Investors should not expect everything to go ‘back to normal’ in 2023, says Melda Mergen, Global Head of Equities, Columbia Threadneedle Investments. Higher inflation and a weaker economic environment will mean not all companies will thrive.

European pension funds say reducing absolute portfolio volatility is their top risk management priority, as geopolitical tensions and high inflation continue to impact global investment markets.

One common knock on factor models is that they “replicate only beta” – not the pure alpha gold that allocators seek. This critique pre-dates the appreciation of factor rotations. Outside of some ivory tower statistics class, no one questions the “alpha” generated by, for example, the dotcom-era value vs growth trade or the recent Treasury short.

The recently theorised phenomenon of "disruption" is defined as a process whereby a product, a service or a solution disrupts the rules on an already established market. Technological progress, along with the globalisation of trade and demographic changes are now helping to spread it to every sector of the economy.