Whale’s Market Outlook 2026: Liquidity, Expectations and “The New Order”
# Asset Management
# Derivatives
# Macro
For global investors, 2025 was one of the most undercurrent-filled years of the 21st century. Unlike the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 or the global financial crisis in 2008, markets in 2025 did not experience a prolonged, large-scale liquidation cycle or a “storm-like” sequence of relentless crashes. Yet it is clear that, amid geopolitical uncertainty, uncertainty over US fiscal and monetary policy, uncertainty across multiple countries’ economic fundamentals, and the ebbing of globalisation in favour of regionalisation, equities, bonds, commodities and crypto have all been pricing in a future that is more cautious and more defensive.
Against that backdrop, liquidity allocation has become less concentrated in equities and bonds than it once was. Commodities, FX and rates attracted greater attention in 2025. At the same time, investors have been steadily reducing leverage and trimming exposure to higher-risk assets—one of the direct reasons the crypto bull market ended in Q4 2025. So, where do markets go in 2026? As in 2025, implied expectations embedded in derivatives-market data have already offered an answer.
01/29/2026
Futures
