Michael Underhill

Michael Underhill, Founder and CIO, Capital Innovations: Markets are not pricing the full extent of fiscal risk. The U.S. debt trajectory is on autopilot, and that’s dangerous. Investors are layering in sovereign credit screens and holding liquidity buffers ready to deploy in dislocation. Investors ignoring this risk could find themselves on the wrong side of a fiscal wake-up call. 

Jake Heidkamp, Principal, Co-President, FactRight: This has been a concern for years and is outside the scope of our firm’s research/analysis; and it follows the adage how did you go bankrupt?…slowly and then all of a sudden. Debt sustainability concerns have been amplified by the scale of outlays made during COVID, other central banks reallocating a portion of their reserves from U.S. Treasuries into gold among other assets and continued deficit spending through the BBB process. While far from our area of expertise/core competency one could surmise that 5+% deficit spending on an annualized basis in exchange for 2ish% GDP growth is not a great trade long-term. 

Jake Heidkamp

Jade Miller

Jade Miller, CEO, ADISA: One narrative that could shift in the second half of the year is interest rates. Investor sentiment can change quickly, and if tariffs do come into play and remain in place, it is likely that we could see some market pullback and heightened market volatility. That could then put a spotlight on the price of illiquidity and on transaction volumes, both of which could become more important factors in how investors position themselves. 

Stacy Chitty, Co-founder & Owner, Blue Vault Partners: The Russia-Ukraine conflict and possibly not working out a deal with China on tariffs are what makes me the most nervous. We can sustain our progress through tough waters with China. I guess I see Russia/Ukraine as the noisiest and potentially most threatening challenge to the state of the economy and the world more broadly. But things change so quickly in the world today. You almost have to reassess monthly. 

Stacy Chitty

Jordan Lang

Jordan Lang, President, McCourt Partners: What keeps me up is the mismatch between where valuations are and where capital wants to be. You’ve got sellers holding onto peak-era expectations, buyers dealing with higher debt costs, and a lot of institutional equity still on the sidelines. That disconnect is making it hard to get deals done, and it’s slowing the kind of placemaking investments we believe in.