Thematic outlook – where to invest in 2026

Slow and steady (with a little quantum boost) wins the race.

Kirill Pyshkin, Mar 02, 2026.

Our defensive stance is warranted so far in 2026

In our 2026 investment outlook, we called for overall defensive stance and disclosed that in our multi-asset strategy portfolio roughly half is invested in Gold or hedged to CHF. We also called for roughly equal allocation between equities and bonds, which we invest thematically. So far, this stance has proven to be warranted and our invested portfolio is up +7.4% in USD over the first two months of 2026.

Continued underperformance of thematic equites

2025 was the 4^th year of underperformance of thematic equities, which delivered less than half the return of global equities. 2026 could be yet another disappointing year for pure equity themes.

We have identified their excessive risk as the main issue, given the concentration in just a few sectors, growth and regional (US) biases, and smaller cap factor, plus a high correlation among the holdings within the same sectors.

Background to multi-asset themes

To offset these weaknesses, at the end of 2024, we introduced the idea of multi-asset thematics and launched a family of multi-asset thematic portfolios.

Together with infrastructure, a quasi-equities asset class, we expected multi-asset allocation to reduce the risk profile of thematic investments, while benefiting from the structural growth in themes.

As in previous episodes of market turbulence, multi-asset themes are significantly outperforming pure equity themes, with average 2026YTD return of +9.3% for our multi-asset thematics vs our pure equity portfolios +0.7% (negative -2.3% for our peers).

In fact, our multi-asset thematic portfolio since their launch at the end of 2024, has now outperformed our pure equity thematics by almost 10 percentage points overall. As the say “slow and steady wins the race”. Although +30% return since inception is not really slow at all.

Themes to invest in 2026

These are the four themes we are feeling the most optimistic for 2026:

1. Infrastructure
2. Inflation Buster
3. Rising BRICs
4. Quantum Tech (VC)

Infrastructure, Inflation Buster and Rising BRICs are the themes up over +12% already in 2026 YTD, while Quantum Tech (VC) is a new allocation into our Quantum, AI and Data thematic portfolio, hence no performance data to report yet.

Infrastructure

Our Infrastructure thematic portfolio consists of Transport & Structures (such as toll roads, bridges and materials), ICT (data centres, networks and equipment) and Energy (pipelines, oil & gas downstream facilities).

Both ICT and Energy buckets are doing extremely well. On the ICT side the datacentre spend is driving the performance. This is well illustrated by the fact that hyperscalers’ capex is set to exceed half a trillion dollars this year.

In Germany some of the ICT infrastructure and transport projects are also key to the stimulus spending plans.

In Energy, US is forcefully inserting itself into global supply chains, hence the need for infrastructure. For example, to replace Russian pipeline gas in Europe, which used to have 30-40% market share, Europeans need to build LNG regasification terminals and distribution network. At the same time US needs to bring natural gas liquids from shale basins to processing plants, then liquefy and load gas on LNG carriers at ports. This is served by a complex web of facilities and pipelines, and we invest in those.

Inflation Buster

This is a portfolio designed to protect against inflation and USD weakness. It consists of a mixture of equities, bonds and commodities that maintain their value regardless of the performance of fiat currencies that they are valued in.

USD weakened by about 12% in 2025 against our basket of European currencies. In 2026 that depreciation continued albeit at a slower pace. In this portfolio, commodities such as gold, and CHF-assets, are driving the performance again in 2026.

In our 2026 outlook, we disclosed that roughly half of our assets are invested in Gold or hedged to CHF. We’ve also specifically singled out this multi-asset Inflation Buster thematic to continue delivering excellent results after its stellar +43% return in 2025.

BRICs rising

Our emerging markets equities selection is up over 20% in 2026 (vs +14% EM equity index benchmark), as a result our multi-asset Rising BRICs thematic is up over +12%.

In this portfolio we allocate roughly 2/3 to equities and 1/3 to local currency bonds. This year performance is driven by equities, where we have large exposure to Brazil.

Quantum Tech

At the end of 2025 we added exposure to quantum technologies through a venture capital portfolio of Quantum Exponential, a pure quantum specialist early-stage VC investor (disclosure: Kirill Pyshkin is a managing partner). This is a new allocation, hence we have no performance data to report.

We believe we are at the inflection point for quantum investments. 2025 was the 100^th anniversary of quantum mechanics but more importantly the year of demonstration of use cases of quantum computing across some major end markets:

• Finance ($600BN market opportunity according to McKinsey). For example, in September HSBC demonstrated world’s first-known quantum-enabled algorithmic trading with IBM. Trial to optimise bond trading delivered up to 34% improvement in predicting the probability of winning customer inquiries in the European corporate bond market. Source: HSBC.
• Healthcare ($400BN market opportunity according to McKinsey). For example, in July 2025 Moderna used IBM quantum computer to model mRNA structure. It predicts the secondary protein structure of a 60 nucleotide-long mRNA sequence, the longest ever nucleotide folding pattern simulated on a quantum computer, crucial for creating effective mRNA vaccines. Source: IBM.

At the same time governments across the world intensify their efforts to secure their countries’ leadership in this technological and national security race. For example, for the UK quantum is key part of the Modern Industrial Strategy and the UK-US Tech deal; for US quantum is part of the new National Security Strategy (NSS Dec’25) and is at the top of the federal R&D spend priorities for 2027; EU will publish their Quantum Act later this year; other countries including China, India, Australia, Qatar spending $BN+ on their own quantum programs.

As a result 2025 saw a five-fold increase in capital flown into quantum companies, most of which are private – hence our new allocation within our Quantum, AI and Big Data portfolio and great optimism for this sector.

Source: The Quantum Leap

Disclosure

This article represents my personal opinion and is provided for information purposes only. Its content is not intended to be an investment advice, or a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. I use information sources which I believe to be reliable, but their accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors and, if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment advisor. I am a managing partner of Quantum Exponential, a specialist VC fund.