What to expect from the evolving fiscal and regulatory landscape in the US.
Syed Naqvi, Managing Principal at TD Wealth Family Office, and Brad Simpson, Chief Wealth Strategist, TD Wealth Investment Office, speak with MoneyTalk's Greg Bonnell about the evolving investment landscape in 2025 and how ultra-high net worth families are positioning themselves.
Greg Bonnell: Equity markets have had a stellar run, spending much of 2024 in record territory. But what can we expect for 2025, especially amid ongoing geopolitical conflicts, potential trade tariffs, and economic uncertainty? Here to discuss the big themes of this year and next is Syed Naqvi, Managing Principal of TD Wealth Family Office, and Brad Simpson, Chief Wealth Strategist at TD Wealth Investment Office.
Great to have you guys here for this discussion. Syed, I'm going to start with you about some of the investing trends you saw for the ultra-high-net-worth client this year.
Syed Naqvi: Thanks, Greg, for having me. So for 2024, we would break down the trends in three different categories. From an investment management perspective, maintaining purchasing power remained the paramount concern for family offices and ultra-high-net-worth clients. We saw some really good data for inflation, where we saw inflation numbers come down. But in real terms, asset prices remained quite elevated, and that meant that you were solving for higher hurdle rates when it came to your portfolios. So in that kind of an environment, we saw risk assets do really, really well. Equities had a record year. And anything tied to real assets-- such as commodities, infrastructure, private equity-- they did really, really well.
Secondly, from a thematic perspective, AI and technology-related themes continue to thrive. We saw spectacular performance from the Mag 7 stocks, NASDAQ and S&P 500 as a whole. But we thought that there was a lot of breadth to this theme across different asset classes. So even if we look at private real