active high yield strategy decreased significantly compared to last year, while appetite for active emerging market debt is flat compared to last year due to ongoing geopolitical risks.

CIOs who are looking to boost their allocation to alternatives is overwhelmingly higher than those who are decreasing it. The asset classes receiving most interests were infrastructure/other real assets (non-inclusive of real estate), private credit and private equity, despite ongoing exit challenges especially in the latter.  

“2025 is going to be an inflection point for a lot of investors, not just the institutions or plans, but third-party managers too, as markets start to peak and the impact of trade policy starts to run through the system. And it's still an open question for me, what happens in some of the alt spaces[which look over-invested],” Skriba said.