Market insights and commentary from Carmignac.

Carmignac's Frédéric Leroux argues that the share of wages in US GDP has fallen to historic lows as household net worth consistently outpaces labour income since the late 1970s, a trend accelerated by AI-driven equity compensation. The piece explores two mutually exclusive remedies—broader employee equity ownership or allowing deglobalisation-driven inflation to redistribute wealth back to workers—and highlights the structural risk to employees without capital exposure.

Carmignac reviews the performance of its Portfolio Tech Solutions fund since its June 2024 launch, highlighting +92.9% cumulative returns versus +74.1% for its benchmark (MSCI AC World IT 10/40 Capped) through May 2026, driven by broad AI ecosystem exposure across semiconductors, infrastructure, and emerging market components. The commentary outlines key contributors (Broadcom, TSMC, SK Hynix, Nvidia), detractors (software names), and current positioning favoring high-quality, valuation-disciplined holdings amid a momentum-driven market with an extended AI capex cycle outlook.

Carmignac profiles three holdings in its global equity fund — Japan's Nitto Boseki (advanced semiconductor materials), France's Safran (aerospace installed-base economics), and US-listed Tradeweb (fixed income electronification) — as illustrations of its philosophy to find structural growth outside crowded AI index names. The piece combines fundamental company analysis with valuation discipline and argues that each holding occupies a strategically critical, high-barrier position within its respective value chain.

Carmignac's half-year outlook argues that AI capital expenditure has become the dominant driver of US nominal growth, while a Middle East oil shock (Hormuz closure) is imposing a stagflationary drag on global supply chains, cutting ~0.5% from world GDP growth. The investment strategy favours selective equity exposure concentrated in AI infrastructure and hyperscalers, income-generating credit backed by hard assets, and a short position in long-duration government bonds given sticky inflation and deteriorating fiscal dynamics.

Carmignac's emerging markets co-fund managers analyse the uneven economic impact of the Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz closure on EM economies, finding that Gulf oil exporters have been hurt by blocked export routes while Latin American commodity exporters have proved most resilient. The piece outlines how AI-driven momentum in Korea and Taiwan, rising commodity prices, delayed rate-cut cycles in oil-importing Asia, and growing renewables investment are creating heightened dispersion across the EM universe, favouring active and selective positioning.

Carmignac's Marion Plouhinec analyses how rising geopolitical tensions and economic nationalism are reshaping the balance of power between shareholders, management, and governments heading into the 2026 AGM season across the US, Asia, and Europe. The piece examines region-specific dynamics including US anti-stakeholder capitalism reforms, South Korea's Value-Up initiative, Japan's governance code revision, and European competitiveness-driven governance shifts, concluding that state influence in corporate decision-making is broadly expanding.