What We Are Watching : Mid-Year Update – Revisiting our Four Themes Against a More Volatile Backdrop

June 2026

When we published, What We Are Watching in 2026 in January, our framework centered on four themes: the outlook for the US economy, the Federal Reserve’s policy path, divergent global central bank cycles, and AI-driven concentration in US equities.

While these topics are still important, the conversation has shifted, as a geopolitical shock in the Middle East has reintroduced inflation risk, the rate-cut narrative has been all but unwound, equity and bond markets are telling very different stories, and the AI rally has resumed with the conversation shifting from infrastructure spending to software disruption and debt financing. Our goal in this piece is to frame from our perspective what is still true, what has changed, and what is coming.