August carried the imprint of resilience, though it was far from a straight line. The month opened on a sour note as new U.S. tariffs took effect and payroll revisions revived doubts about the labour market’s strength. Yet those concerns quickly gave way to renewed optimism.
In recent years, private equity buyout funds and private credit vehicles saw unprecedented growth in fundraising and deal activity. However, a sharp shift in the macroeconomic environment has introduced significant challenges.
November interrupted the year’s steady advance, not with a decisive shift in fundamentals but with a bout of volatility that exposed the market’s growing sensitivity to policy expectations and valuation.
As I sit at my desk this December, watching the final trades of a truly volatile 2025, it is clear that we have lived through a year that defied almost every baseline expectation. Investors entered the year anticipating a predictable normalization, yet markets were instead pulled from one narrative to the next.
January opened not with a whisper but with rupture. Financial markets, having ended 2025 on a cautiously optimistic note, were immediately thrown into uncertainty as geopolitical risks took again center stage. In the first days of the year, the United States launched an unprecedented military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and a controversial assertion of control over the country’s political transition.
