1 Oct 2026: Ewout van Schaick and Valentijn van Nieuwenhuizen in conversation with Eelco Ubbels.
It is still risk on. In a live conversation on 1 October, Valentijn van Nieuwenhuizen and Ewout van Schaick agreed with the 67 asset managers in the October Asset Allocation Consensus, in which equities remain at the top as the overweight asset class.
But dig a little deeper and you hear two very different reasons not to get out yet. Van Nieuwenhuizen puts the risk stories into perspective; in his view, they have been given too much weight for 25 years. Van Schaick sees “real problems down the road”, but sticks to an investment process that prevents him from turning negative too early.
And on the theme rising fastest in the reports this month, inflation fears, they disagree.
Two independent voices
Van Nieuwenhuizen and Van Schaick jointly built the multi-asset team at ING Investment Management, later NN Investment Partners, from 2006–2008 onwards. Van Nieuwenhuizen worked at ING and NN for 25 years, ended up as CIO of NN IP and led the transition after the sale to Goldman Sachs. For the past two years he has been an independent investment strategist, adviser, columnist and speaker.
Until October 2025, Van Schaick was Managing Director Multi Asset Solutions at Goldman Sachs, and before that Head of Multi Asset at NN IP for five years. Ewout is currently still enjoying a sabbatical, but remains closely involved in the investment world through various other activities, including a board position at a charity and a weekly podcast, ‘Het Marktmechanisme’ (‘The Market Mechanism’), which he makes together with Valentijn van Nieuwenhuizen.
That independence comes through. “In a corporate role you never spoke too explicitly about political figures or about your own parent company,” says Van Nieuwenhuizen. “Now you can add a bit more colour.”
The optimist: ‘look at what you could have earned since Crimea’
“When I look at how I structure my own portfolio, I remain largely allocated to higher-return sources, such as equities,” says Van Nieuwenhuizen. He bases this on two pillars: strong economic momentum, in both growth and corporate earnings, and an environment of high nominal growth. The latter supports equities over the long term, although there will also be fluctuations in the short term. He does see the risks: oil, rising interest rates, a possible AI bubble. He just deliberately gives them less weight.
“Over the past 25 years I have heard many times that the risks are bigger than ever before. That was also in every broker report when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Just look at the returns you could have made since then.”
Anyone who listens too much to risk stories, he argues, more often misses the returns that simply keep coming than actually profits from a crisis. Still, he is tilting his portfolio somewhat more defensively, with more bonds, and this is where he departs from the consensus. In October, government bonds dropped to last place in the bond ranking of Alpha Research’s Asset Allocation Consensus. Van Nieuwenhuizen: “Because of all the recent turmoil, bonds have become more attractive than they have been in the past five years. In recent years they hardly had a role in a smart multi-asset portfolio, but now they once again offer real diversification benefits.”
The worrier: ‘in the past I would have sold everything’
Van Schaick is “somewhat more cautious”, but for now arrives at the same positioning. In his view, the strong economic picture rests on two engines that will not keep running forever. The first is fiscal stimulus, which is now also leading to large government deficits worldwide. The second is the massive investment in AI, which he says will account for around 3% of US GDP in 2027. He sees the fact that the bond market is also worried as confirmation of the risks. Even so, he is not (yet) getting out of equities, he acknowledges with some self-reflection.
“If you had asked me five or ten years ago how I was positioned in the face of such risks, I would probably have said: I’ve sold everything. But with strong momentum and a great fear among investors of getting out too early, you know that the best returns of a rally often come in the final phase. That should stop you from turning negative too early.”
The process he set up with Van Nieuwenhuizen at NN IP, in which figures on economic growth, inflation and earnings growth are always combined with an in-depth analysis of market behaviour and investor sentiment, is keeping him invested in the market for now. He does see momentum starting to falter, however, as a large number of stocks have been moving sideways for months. He also sees high valuations, and fundamental concerns about public finances and the AI capex boom: “We are getting closer to a tipping point.” That is why he is keeping a close eye on what he calls “the canaries in the coal mine”. “If things escalate quickly and you’re not ready to react, you end up like a rabbit staring into the headlights of an oncoming car.”
AI is pulling the cart, and that is also the risk
Van Nieuwenhuizen certainly sees potential in emerging markets, but also adds a caveat. South Korea and Taiwan together make up around 40% of the emerging markets index. “Take those out, and there isn’t much excitement left this year.” In equity terms, investing in emerging markets is largely a bet on the global AI theme.
Van Schaick is concerned that the equity market is so heavily dependent on the AI sector. Earlier this year the AI and IT trend briefly faltered, and more defensive parts of the market took over the baton, such as healthcare, dividend stocks and Europe. “At that moment, I actually found that reassuring.” But now technology is once again pulling the market up almost single-handedly. “We are very dependent on the tech sector.”
Van Nieuwenhuizen also sees the positive side. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, showed that executives in all sectors talk about AI in earnings calls far more often than a year ago. That may of course be window dressing, but it may also point to the real bull case.
“The real bull case is that we start using AI outside the tech sector as well, to become more productive. I’ll believe it when I see it. But if over the next three to five years AI widens margins in other sectors, that will be a support for the market.”
Inflation fears: a peak in anxiety?
No macro theme rose as sharply in the reports this month as inflation fears, which climbed from sixth to second place. Only the AI investment cycle is mentioned more often. On what this means, the two disagree.
Van Schaick describes a perfect storm. Inflation has been above central banks’ targets ever since Covid. On top of that come the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East, tight labour markets and AI data centres pushing up the prices of chips and building materials. The key question, in his view, is whether wages keep rising and thereby fuel inflation further.
Van Nieuwenhuizen agrees that inflation is partly a cause of higher interest rates, but he also points out that the bond market is really not panicking. He points to the inflation expectations priced into bond markets. In the US, Europe and Japan these have barely risen and are very close to central banks’ targets.
“The bond market is mainly ‘pricing in’ that central banks need to do more to keep inflation under control, but not that it is becoming more likely that inflation will spiral out of control in the coming years. I wouldn’t rule out that we are close to peak inflation anxiety in the coming months.”
There is also simple arithmetic at play. Inflation measures the rise in prices compared with a year earlier. An oil price that has doubled would have to double again a year later to have the same effect. “If oil doesn’t rise above 120 dollars between now and March, from March onwards you get a neutral to dampening impact on inflation.”
Van Schaick sees the rise in interest rates as structural. The large US budget deficit and France’s financing problems were already known. Globally, there is a lack of willingness to do anything about deficits. What is new is that the big tech companies also have to borrow enormous sums for their data centres, while a lot of government debt has to be refinanced at higher rates.
“It’s never one factor. Governments need money, the hyperscalers need a lot of money, and interest rates are rising just when all sorts of problems have to be absorbed. It’s a cocktail, and at some point that cocktail ignites.”
What could upset the picture
Both strategists themselves name the signals that could undermine their risk-on stance. For Van Schaick, it is the credit market:
“What will be exciting in the coming months is whether higher interest rates also lead to higher credit spreads. That’s when it really becomes unpleasant if you have to borrow money as a company or as a less creditworthy government.”
In doing so, he is warning precisely where the Consensus is moving in the other direction: high-yield bonds rose one place in the ranking this month. For Van Nieuwenhuizen, the line lies at the oil price. If it rises above 120 dollars before March, his argument for a peak in inflation no longer holds. And for both of them: as long as the market hangs on a single sector, momentum in the big tech stocks can fade faster than a portfolio can be turned around.
Still risk on, then, but ready to brake…