Summary
Adapting to ruptures
The global environment is no longer mainly shaped by the economic cycle. It is shaped by rupture. Geopolitical fragmentation, strategic competition, techn logical acceleration, delayed energy transition and the rewiring of trade, capital and supply chains are not just tail risks around the baseline. They are the baseline. The issue is therefore not whether disruption fades, but how economies, companies and investors adapt to a world in which resilience, flexibility and strategic autonomy matter more.
The current energy shock is another reminder of this regime. Our base case is that the global spillovers remain meaningful but contained. Growth should soften across regions as real incomes come under pressure and confidence weakens. Inflation effects are likely to be uneven, but more persistent than in a standard cyclical shock. More importantly, the deeper forces we highlighted in last year’s CMA are not receding. They are becoming more entrenched.
Those long-term forces are increasingly clear. Artificial intelligence is reshaping productivity and competitive dynamics, but unevenly across countries and sectors. Demographics continue to weigh on potential growth. Energy has become both a strategic constraint and a source of industrial differentiation. And strategic autonomy is moving from policy ambition to capitalallocation reality, influencing defence, infrastructure, supply chains and technology investment. The result is a world of resilient but not structurally stronger growth, and inflation that remains firmer than during pre-pandemic regime.
For companies, adaptation means rethinking supply chains, strengthening resilience, managing energy exposure and investing in flexibility rather than efficiency alone. For investors, the implication is that the investment map is changing. Broad market exposure matter less than selective exposure, and currency considerations are increasingly relevant. Diversification is key: portfolios need to combine resilient fixed income, differentiated equity opportunities, selective private assets and strategic diversifiers.
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