Eduard van Gelderen, former CIO of PSP who served as the head of research at FCLTGlobal in 2025 wrote an article for Chief Investment Officer on whether the technology payoff is well understood:

During my career in finance, I’ve attended many conferences, summits, roundtables and other events. Most of the time, topical developments were discussed, helping investors make sense of the world around us. In essence, these developments have remained the same over the years; it is the actual manifestation that attracted attention.

We’ve always had wars, economic setbacks and innovation, and we certainly have had market bubbles. Experience is a powerful resource that can help us deal effectively with these forces. But one development stands out to me: technological innovation.

Investors have had a love-and-hate relationship with technology for as long as I can remember. Interests hardly ever seemed to be aligned: Either quant investors asking for more technology were not fully understood by the technology group, or the technology group pushed for systems the investors found too rigid.

This debate was on the agenda of every event and oftentimes met with mixed emotions. Yes, technology was generally considered a must to advance the institutional investment industry, but the experience was also that technology makeovers were always more costly than expected, planning cycles were pushed out constantly, and—due to scope drift—projects were not delivering the promised advances that were so badly needed.

It was a bit of a catch-22: If you didn’t invest, you would certainly fall behind. But if you did invest, the project would start to claim a large part of your budget with hardly any real benefits—at least, any perceived as such—for the investor.

Technology Affects All Inputs

The problem can be related back to the positioning of technology. In his 2023 paper, “‘The Investor Identity’: The Ultimate Driver of Returns,” Ashby Monk described an institutional investor’s organizational capabilities as establishing the organization’s identity, and he distinguished the roles of inputs and enablers in producing returns. The fundamental inputs he identified were the four ingredients required to produce investment returns: capital, people, processes and information. The enablers he identified were governance, culture and technology.

Enablers and inputs interact, but the interplay between them might be misunderstood. As mentioned, if technology is seen as a stand-alone enabler and not integrated into a business strategy, it certainly will lead to a costly experience, along with a lot of frustration, because it will not match the investor’s needs. That outcome is equally true for the other enablers. But a common mistake is linking technology to information alone and not to the other inputs. A more holistic approach is needed.

Technology helps an investor operationalize intelligence and better understand the characteristics and sensitivities of the existing portfolio (capital). As such, it helps investors make better decisions (people), and it links the different steps in the value chain (process). In that respect, labelling technology as an enabler might be misleading. Perhaps it is better to talk about technology as the driver of an integrated investment process.

Development topics remain the same over time, but where things differ is the manifestation, and that makes the discussion of artificial intelligence unique.

How, Where AI Fits In

An increasing number of academic and popular articles are published showing the benefits of AI applied to investment management. But the reality is that the scope of these applications is rather limited, as most are focused on productivity gains. Using AI to monitor the news to generate investment ideas is, first and foremost, a productivity gain. Using AI to compare bond documentation and/or produce investment reports—the same. An interesting next step is to let AI check whether investment proposals are in line with an organization’s investment beliefs. Obviously, we should embrace this type of efficiency, because they do matter.

But the real impact of AI starts to become clear when we think holistically about an investor’s identity. Ajay Agrawal, an economist and professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and a leading AI expert, distinguishes point solutions from system solutions. It is not just the productivity gains found in the separate steps of the investment process that matter (point solutions), but also the interactions between the different steps (system solutions)—including all those involving service providers (such as the custodians, valuation agents and data platforms).

Many investment organizations do not think about system solutions yet. But it is not unreasonable that with AI, the sequential steps in the investment process (idea generation, execution, performance measurement, attribution and risk management) will become parallel processes influencing decisionmaking instantaneously instead of with a time lag of several weeks or even months.

This would require a complete redesign of the investment process. According to Mohamed Khalfallah, a partner in Emerton Data, the goal is to leverage all the value trapped in data platforms by implementing an ecosystem of specialized agents, orchestrated by a central engine. This will elevate investment professionals from “information aggregators” to “data-empowered decisionmakers.”

Full Adoption Is a ‘Must’

On a strategic level, those in the C-suite need to start thinking about the “AI North Star” and how technology and AI are going to support the mission of the organization. This is different for every organization.

A low-cost beta investor is probably more interested in productivity gains than a pension fund managing the solvency of the fund and trying to match liabilities. In case of the latter, resilience is the name of the game, and it is likely that the true value of AI is related to the fund’s risk management function. It is important to realize that this is a C-suite responsibility, not simply the responsibility of a chief technology officer, as it requires taking into account all the inputs and enablers.

This is where the shoe might pinch: The C-suite of many organizations just started the AI journey. (In fact, not long ago, many C-suites did not even include a chief technology officer.)

Is the pay-off of technology well understood? I think we can and must do better. As Peter Strikwerda, global head of digitalization and innovation at the Netherlands’ APG Asset Management, stated, “New technology on top of an old organization will only lead to a more expensive old organization. With the advent of AI at scale, it’s now time to ask how systems need to be adjusted.”

Effective and timely decisionmaking in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world is only becoming more challenging—making the full adoption of technology and AI a must. Yet a strategic plan understood and supported by an organization’s C-suite is necessary to focus on what really matters—results—and to avoid the feeling that improving technology only as an enabler leads instead to budget overruns and late delivery, never producing the needed increase in long-term value.

Eduard van Gelderen served as the head of research at FCLTGlobal in 2025 after spending more than six years as the CIO of PSP Investments in Montreal. Prior to his role at PSP, he worked for the investment office of the University of California and was CEO of APG Asset Management in the Netherlands. He recently launched Brave Foresight, an investment management consultancy company.

This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal or tax advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice. Any opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the stance of CIO, ISS Stoxx or its affiliates. 

Fantastic article by Eduard van Gelderen who I want to publicly commend as he recently sucessfully defended his PhD thesis on AI and the Canadian model.

Eduard writes exceptionally well, but let me dummy down his main insights above.

We live in a very uncertain, complex and volatile world where decisionmakers need to adopt technology and AI.

However, adopting new technological platforms and AI without the full C-suite and a clear understanding of where you are heading with all this will just end up being a costly exercise that fails to achieve desired results, namely, increasing long-term value.

Eduard makes the important point that a common mistake is linking technology to information alone and not to the other inputs. "A more holistic approach is needed."

What does he mean? You can adopt the latest and best platforms on performance attribution, risk, whatever but if you don't link it up to all inputs and make sure your teams are leveraging this information to obtain better investment outcomes consistently, then what's the point?

I've personally seen many large and small pension funds migrate from one system to another without fully understanding all the risks and without benefiting from the operation in any meaningful way.

Oh, you paid millions to get the latest risk, CRM, performance attribution system? Good for you, and what do you have to show for it? Nada.

We are all in the investment business, adopting technological change whether its old or new like AI sounds great but in the end the only thing that matters is better outcomes.

As Eduard eloquently states:

Is the pay-off of technology well understood? I think we can and must do better. As Peter Strikwerda, global head of digitalization and innovation at the Netherlands’ APG Asset Management, stated, “New technology on top of an old organization will only lead to a more expensive old organization. With the advent of AI at scale, it’s now time to ask how systems need to be adjusted.”

Effective and timely decisionmaking in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world is only becoming more challenging—making the full adoption of technology and AI a must. Yet a strategic plan understood and supported by an organization’s C-suite is necessary to focus on what really matters—results—and to avoid the feeling that improving technology only as an enabler leads instead to budget overruns and late delivery, never producing the needed increase in long-term value. 

I alluded to this earlier this week when I looked inside HOOPP's total portfolio approach and stated while TPA and integrated total fund management (TFM) sound sophisticated, in the end all that counts is are they delivering better outcomes for organizations and is there a way to measure this relative to the old model based on beating benchmarks?

I can say the same thing about AI, it sounds promising especially in terms of integrating responsible investing but will it deliver better outcomes for pensions over the long run and can we measure this clearly? 

The jury is out, it's too soon to make big proclamations but people like Eduard van Gelderen are asking the right questions and helping investors think through these complex topics. 

Below, Eduard van Gelderen is Head of Research for Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT), an organisation that was established in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, or Great Recession as it is known in the US, to move away from a so-called "quarterly capitalism", which arguably contributed to the crisis, and towards a true long-term mind-set (eight months ago).

Also, Jonathan Webster, the senior managing director and chief operating officer of CPP Investments. Jon discusses his career journey, his experience at Boston Consulting Group and Lloyds Banking Group, and the transition from the CIO role into the COO role. Jon talks about the strategic importance of technology and data in driving investment strategies, the shift towards a product-based technology delivery model, the implementation of a modular architecture, and the potential of generative AI to revolutionize workflows. 

Jon emphasizes the significance of being software-defined for security, integrating user-centric design, and the necessity of fostering a culture of curiosity, dissatisfaction with the status quo, and thorough understanding within his team. Finally, Jon reflects on the kets to his career success and looks ahead at the trends in generative AI and other technologies (April 2024). 

Great discussions, take the time to listen. 

…

Kieran Smith and Mary McDougall of the Financial Times report top bosses depart Canadian pension fund after Thames Water fiasco:

One of Canada’s biggest pension funds has parted ways with two top infrastructure executives after writing off its stake in Thames Water and the souring of another high-profile European investment.

Alastair Hall, senior managing director for Europe, and Chris Hogg, a director who led the firm’s digital infrastructure investments, have left Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System in recent weeks, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The exits follow struggles at two of Omers’ top investments. Hall, who joined in 2014, was involved in the fund’s investment in Thames Water. The fund was the utility’s largest shareholder and wrote off its entire 31 per cent stake in 2024.

Hogg, who joined in 2023, was one of the lead executives on Deutsche Glasfaser, a heavily indebted German broadband provider now scrambling to secure its financial future. Omers jointly bought Glasfaser with EQT in 2020 and holds a 49 per cent stake.

In December, the pension fund proposed a €1.7bn refinancing deal to Glasfaser’s creditors alongside EQT under which the owners would inject €1.1bn of “preferred” equity in exchange for €600mn of “super senior” debt.

Holders of the “super senior” debt would be the first to be repaid in the event of a bankruptcy, while “preferred” equity investors would get priority over the previous equity put into the business.

The shareholders have already invested €4bn into Glasfaser since purchasing it from KKR in 2020. Last year, they were forced to scale back the company’s original goal of serving 6mn homes by 2032 to just 3.2mn, in an effort to cut costs and stabilise the business.

A person familiar with the matter said Hogg was not the most senior Omers executive responsible for Glasfaser.

Omers manages C$141bn (about $104bn) of assets on behalf of 640,000 current or former public-sector and community workers in Canada’s Ontario province.

Some 22 per cent of the fund was invested in infrastructure at the end of June, with 19 per cent in private equity and 13 per cent in private credit. European investments account for 18 per cent of the total portfolio.

The fund is exploring the sale of its 33 per cent stake in Associated British Ports in a deal it hopes will complete in the second half of this year and value the UK’s biggest ports operator at more than £10bn.

It also sold its stake in London City Airport to Macquarie last year alongside Alberta Investment Management Corporation, following Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s sale of its holding in the airport to Australia’s largest infrastructure investor last June.

A person familiar with Omers said the sales and the departure of executives did not indicate that Omers was looking to scale back its European infrastructure investments. They cited the fund’s acquisition of a network of Italian railway stations, Grandi Stazioni Retail, alongside DWS in 2024.

The same year, Omers restructured its European private equity team as it announced it would no longer invest directly in private companies in the region.

Michael Hill, global head of Omers Infrastructure, said Europe remained an integral part of its diversification strategy. He thanked Hall for his “significant contributions” and said recruitment for a new European infrastructure head was under way.

Siqalane Taho of Infrastructure Investor also reports OMERS Infrastructure’s European head Hall resigns:

The infrastructure investment division of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) has seen the head of its European business exit the organisation, Infrastructure Investor has learned.

Sources with knowledge of the matter said that Alastair Hall has resigned from his position as senior managing director and head of Europe at OMERS Infrastructure.

Michael Hill, executive vice president and global head of OMERS Infrastructure, confirmed the news in a statement to Infrastructure Investor.

“Alastair Hall has decided to leave OMERS. We want to thank him for his significant contributions to our team and growth of the infrastructure asset class in the region. We wish him all the best for his next career chapter,” he noted.

Infrastructure Investor understands that the firm is to embark on a recruitment drive to fill the vacant position, with managing directors reporting to Hill in the interim.

Hall joined OMERS in 2014, rising through the ranks to oversee the firm’s European investment activities and team from London in 2021.

Prior to that, he was global head of investment strategy and partnerships, where he was tasked with advancing the Canadian-headquartered manager’s international investment strategy and leading third-party capital formation initiatives.

Previously, Hall was responsible for allocating capital across the European energy, renewables and utilities value chain, including leading key investments in Thames Water, Ellevio, Net4Gas, Associated British Ports, Caruna, High Speed 1, SGN and MapleCo.

OMERS Infrastructure was forced to write off its entire 31.7 percent stake, valued at £990 million ($1.3 billion; €1.2 billion), in the beleaguered UK utility Thames Water in May 2024. The water company was then placed in special measures by the UK water industry regulator Ofwat in July 2024.

At the time, the utility had a net debt of £18 billion, up from £11 billion when OMERS Infrastructure made its investment in 2017.

In an interview with Infrastructure Investor in July 2024, Hill said of the Thames Water episode: “Obviously, we’re very disappointed with the outcome. You don’t go into an investment like this expecting this outcome. We’re very disappointed on behalf of customers in London and all of our stakeholders that we represent.

“Our team gave a tireless effort to try and get us to a better outcome and, in the end, I think we made a decision that was based on our fiduciary obligations to not continue to invest.”

At the end of 2024, OMERS’ annual report revealed that its infrastructure unit’s performance had recovered to an annualised 8.8 percent net IRR, up from a net return of 5.5 percent in 2023, but below the 12.7 percent achieved in 2022. It has a 10-year average return of 10.5 percent.

Before joining OMERS Infrastructure, Hall, an Oxford PPE graduate, worked for more than three years as an investment banker in Deutsche Bank’s London office, where he was a director in the natural resources unit.

His career began at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he spent six years in the investment banking team, advising on energy and power sector deals.

Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Alright, never a dull moment in the Canadian pension world, more executive shakeups to report on, this time at OMERS Infrastructure.

I can't say I'm surprised, Thames Water was a disastrous investment for OMERS which it ended up writing off completely and someone had to take the fall.

I want to make it clear however that Alastair Hall worked on many exceptional investments at OMERS Infrastructure and it's too bad Thames will be associated with him. 

I hated that investment from the time Macquarie sold it and it was an impossible task to turn that sinking ship around.

As far as Chris Hogg, who joined OMERS Infrastructure from Amber Infrastructure back in 2023 to lead the investment efforts in digital infrastructure in Europe, I honestly don't know much about him or what exactly happened with the Glasfaser investment.

But he was just a director so a senior managing director approved that investment.

If I'm not mistaken, he reported to Alastair Hall who hired him. 

Anyway, OMERS Infrastructure is a lot bigger and stronger than these two investments, they will recruit new people and move on (I'll pass on some names to Michael Hill but I'm sure he has a short list already).

Executive shakeups happen all the time at the Maple 8 but lately they've been happening more frequently all over.

From the outside it doesn't look good but they're running a business, they need to make sure they have the right people at the top spots to continue delivering stellar long-term results.

And in the case of OMERS Infrastructure, they're also managing third-party money so they need to be on their A game all the time. 

It doesn't mean Alastair Hall and Chris Hogg are bad infrastructure investors, they're both sharp and experienced, it just means it's time for a change to introduce new blood to the organization. 

Alastair knows Annesley Wallace very well as they both worked on strategy in the past, so wouldn't be surprised if he helps HOOPP map out its European strategy.

We shall see, I obviously have no clue but wish Alastair Hall and Chris Hogg all the best, onward!

As for OMERS Infrastructure, Michael Hill will get busy recruiting top talent and moving on as well.

That's part of the business, not pleasant but sometimes necessary.

Below, from sewage spills to owing billions in debt, the UK’s biggest water company has come under a lot of heat recently. And, its grand rescue plan has just fallen through. Here’s a breakdown of the whole scandal from start to finish.

Quratulain Tejani of EQD Intelligence reports inside HOOPP’s total portfolio thinking; Jacky Lee talks approach, widespread adoption:

Total portfolio approach, once an academic framework, is becoming the go-to operating system for large asset owners grappling with a more fragmented, inflation- prone world.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

• TPA has existed for decades, but adoption is accelerating as allocators reassess whether stable correlations, mean reverting growth and long run risk premia still hold
• HOOPP’s portfolio won’t drastically change if the long term outlook hasn’t changed, but when it does, the total portfolio framework ensures they are prepared
• Boards define risk guardrails while investment teams position the portfolio

Total portfolio approach, once an academic framework, is becoming the go-to operating system for large asset owners grappling with a more fragmented, inflation-prone world.

Jacky S. Lee, senior managing director and head of total portfolio management at the USD88 billion Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan in Toronto, said TPA has existed for decades in research and practice.

Adoption is accelerating now as allocators are increasingly questioning whether the assumptions underpinning strategic asset allocation, stable correlations, mean reverting growth and long run risk premia, still hold after decades of falling rates and globalization. In response, some are reorganizing around TPA, a framework that prioritizes total fund outcomes over static asset class silos.

“TPA does not offer a recipe, but a way of adapting when the assumptions of markets themselves may be changing,” Lee said, highlighting concerns that economic regimes may now persist rather than revert. Inflation dynamics, supply-chain realignment, currency volatility and geopolitics are forcing investors to think in probabilities, not averages.

At HOOPP, the total portfolio approach officially came into effect in January but dates back to the early 2000s with the liability driven investing strategy. Lee said HOOPP’s success during that time, in large part, was a result of successfully positioning the fund to take advantage of market re-pricing of risk premiums. “Just like other funds, HOOPP continues to evolve its governance approach, and we now describe HOOPP’s TPA framework as an investment mindset centered on preparedness, and guided by integration and adaptability. [We have] investment teams working together as one fund and we are prepared to adapt the portfolio when market conditions change.”

At its core, TPA reframes portfolio management as an organizational system rather than a static allocation exercise, shifting focus toward total fund outcomes and aligning governance and incentives around that objective. “Investment is about judging odds and positioning portfolios so the odds play in your favor. TPA is a framework that gives skilled teams a better chance of achieving that outcome,” Lee said.

Boards set total fund risk tolerance and constraints, such as liquidity and concentration, while investment leadership determines positioning within those limits, he said. The focus shifts from asset allocation targets to how the whole portfolio behaves across scenarios.

That shift is also reshaping incentives and benchmarking. Traditional benchmarks have long doubled as both passive exposure proxies and performance yardsticks. Under TPA, Lee said those roles are increasingly split. Asset allocation models help understand portfolio risk, while performance is judged against strategy-specific objectives rather than index relative returns, he said. “We are not trying to answer whether [the managers] beat an index but whether they did a good job based on what [they] were asked to achieve.”

Diversification, too, is treated as dynamic, Lee added. Rather than relying on historical correlations, teams stress test portfolios across regimes, questioning whether assets that once offset equity risk would do so under different monetary or currency backdrops.

To support that approach, TPA teams monitor a broader set of signals beyond traditional capital market assumptions. These include business cycles, credit cycles and liquidity cycles, alongside policy direction, market positioning and sentiment. Teams also incorporate qualitative inputs such as geopolitical developments, expert views and company level operating data. The goal is probability assessment across multiple potential futures rather than precise forecasting, Lee said. “Forming a view is hard...Understanding what is already [priced in] is even harder,” he said.

Lee said implementation varies. Some funds lean into dynamic allocation, others build portfolios designed for robustness, while some retain strategic anchors but act aggressively in dislocations. What unites them is a single objective: improving long term risk adjusted outcomes by aligning governance, incentives and portfolio construction around the total fund, not its parts. “At HOOPP, our philosophy is to maintain what we believe is the most appropriate portfolio based on our current long term outlook,” he said. “The portfolio would not drastically change if that long term outlook hasn’t changed, but when it does, we are prepared,” he said. “We can think of our approach as ‘event driven’, where our portfolio can remain stable for a long time, but we are ready to pivot when our long term outlook materially changes,” he said.

Excellent interview with Jackie Lee, senior managing director and head of total portfolio management at HOOPP.

Jackie is obviously a very sharp guy who understands the total portfolio approach (TPA) inside out.

In this interview, he doesn't just get into HOOPP's TPA thinking he also discusses the different approaches others implement but with the same objective, namely, "improving long term risk adjusted outcomes by aligning governance, incentives and portfolio construction around the total fund, not its parts."

At its heart, TPA is really all about obtaining the Fund's investment objective by finding the best risk-adjusted returns across public and private markets.

It requires breaking down the silos and groups working collaboratively to find the best opportunities to invest over the long run.

When severe dislocations happen, typically the best opportunities lie in public markets, and here I'm specifically thinking of HOOPP when the pandemic first hit and senior managers were jumping in on a morning Teams meeting to discuss where to invest.

But sometimes you get massive dislocations in private markets as well and need to react quickly.

TPA embodies a lot more than what I'm discussing above.

A few years ago, my former PSP colleague, Mihail Garchev who is now Head of Total Fund Management at BCI had written a seven part series on integrated total fund management for my blog which was very popular at the time (see Part 1 here and Part 7 here).

Mihail once told me we should get all the total fund guys and gals in a room and I should interview them for my blog ("so, what exactly do you do and why do you consider it so important?").

I must admit, I take all this total portfolio approach and integrated total fund management stuff with a pinch of salt -- it makes sense, sounds sophisticated but like all the hype in AI, where's the beef?

I'm not saying these people aren't doing important work, they are, but I need to evaluate it relative to the old approach where groups don't talk to each other, couldn't care less about total fund and only focus on beating their benchmark.

On this issue, notice this part from the interview above:

[...]while performance is judged against strategy-specific objectives rather than index relative returns, he said. “We are not trying to answer whether [the managers] beat an index but whether they did a good job based on what [they] were asked to achieve.” 

Critics may claim TPA is a way for underperfoming managers to get paid based on soft objectives rather than hard objectives. 

But in TPA, teams are aligned and focused on fund objectives and this requires a different way of thinking altogether and objectives cannot be measured solely on beating a benchmark.

It's also worth noting TPA or TFM is better suited for plans that have one client like Teachers' or deal with one sector like HOOPP.

In a recent interview discussing their new strategy, AIMCo's CIO Justin Lord said this about TPA:

“If anything, TPA is at a client level at AIMCO where we are focused on portfolio management for individual clients to reflect their circumstances regarding risk, portfolio construction and strategies like rebalancing and hedging.”  

Anyway, there's a lot to digest here, I would love to dive a lot deeper into TPA one day with experts across all of Canada's major funds.

Below, Stephen Gilmore, CIO of CalPERS, joins Capital Allocators with Ted Seides to discuss CalPERS' Total Portfolio Approach.

This is a great in-depth discussion and Stephen Gilmore is experienced and explains difficult concepts very well. Take the time to listen to his insights and how they're implementing TPA.

Rian Howlett , Karen Friar and Laura Bratton of Yahoo Finance report the Dow closes above 50,000 for the first time as stocks soar to cap volatile week: 

US stocks rebounded on Friday from a weeklong tech bruising as Wall Street reassessed worries about the impact of AI disruption and the risks of hefty Big Tech spending.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the way higher, surging by about 2.5%, or more than 1,200 points, to climb ahead of the 50,000 level for the first time.

The S&P 500 rose 2% in its best session since May of last year. The Nasdaq Composite added about 2.1%, as the indexes bounced back from Thursday's sharp closing losses and a week's worth of selling pressure.

Wall Street is ending the week with a bounce back, as Big Tech CEOs and analysts brushed aside concerns about the impact of new AI tools on legacy tech. The Dow ended the week with a gain of 2.5%, but the benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed the week in the red.

Some of tech's biggest names led the charge. Nvidia (NVDA) surged over 8%, while Broadcom (AVGO) and Tesla (TSLA) posted sizable gains. Some tech gloom persisted as Amazon's (AMZN) shares tumbled 7%. In its earnings, the major cloud provider outlined plans for a massive 2026 jump in spending to at least $200 billion, even as its forecast for operating income fell short.

The tentative risk-on tone extended beyond stocks, as bitcoin (BTC-USD) climbed steadily back to above $70,000, having touched a 16-month low overnight. But the biggest cryptocurrency is still down almost 20% year to date after wiping out all of its post-Trump election gains this week.

Strategy (MSTR), one of the companies most affected by the crypto slump, revealed a loss for the quarter. The results initially weighed on its stock, but shares were up 26% on Friday as bitcoin revived and Strategy's CEO played down concerns about debt-servicing risks.

Elsewhere, Stellantis (STLA) warned it will take a charge of over 22 billion euros ($26 billion) in a plan to scale back its EV push. Shares in the Jeep maker tanked over 20% on Wall Street and in Milan (STLAM.MI).

Looking ahead, the release of the closely watched January jobs report, originally scheduled for Friday, has been pushed to Wednesday next week. Fresh signs of trouble in the labor market emerged in recent days, as job openings sank to their lowest level since 2020 and layoff announcements surged.

Sean Conlon and Alex Harring of CNBC report the Dow surges 1,200 points for first close above 50,000 in sharp rebound from tech rout:

Stocks surged on Friday as technology stocks recovered following several days of heavy selling in the sector and bitcoin rebounded following a rout that took the popular cryptocurrency down more than 50% at one point.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1,206.95 points, or 2.47%, closing at 50,115.67. Friday marked the first time the Dow exceeded the 50,000 level. The S&P 500 jumped 1.97% and ended at 6,932.30, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.18% to 23,031.21. With those moves, the S&P 500 climbed back into the green for 2026.

Even with Friday’s pop, the S&P 500 posted a 0.1% decline for the week, while the Nasdaq fell 1.8% on the week. The 30-stock Dow rose 2.5% week to date, benefiting from some rotation into some economically cyclical stocks even as the overall market was weighed down by tech selling.

Nvidia and Broadcom were two of the key winners Friday, with the former increasing by nearly 8% and the latter growing 7% following big declines earlier in the week. Other stocks such as Oracle and Palantir Technologies also bounced back as investors reconsidered some of the names at cheaper levels. Oracle and Palantir each rose 4%. Some key software stocks like ServiceNow — which has been the epicenter of the tech sell-off because of an artificial intelligence disruption fear of software — remained weak on Friday, however.

“We’re in a gold rush right now with AI,” said Falcon Wealth Planning founder Gabriel Shahin.

“You have the investment that Google is making, Nvidia is making, that Meta is making, that Amazon is making. There is money that will be deployed,” he also said. “It’s just the carousel [of money movement] sometimes scares people.”

Shahin believes the market is in the midst of a “great recalibration,” where investors are going to move further out of growth stocks and into value. Over the coming months, his bet is on large-cap value names. That played out Friday, with investors buying up shares in areas such as industrials and financials. In those sectors, Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs were standouts, supporting the Dow’s outperformance with their rise of 7% and 4%, respectively. Small-cap stocks also saw a boost: The Russell 2000 index rallied 3.6%.

Bitcoin recouped some losses Friday, adding 10% and touching a session high of $71,458.01 after briefly sinking below $61,000 overnight to its lowest level since October 2024 — more than 52% off from its record high of $126,000 hit in early October 2025. Friday’s move higher helped ease some of the risk-off concerns among investors that recently plagued the broader market. The cryptocurrency has lost 16% this week, however.

The week was bleak heading into Friday, with the S&P 500 on pace for its worst week since last October and the Nasdaq Composite on track for its worst week since the tariff-related market plunge of last April. Friday’s pop pared those declines significantly.

Amazon was an outlier Friday, as shares sank more than 5% after the e-commerce giant posted earnings per share slightly under analyst expectations and told investors to expect $200 billion in capital expenditures this year.

Alright, what a crazy volatile week in the stock market.

On Thursday, everything remotely risky was sinking fast -- bitcoin, silver, gold, biotech, tech -- and then on Friday, it's as if the algos went from extreme Risk Off to extreme Risk On.

Just to give one of many examples, on Thursday the share price of Strategy (MSTR), a company whose fortunes are tied to bitcoin, sank to hit a low of $104 during trading hours and today it closed a smidgen under $135:

The stock is still down 10% for the week.

What else? The share price of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) hit a low of $190 on Thursday and the stock closed at $208 today:

I can go on and on giving you countless examples of stocks that got slaughtered on Thursday and bounced back hard today.

The volatility is just insane but nothing beat the volatility of bitcoin this week, just nuts (silver was a close second).

I monitor the price of bitcoin when it gyrates wildly because it gives me risk sentiment real time.

Why is all this happening now early in February?

I don't know, obviously the rotation out of tech into value plays a factor but the price action is just so severe especially in software shares which continue to sink on AI disruption worries:

That is one UGLY 5-year weekly chart and it's NOT a screaming buy here but personally, I think the hysteria over AI disrupting software stocks is way overdone and long-term investors need to buy Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Snowflake (SNOW) and others at these levels (and manage risk as well).

I just think it's a crazy selloff in software as if every company in the world is going to use Anthropic for its software needs (yeah right!).

But the charts are UGLY, maybe this week was capitulation in software shares, we shall see.

And while everyone was rushing out of software, tech and hyper growth this week, they were rushing into consumer staples which benefited from all the craziness: 

Bullish chart but these are staples like Coke and Pepsico going parabolic. I doubt this is going to last for long even if taples had a terrific week:

What else? Shares of private equity titans got slammed hard this week on worries over private credit's exposure to the software industry:

 

Again, these charts aren't nice but the way they're acting is overdone on my opinion, as if private credit woes in software will bring down private equity giants (no chance). Lastly,  what's up with Novo Nordisk? The stock got slammed this week after the company came out with a weak 2026 guidance and Hims and Hers Health (HIMS) came out with a discounted version of its Wegovy product:   The share price bounced back Friday after the FDA warned against illegal copycat drugs, sending Hims & Hers shares plunging. I'm not saying to go out and load up on Novo Nordisk here as share price remains weak but it's a quality pharmaceutical which prints cash being treated like it's going out of business (total nonsense). Anyway, crazy week in the stock market, insane volatility, one I will remember.  I leave you with the top-performing US large cap stocks today and this week: 
  And here are the worst-performing US large cap stocks this week (full list here): 
I would also encourage you to see which stocks are making new highs and lows here.  Alright, I covered enough, not even sure who reads my Friday night comments but I love writing them up.  Below, Tom Lee, Fundstrat, joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss the state of crypto markets, Bitmine's business and much more.

Next, Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research, joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss Yardeni's thoughts on equity markets, where the opportunities are and much more.

Third, Richard Bernstein, Richard Bernstein Advisors CEO, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss the state of equity markets, which stocks are growing fast and treading cheaply and much more.

Fourth, Josh Belton, Gabelli Funds portfolio manager for growth equities, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the latest market trends, impact of AI on software, where AI is generating revenue today, and more.

Lastly, Brad Gerstner joined CNBC’s Halftime Report with Scott Wapner to address the software selloff.

Matt Toledo of Chief Investment Officer reports Norway’s sovereign wealth fund returned 15.1% in 2025:

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund saw strong performance in equities and energy infrastructure in 2025. The Government Pension Fund Global, managed by Norges Bank Investment Management, reported a 15.1% return last year, with fund assets reaching 1.526 trillion kroner ($2.228 trillion).

The fund’s return was 28 basis points lower than its benchmark index, according to an NBIM statement released Thursday. 

“The fund delivered very strong results in 2025,” NBIM CEO Nicolai Tangen said in a statement. “Stocks in technology, financials and basic materials stood out, making a significant contribution to the overall return.” 

The fund allocated 71.3% of its assets to publicly listed equites, 26.5% to fixed income and 1.7% to real estate. NBIM also manages a portfolio of unlisted renewable energy infrastructure, accounting for 0.4% of the total portfolio. 

NBIM’s equity portfolio returned 19.3%, while fixed income and unlisted real estate yielded 5.4% and 4.4%, respectively. The fund’s renewable energy infrastructure portfolio—which includes wind and solar farms—returned 18.1% last year. 

Within the fund’s equity portfolio, the basic materials sector performed the best, with a 40.9% return, followed by financials (32%), telecommunications (32%), and technology (28.5%). Because of the size of the allocations to different market sectors, technology stocks returned 864 billion kroner to the fund, followed by financials (675 billion kroner), industrials (312 billion kroner) and consumer discretionary (151 billion kroner). 

In a press conference announcing the fund’s 2025 returns, NBIM presented several stress testing risk scenarios which could negatively impact the performance of the fund in the future. In one scenario, the fund projected a market correction in the artificial intelligence sector—if the productivity gains of AI were not realized—that could result in a 37% fall in the fund’s value.  

Chloe Taylor of CNBC also reports the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund made $247 billion in 2025, driven by tech and banking rally:

Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund made $247 billion in 2025, its management team said Thursday, thanks to rallying tech, financial and mining stocks.

The fund posted annual profit of 2.36 trillion kronor, or $246.9 billion. By the end of last year, the fund’s total value stood at 21.27 trillion Norwegian kroner Over the course of 2025, the fund returned 13.5 trillion kronor — its highest annual return since the fund’s inception in the nineties.

The overall return was 0.28 percentage points lower than the return on its benchmark index.

Equities, which make up about 71% of the fund’s investments, returned 19.3% last year.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) manages the fund on behalf of the Norwegian population. Set up in the 1990s to invest excess revenues from Norway’s oil and gas industry, the fund is currently an investor in more than 7,000 companies across 60 countries.

Its most valuable investments include a 1.3% stake in Nvidia, a 1.2% stake in Apple and a 1.3% stake in Microsoft.

“Stocks in technology, financials and basic materials stood out, making a significant contribution to the overall return”, Nicolai Tangen, NBIM’s CEO, said in a statement on Thursday.

NBIM’s holdings in the basic materials sector include mining giant Fresnillo — the best-performing stock on London’s FTSE 100 last year, which surged 452.5% amid a silver boom and its acquisition of Probe Gold.

In the financial sector, NBIM holds significant stakes in Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. The fund also has various holdings in global lenders, including European banking giants Santander, UBS, HSBC and UniCredit. Europe’s banking sector has been a source of major returns for investors in recent years.

Outside equities, NBIM’s fixed income investments returned 5.4% in 2025, while unlisted real estate returned 4.4%. Its renewable energy infrastructure holdings returned 18.1% last year. 

The fund increased in value by 1.53 trillion kroner — around $159.9 billion — in 2025.

White House clash

While the fund’s returns were positive in 2025, some of its decisions drew criticism — notably from the White House.

In September, the U.S. State Department told CNBC it was “very troubled” by fund’s decision to exit positions in American machinery manufacturer Caterpillar and five Israeli banks, citing “unacceptable risk” that the companies were contributing to rights violations in Palestinian territories.

A spokesperson argued NBIM’s Caterpillar exit “appears to be based on illegitimate claims against Caterpillar and the Israeli government.”

Norway’s finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, later said the divestment was “not a political decision.”

American equities account for 38.8% of all the fund’s investments.

Stoltenberg told Bloomberg last week that he saw no reason for the fund to exit the United States.

“Our presence in the United States reflects the size of the U.S. market. And I think that’s the best way for a very long-term fund,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund and the most transparent fund in the world, consistently outranking global peers.

Results came out a week ago and I wanted to cover them this week for a couple of reasons.

First, it gives us a glimpse of what a well diversified global fund returned last year and also a glimpse into the performance of its massive unlisted real estate portfolio.

Second, this Fund is a close as you get to 70/30 allocation of global stocks and bonds (in reality its 71% in global listed equities, 27% in fixed income and 2% unlisted real estate and renewable energy).

In this regard, the Fund is heavily expose to global public markets and has no allocation to private equity.

It gives you a good idea of what Canada's large pension funds would be delivering if they didn't invest in private markets and primarily invested in global public markets.

Canada's large pension funds will be reporting their annual results in the weeks ahead and I don't expect them to deliver anywhere close to 15% for 2025 given they're more diversified across public and private markets.

Still, I expect decent performance across the Maple 8 funds with some issues in private equity mostly but nothing that will detract from the overall performance. 

So, keep Norway's 2025 performance in your head but also bear in mind it's a totally different asset allocation and objective function.

Norway's GPFG has a lot more global beta embedded in its portfolio and is a lot more exposed to the US tech sector which is good when these stocks are rallying, not so good when they're selling off (like thus far this year).

Below, CEO Nicolai Tangen and Deputy CEO Trond Grande presents the fund's results for 2025 at the fund's Oslo office Auditorium.

Great presentation, pay attention to their discussion on concentration risk impacting the Fund. I also like the way Nicolai calls upon analysts and portfolio managers to discuss sector performance. great insights here, take the time to listen.

I wish all our Maple 8 Funds and others did a similar detailed performance analysis of their annual results in a live presentation made public on YouTube.