Asset Management

Aura Investment View: Midyear Market Outlook 2025

If you paused the market today, it might appear as though 2025 has been a smooth ride—stocks at record highs, volatility contained, and inflation showing early signs of easing. Yet this still frame conceals the significant activity behind the scenes. The first half of the year has been anything but tranquil, marked by sharp drawdowns, unexpected policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, and several macroeconomic head-fakes. Notably, on April 2nd—“Liberation Day”—U.S. equity markets recorded one of the highest single-day trading volumes in history. The two-day drop that followed on April 3rd and 4th ranks as the fifth largest since 1950. While markets may appear calm, the underlying dynamics have been far more turbulent.

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Aura Investment Perspective: Navigating Market Sentiment and Opportunities

Consumer and business sentiment has been highly responsive to headlines, particularly those related to trade tensions and geopolitical developments in the Middle East. However, the media cycle does not always reflect the underlying fundamentals. Data from a representative subset of our portfolio companies continues to present a more measured picture. Freight volumes have normalized more rapidly than anticipated, while industrial orders, pricing, and overall volumes remain resilient despite ongoing trade tariff uncertainty. Labor markets have remained broadly stable, with hiring intentions moderated but layoffs remaining minimal.

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Public markets have reacted positively to robust economic data and progress on trade negotiations, with the S&P 500 closing June at an all-time high. Nevertheless, current valuations appear to discount little risk amid lofty multiples. The S&P 500’s Shiller CAPE ratio now sits near 35x, placing it in the 97th percentile historically. Entering the market at such elevated valuations has historically been associated with more modest forward returns for public equities.

Against this backdrop, private markets demonstrate compelling value. Historically, private equity has outperformed across cycles, particularly following periods of high public market valuations. At present CAPE levels, private equity has delivered an average excess return of approximately 900 basis points over the S&P 500 across the subsequent five years. Furthermore, market dislocations have become more frequent and shorter-lived; between 2022 and 2025, rolling three-year periods experienced 65% more disruptions than the entire 1995–2022 period, while their duration has declined by 55%. This environment underscores the importance of portfolio diversification, strategic flexibility, and the ability to deploy capital quickly when opportunities arise—strengths that private market managers are uniquely positioned to leverage.

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A thoughtfully diversified portfolio spanning both public and private markets can potentially enhance returns while mitigating volatility, particularly in today’s uncertain environment. Whether growth- or income-oriented, portfolios incorporating alternatives have historically delivered compelling long-term results: over 10-year periods, growth strategies achieved 33% higher annualized returns with 53% lower volatility, while income strategies saw 47% higher returns with 39% lower volatility.

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Private equity continues to offer access to a broader opportunity set, especially as the number of publicly listed U.S. companies has declined by approximately 40% since 1996. Skilled private equity managers can take a long-term perspective, implement operational improvements, and unlock growth in ways often inaccessible to public market investors. Complementing private equity with private real estate and private credit can further enhance portfolio construction by providing higher-yielding income streams, reducing correlation to public markets, and offering tangible downside protection. Infrastructure investments, whether via equity or credit, present opportunities to participate in secular growth trends in digital infrastructure, utilities, and energy—areas poised to benefit from long-term structural demand.

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At Aura, we believe that a disciplined approach to diversification, combined with selective deployment in private markets, positions investors to navigate volatility effectively while capturing sustainable, long-term growth. At this midpoint of 2025, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the macro environment, evolving market trends, and how our investment strategies are performing across our portfolios. Economic growth continues to be solid, albeit moderately decelerating, while inflation is gradually moderating. Current data has yet to fully reflect the pass-through of recent tariffs into consumer prices, suggesting some potential upward pressure on goods inflation. However, two key inflationary drivers are easing: shelter costs have slowed to their lowest levels since November 2021, and wage growth is moderating—a positive signal for roughly 30% of the inflation basket tied to services, which are particularly sensitive to labor costs. Taken together, these developments provide a supportive backdrop for monetary policy. Aura’s investment view is that the Federal Reserve is likely to resume interest rate cuts in the second half of the year, creating potential opportunities across public and private markets. From Aura’s perspective, these conditions reinforce our disciplined approach to portfolio diversification, emphasizing a mix of growth-oriented sectors, resilient income streams, and selective private assets. Our focus remains on navigating volatility while capturing long-term structural trends that drive sustainable returns for our clients.

Navigating 2025: The Case for Private Assets in a Changing Market

Introduction

As we progress through 2025, the global financial landscape is undergoing significant transformations. Investors are confronted with a confluence of challenges and opportunities, ranging from inflationary pressures and geopolitical tensions to technological advancements and evolving regulatory frameworks. In this dynamic environment, private assets—encompassing private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure—emerge as pivotal components of a resilient investment strategy.

Aura Solution Company Limited, a global leader in asset and wealth management with over $936 trillion in assets under management and a presence in 67 countries, is at the forefront of guiding investors through these complexities.

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Aura Investment Insight: Key Macro Drivers Shaping 2025

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1. Inflationary Pressures
Persistent inflation remains a central theme in the 2025 macro environment. Supply chain disruptions, heightened energy price volatility, and labor market frictions continue to exert upward pressure on consumer prices. For investors, this translates into a gradual erosion of purchasing power and compression of real yields on traditional fixed income instruments. While headline inflation has shown early signs of moderation, core inflation remains sticky in many regions, necessitating careful portfolio positioning to preserve real returns. In this context, exposure to assets that can act as inflation hedges—such as inflation-linked bonds, real assets, and select private credit structures—can provide meaningful protection against unexpected price pressures.

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2. Monetary Policy Divergence
Central banks are charting increasingly divergent courses. Some major economies are pursuing aggressive rate cuts to stimulate growth, while others maintain tight monetary policy to contain inflationary pressures. This divergence has significant implications for global capital flows, interest rate differentials, and currency markets. Investors must navigate heightened exchange rate volatility and adjust their international allocations accordingly. From Aura’s perspective, incorporating flexible, multi-asset strategies that can respond to interest rate shifts across regions is essential to mitigate risk while capitalizing on opportunities created by policy divergence.

3. Geopolitical Tensions
Ongoing geopolitical conflicts and trade disputes continue to shape market sentiment and valuations. From tensions in the Middle East to trade negotiations between major economies, political uncertainty has contributed to episodic volatility in equities, commodities, and currencies. These developments underscore the importance of portfolio diversification across sectors, geographies, and asset classes. At Aura, we emphasize investments in resilient sectors such as infrastructure, energy transition, and digital technology, which are better positioned to withstand geopolitical shocks while delivering long-term structural growth.

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Strategic Implications
The interplay of persistent inflation, monetary policy divergence, and geopolitical uncertainty highlights the need for a disciplined and diversified investment approach. Aura advocates for a multi-layered strategy that includes:

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• Private Markets: Providing low-correlation returns and resilience during periods of public market volatility.

• Real Assets and Infrastructure: Serving as effective hedges against inflation and geopolitical disruptions.

• Flexible Global Allocation: Allowing portfolios to respond to divergent monetary policy and currency movements.

By understanding these macro drivers and integrating them into portfolio construction, investors can enhance resilience, protect purchasing power, and capture long-term opportunities even amid heightened uncertainty.

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In this context, traditional asset classes exhibit heightened volatility and diminished returns. Private assets, with their inherent characteristics, offer a compelling alternative.

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2. Private Equity: Capitalizing on Structural Growth

Private equity continues to serve as a cornerstone of Aura’s alternative investment strategy, offering unique opportunities to capture long-term structural growth while benefiting from operational improvements and active management.

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Strategic Deployments
Aura strategically deploys capital into high-growth, high-potential sectors. A recent example is our $28.5 Billion investment into Global Incentive Solutions, which illustrates our commitment to targeted allocations in industries poised for structural expansion. By focusing on companies with scalable business models, strong management teams, and clear growth trajectories, Aura seeks to generate superior risk-adjusted returns over the long term.

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Secondary Market Activity
The secondary private equity market has expanded significantly, providing investors with liquidity solutions that enhance the overall attractiveness of the asset class. Access to secondary transactions allows portfolios to adjust exposure, manage risk, and optimize timing of capital deployment, while also unlocking opportunities in mature investments that may not be readily available in primary markets.

Sectoral Focus
Aura prioritizes investments in sectors aligned with long-term societal and economic trends, including technology, healthcare, and renewable energy. These industries not only demonstrate sustained growth potential but also address critical structural needs, positioning our clients to benefit from megatrends that extend beyond market cycles.

3. Private Credit: Yield Enhancement and Diversification

Private credit has emerged as an increasingly attractive alternative for investors seeking yield, diversification, and portfolio resilience, particularly in the context of today’s evolving interest rate environment.

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Attractive Risk-Adjusted Returns
Private credit instruments generally offer higher yields than traditional fixed-income securities, reflecting compensation for illiquidity and credit risk. By carefully selecting borrowers and structuring loans with protective covenants, private credit managers can provide investors with consistent, risk-adjusted returns that are less sensitive to public market volatility.

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Diversification Benefits
Incorporating private credit into investment portfolios can reduce overall volatility while enhancing returns. Its low correlation to traditional equities and bonds allows private credit to serve as a stabilizing element, particularly during periods of market stress or rising interest rates.

Aura’s Approach
The Aura Core Income Fund exemplifies our disciplined approach to private credit. The fund seeks to deliver stable monthly cash income while diversifying across the private debt asset class, with a particular focus on high-quality Australian non-bank lenders. Through meticulous underwriting and active portfolio management, the fund aims to balance income generation with prudent risk mitigation, providing investors with a resilient and flexible solution in an environment where traditional fixed-income returns are increasingly constrained.

4. Real Estate and Infrastructure: Stability Amidst Volatility

Real estate and infrastructure continue to play a critical role in providing defensive characteristics within diversified portfolios.

Steady Cash Flows
Assets such as logistics centers, data centers, and renewable energy infrastructure generate consistent and predictable income streams. These steady cash flows are particularly appealing for income-focused investors seeking resilience amidst public market volatility.

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Inflation Hedge
Real estate and infrastructure investments can serve as effective hedges against inflation. Properties with long-term leases, for instance, allow rental income to adjust over time, while infrastructure projects tied to essential services—such as energy, transportation, and utilities—tend to retain value even during periods of rising prices.

Aura’s Initiatives
The Aura Global Endowment Fund provides investors with exposure to a diversified portfolio of real estate and infrastructure assets. By targeting returns above inflation over rolling five-year periods, the fund seeks to deliver both income stability and long-term capital appreciation, positioning investors to navigate market volatility with confidence.

5. Technological Integration: The Role of AI and Innovation

Technological advancements are transforming investment paradigms, enabling smarter decision-making and greater operational efficiency.

Artificial Intelligence
AI-driven analytics enhance investment processes by providing more precise valuations, risk assessments, and predictive modeling. This allows portfolio managers to identify opportunities and mitigate risks with greater accuracy than traditional methods.

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Blockchain and Tokenization
The rise of blockchain technology facilitates asset tokenization, improving liquidity, transparency, and accessibility for private assets. Tokenized structures allow investors to gain exposure to alternative investments in a more efficient and scalable manner.

Aura’s Vision
Through Vision 2025, Aura emphasizes the integration of technology and sustainability across investment strategies. By combining innovative tools with ethical practices, Aura aims to drive responsible growth, improve operational efficiency, and provide clients with forward-looking investment solutions.

6. Regulatory Landscape and Access Enhancements

The evolving regulatory environment is increasingly supporting broader access to private markets while reinforcing investor protection.

Regulatory Reforms
Initiatives such as the European Long-Term Investment Fund (ELTIF) 2.0 streamline compliance and reduce barriers, enabling investors to more readily access private assets across global markets.

Investor Protection
Enhanced disclosure requirements and transparency measures are being implemented to safeguard investor interests and promote confidence in private markets.

Aura’s Commitment
Aura remains at the forefront of advocating for regulatory reforms that enhance market efficiency, fairness, and investor confidence. By aligning investment practices with evolving frameworks, Aura ensures clients benefit from secure and well-structured access to alternative assets.

7. Strategic Implications for Investors

Given the current market dynamics—characterized by inflationary pressures, monetary policy divergence, geopolitical uncertainty, and elevated public market valuations—investors are encouraged to adopt a disciplined, multi-faceted approach. Aura identifies several key strategies to navigate these conditions effectively:

1. Diversification
Diversification remains a cornerstone of resilient portfolio construction. By incorporating a balanced mix of private and public assets—including private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, and thematic investments—investors can mitigate the impact of volatility in traditional markets. Diversified exposure helps smooth returns, reduces correlation risk, and enhances long-term portfolio stability.

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2. Long-Term Perspective
Investing with a long-term horizon allows portfolios to capitalize on structural growth trends and megatrends that unfold over years, rather than reacting to short-term market noise. Aura emphasizes sectors such as technology, healthcare, renewable energy, and digital infrastructure—industries aligned with sustained economic and societal growth—which can generate compounded returns for patient investors.

3. Rigorous Due Diligence
Thorough due diligence is essential for identifying high-quality investment opportunities and mitigating potential risks. Aura leverages advanced technological tools, AI-driven analytics, and proprietary market insights to evaluate asset fundamentals, operational efficiency, and sector-specific dynamics. This data-driven approach ensures informed decision-making and robust risk management across portfolios.

4. Professional Guidance and Expertise
Navigating complex markets and accessing high-quality private assets often requires specialized expertise. Collaborating with experienced asset managers, such as Aura, provides investors with access to exclusive opportunities, advanced investment structures, and insights derived from decades of global experience. Aura’s multidisciplinary approach ensures that portfolios are strategically positioned to capture growth, generate income, and withstand periods of market disruption.

Conclusion
By integrating diversification, a long-term perspective, rigorous due diligence, and professional guidance, investors can navigate uncertainty while positioning their portfolios for sustainable growth. Aura’s disciplined investment philosophy seeks to provide clients with both resilience and opportunity, enabling them to achieve their financial objectives in an increasingly complex global environment.

Conclusion: Navigating the Investment Landscape of 2025

The investment landscape of 2025 is defined by complexity, volatility, and opportunity. Macroeconomic pressures, evolving monetary policies, geopolitical uncertainties, and high public market valuations underscore the importance of a strategic, forward-looking approach to portfolio construction. In this environment, private assets—including private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure—offer unique advantages. They provide resilience against public market volatility, access to long-term structural growth, and diversified income streams, all of which are critical for achieving robust risk-adjusted returns.

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Aura Solution Company Limited is uniquely positioned to guide investors through this evolving terrain. With decades of experience, global reach across 67 countries, and expertise in alternative asset management, Aura combines data-driven analysis, technological integration, and rigorous due diligence to identify high-quality opportunities. Our thematic investment framework and proactive management approach allow us to anticipate trends, mitigate risks, and capitalize on emerging opportunities before they become widely recognized.

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By leveraging a disciplined strategy that blends private and public assets, investors can enhance portfolio resilience, pursue long-term growth, and maintain flexibility in an increasingly dynamic market. At Aura, our mission is to ensure that clients not only navigate the complexities of today’s investment environment but also capture the opportunities it presents, positioning portfolios for sustainable success over the long term.

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Aura Investment Insight: Solving the 40% Problem

At Aura, we recognize that the traditional 60/40 portfolio—60% equities, 40% fixed income—faces growing challenges in today’s evolving market environment. Several structural and macroeconomic factors support the need to reconsider the conventional fixed income allocation and explore broader diversification strategies.

1. A Changing Inflationary Regime
Since 2022, equities and bonds have exhibited unusually high positive correlation, approaching 80% of the time. This has significantly reduced the diversification benefits historically associated with the 40% fixed income allocation. Historical analysis shows that when monthly CPI readings exceed 2%, stock-bond correlations tend to turn positive, effectively limiting the risk mitigation that a traditional 60/40 portfolio provides. In this context, relying solely on traditional bonds may no longer offer the same level of protection during market volatility.

2. Transitioning from a Multi-Decade Bond Bull Market
For decades, declining interest rates—from over 16% in the 1980s to near zero pre-2021—supported strong bond returns. The Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs following the Global Financial Crisis further suppressed yields and bolstered fixed income performance. Today, as the Fed reduces its balance sheet and rates settle into a more range-bound environment, the upside potential of traditional bonds is expected to be more limited.

3. The Rise of Private Credit as a Strategic Alternative
Private credit presents compelling structural advantages that complement traditional fixed income:

• Insulation from Public Market Volatility: During periods of market stress, including the Liberation Day market turbulence, public credit spreads widened dramatically, while private credit markets remained active, providing capital where it was most needed.

• Floating-Rate Structures: Many private credit instruments carry floating interest rates, mitigating interest rate risk in a rising or range-bound rate environment.

• Robust Underwriting: Skilled credit managers provide a buffer against potential defaults, enhancing portfolio resilience.

• Expansion into High-Growth Sectors: Private credit increasingly supports areas such as energy, digital infrastructure, and transportation through cash-flow-backed structures, including asset-backed financing.

These features collectively provide downside protection, consistent income, and low correlation to public markets, making private credit a powerful tool for diversifying the 40% allocation traditionally devoted to bonds.

4. Volatility and the Case for Broader Diversification
Since the Fed began tightening monetary policy, implied bond market volatility has risen approximately 40%, underscoring the need for alternative strategies that can stabilize returns. By incorporating private credit and other alternative assets, investors can reduce reliance on traditional fixed income while maintaining portfolio resilience.

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5. Thematic Investing as a Core Advantage
Aura’s position as one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers enables early detection of transformative megatrends, spanning AI, power, the digital economy, and life sciences. Our thematic investing approach allows us to identify opportunities before they appear in official data, positioning portfolios to capture growth ahead of broader market recognition.

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Conclusion
Solving the 40% problem requires more than simply replacing bonds; it demands a strategic, diversified approach that blends private credit, thematic investments, and other alternative strategies alongside equities and traditional fixed income. By doing so, investors can achieve enhanced portfolio resilience, consistent income streams, and the potential for superior risk-adjusted returns in a changing market landscape.

For personalized investment strategies and further insights, connect with Aura Solution Company Limited today.

Contact Information:
Website: www.aura.co.th
Email: info@aura.co.th
Phone: +66 8241 88 111