The global economy has entered a critical state of chaos, with the correlation and high sensitivity of major asset classes on the rise. On the one hand, the global growth and price systems exhibit more pronounced non - linear characteristics. The cycle rhythms become more uneven, and the impacts of path dependence and expectation feedback are constantly strengthening. The importance of fiscal policy in the policy mix has increased. Policy changes have a more direct impact on asset prices, and the transmission speed of disturbances is also faster.

The global market in 2026 is in a critical chaotic zone, where the correlation and sensitivity of asset prices are rising simultaneously, and the switching rhythm of interest rates, exchange rates, and commodities shows more obvious nonlinear characteristics. Under such a structure, the focus of asset allocation shifts from diversifying assets to diversifying paths, and building a portfolio with high perturbation resistance becomes the new investment logic. The judgment criteria mainly come from three aspects: First, the linear prediction ability continues to weaken, the global economy is more affected by nonlinear effects, and the price response to perturbations is more concentrated. Second, the pricing chain further revolves around policies and expectations, and the frequency of price jumps and path switching increases. Third, the market environment with multiple scenarios coexisting puts forward higher stability requirements for the portfolio, and it is necessary to improve perturbation resistance through path diversification to adapt to the price structure and game pattern in the critical stage.

The global economy has entered a critical and chaotic state, with the correlation and high sensitivity of major asset classes on the rise. On the one hand, the global growth and price systems exhibit more pronounced non - linear characteristics. The cycle rhythm has become more uneven, and the impacts of path - dependence and expectation feedback are continuously strengthening. The importance of fiscal policy in the policy mix has increased. Policy changes have a more direct impact on asset prices, and the transmission speed of disturbances is also faster.

From the perspective of growth, the IMF predicts that the global economic growth rate will slow down to 3.1% in 2026, 2 percentage points lower than that in 2024, but the overall economy remains resilient. The growth rate of developed economies is expected to be 1.6%. The growth of the United States is slowing down, the eurozone has weak momentum, and Japan is still in the early stage of the "wage - price" spiral. The divergence in the prosperity of emerging markets is more obvious. India, some Latin American countries, and ASEAN remain robust, but most economies are more sensitive to changes in external demand. From the perspective of policy, the global interest rate center will remain at a relatively high level from 2025 to 2026. The US policy interest rate is expected to fall back to 3.0 - 3.25%, the eurozone will remain around 2.15%, and the Japanese interest rate will continue to rise marginally. The combination of high interest rates and high debt makes the interaction between fiscal and monetary policies stronger, and the market's response speed to policy signals has increased significantly. From the perspective of market structure, the applicability of many traditional linear assumptions is declining. The path of inflation decline is not smooth enough, the cycle rhythms of major economies are no longer consistent, and the sequential nature of asset rotation has weakened.

Against this backdrop, the synchronous fluctuations of risky and risk-free assets are more common, reflecting an increase in the correlation between assets at the critical stage and a greater sensitivity of prices to policy changes. The risk mitigation effect of linear diversification weakens under this structure. Under the combined action of multiple factors, the environment faced by global asset allocation has become more complex, the explanatory space of the traditional linear causal framework has shrunk, and investment decisions require a more comprehensive consideration of the game structure, policy paths, and market behavior characteristics.

The allocation logic from decentralized assets to decentralized paths. As the global economy enters the critical chaotic stage, the correlation between assets increases and the volatility pattern switches faster, the traditional method of diversifying risks based on the number of assets is facing new challenges. In the current structure, the synchronous fluctuation of risk assets and risk-free assets is more common, and the asset price reaction to policy changes and market expectations is more concentrated. Diversified paths gradually become a more adaptive allocation method.

Recent market performance shows that the relationship between assets is more prone to convergence under perturbations, the inverse relationship between stocks and bonds has weakened, the hedge relationship between the US dollar and gold has also faded in some periods, and the correlation between commodities and inflation expectations is not always synchronized. These changes indicate that asset prices are more influenced by expectations and policy interactions, structural correlations have increased, making traditional diversification methods less effective in absorbing systematic shocks. At the same time, the price formation process also shows new characteristics. The interaction between policy changes, expectation adjustments, and trading strategies is more closely integrated, forming a continuous feedback chain, allowing prices to switch between multiple possible paths. The market is more sensitive to subtle information, policy statements often become an important factor triggering price adjustments, and the behavior of market participants is more mutually influential, making price fluctuations present a jumping feature. In this environment, risks often do not come from a single trend, but accumulate in the differentiation of different paths, so in the allocation idea, covering more possible paths is more important than increasing the number of assets.

Based on these features, path diversification has gradually become a new configuration direction. Path diversification emphasizes positioning between different outcomes of risk factors, policy changes, and market narratives, allowing the portfolio to remain stable in a variety of possible market paths. Compared to simply expanding the asset scope, path diversification pays more attention to the possible price movements, and by maintaining exposure in a variety of evolution scenarios, it enhances the portfolio's adaptability in complex cycles.

Building a portfolio with high resilience. With the global macro outlook and the emerging market signals acting together, the economic scenario in 2026 is more likely to present the characteristics of "low inflation, weak employment, growth slowdown but maintaining resilience". Combined with the performance of major asset classes in previous interest rate cuts cycles, it can be seen that the performance of different asset classes in the coming year will show a more distinct structural differentiation.

First, the interest rate trend is biased towards the downside, but the pace is range-bound. With fiscal pressure, policy expectation adjustment and weakening growth momentum, US long-end yields are more likely to consolidate and decline within a range, expected to trade in the 3.9%-4.2%. Eurozone rates follow the decline but with limited magnitude, while Japanese long-end rates are still gradually rising. The convergence speed of the global interest rate structure has slowed down, keeping medium and long-term rates meaningful to allocate, while path changes need to be closely watched. Second, equity structure differentiation is accelerating. In an environment where prices are more sensitive to policy signals, global equity markets are showing significant differentiation. US equities are less sensitive to earnings and more sensitive to policy statements, and overall are more likely to consolidate within a range and stage a rebound catalyzed by policy. Emerging markets, especially China and India, may perform better than developed markets, relying on industrial chain adjustment and valuation repair. The Japanese market still has the conditions to maintain strong activity, with corporate reform and capital repatriation driving it to maintain a higher level of activity. Third, gold continues to be strong. With policy uncertainty and central bank reserve demand supporting, gold is still in a strong range, and the trend may be more stable in the first half of the year and turn into consolidation in the second half as hedge demand changes. Finally, the US dollar maintains a medium-term weakness, and non-US currencies are relatively dominant. Affected by the US fiscal deficit, interest rate changes and the global growth pattern, the US dollar index is more likely to trade in the 95-100 range. Non-US currencies therefore have a relative advantage, the euro is driven by the US dollar's decline, and the renminbi has the conditions to appreciate moderately under the stability of policies and the recovery of domestic demand.

Overall, in the current market, the asset trend differentiation deepens, and some assets show stronger stability when the volatility increases. Gold benefits from the weak US dollar and risk-seeking demand, technology growth assets benefit from the interest rate decline and the technological cycle, and some non-US currencies benefit from the adjustment of the US dollar. These assets are often more likely to attract incremental funds when the market pressure increases, which can improve the stability of the portfolio. By combining these assets and paths, the performance of the portfolio in different scenarios can be improved, making the overall allocation more resistant to disturbances, achieving "let the wind blow in all directions, I remain calm and unshakable, and remain calm and unchanged".

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