Jade Miller

Jade Miller, CEO, ADISA: In times of market volatility, I believe that one attractive hedging strategy may be to look beyond the highly liquid, publicly traded markets. Instead, investors could consider diversifying their portfolio with more growth-oriented opportunities, such as private real estate, private credit, or other alternative investments. Alternative assets are generally less correlated to the markets and have the ability to provide both stability and meaningful growth over time.   

Garett Bjorkman, CEO, PEG: In today’s uncertain market environment, proactive strategies are critical for preserving value and creating opportunity. At PEG, we focus on asset-level strategies such as refinancing or modifying existing loans to better align with business plans and anticipated hold periods, especially when credit spreads remain favorable. We actively manage occupancy through strategic pricing and concessions, while also adding value through capex, tax appeals, and operational efficiencies. On the financing side, we calibrate debt exposure to the profile of each investment—utilizing interest rate caps, swaps, and collars to manage volatility while maintaining optionality. 

Garett Bjorkman

John Swift

John Swift, Managing Director, Head of Wealth Management, Rockfleet Financial Services Inc.: Volatility has shifted from episodic to structural—a fundamental change demanding evolved portfolio architecture. From our work across wealth management and private capital, traditional hedges like Treasuries and gold no longer provide the diversification benefits they historically offered when correlations converge during stress periods. At Rockfleet, we favor sophisticated barbell strategies that pair high-grade municipal credit with opportunistic alternatives, emphasizing floating-rate exposure and downside protection mechanisms. We also look for opportunities like options strategies to manage equity exposure while preserving upside participation. 

Michael Underhill, Founder and CIO, Capital Innovations: Investors are absolutely rethinking financing. Deals that looked solid at 4.00% start to wobble at 4.75%. Investors are extending duration selectively — where asset life matches liability — but staying agile on short-duration. Alternatives like mezzanine capital and green bond tranches have entered the conversation. Investor hedging is more active, with curve steepener trades where appropriate. 

Michael Underhill

Ganesh Sakshi

Ganesh Sakshi, CFO, Mountain V Oil & Gas: Absolutely. The rate environment has fundamentally repriced risk, but it also plays to our advantage. As a private operator with low leverage and strong cash flow visibility, we’re not dependent on public debt markets. That said, higher rates widen the gap between strategic and financially strained sellers, creating prime M&A opportunities. We’re seeing discounted assets where capital-constrained operators can’t fund development. Our strategy is to deploy patient capital into these inefficiencies, underwrite conservatively, and maintain optionality with a flexible capital stack. 

Ben Jackson, Managing Director of Capital Formation, Leste Group: From a macro standpoint, volatility in the forward curve signals greater uncertainty about where the economy and inflation may be headed. There are a multitude of complex risk factors the market is trying to process, from global trade policy to the level of federal spending and the health of the consumer balance sheet. As real estate investors at Leste, we are interest rate sensitive, while also recognizing it is impossible to predict how these risk factors will impact rate policy over the long term. We aim to use the volatility to our advantage by seeking accretive debt capital markets execution when a window of opportunity presents itself. This highlights the importance of maintaining strong relationships with lenders, so that we can act swiftly and decisively to refinance existing portfolio assets or finance new acquisitions when it makes sense. 

Ben Jackson