Who stands to be the biggest loser if free trade starts to unwind? Who stands to gain?

Chief Market Strategist Troy A. Gayeski, CFA dives into his latest strategy note on what trade policy may mean for equities and how investors can respond.

Get more from Troy, plus the latest from our private markets research experts, at futurestandard.com/insights.

Harrison Beck: The US economy continues to defy the predictions of pessimists, but that doesn’t mean the macro environment has escaped this year’s volatility unscathed. Can the brief slowdown in Q2 consumption lead to even greater future growth? Will businesses be able to optimize for the new onshoring? Where does this put opportunities across private equity credit, commercial real estate, and liquid markets? I’m Harrison Beck, Future Standard’s Content Strategist. Luckily, we’ve got Chief Market Strategist, Troy Gayeski in the Future Standard Podcast studio to give us some answers. He’ll walk us through the insights in his most recent perspectives note, including where he’s seeing opportunities across private markets. Troy, welcome.

Troy Gayeski: Good to see a Harrison. Happy tail end of the summer.

Harrison Beck: Happy tail end of the summer. Well, let’s start with the macro backdrop. You’ve titled your most recent perspectives note “Delayed, but not denied.” Is this a useful mindset for investors in the second half of 2025? And what does it mean for the current economic landscape?

Troy Gayeski: Well, to be fair, let’s give credit where credit is due. You and the marketing team came up with that title as you always parse through all the statements and come up with something very creative. But the original genesis of gratification delayed but not denied, actually comes from middle market private equity, which as we’ve discussed before, is the definition of growth at a reasonable price. And it stemmed from the fact that coming out of last year after the election outcome in particular, there was so much enthusiasm, markets were ripping again, eclipsing the 2021 multiples and private equity assets had not only not gone up, they went down even more in terms of value. And so when you think about that from a profit standpoint or a return on investment standpoint, the multiple expansion of private assets is going to happen. It’s just going to take longer than it would've otherwise because of the trauma that the economy and markets went through Liberation day.

So as you extend that delayed but not denied framework, it affects a lot of different areas of investing. We'll hit the economy first, as your question alluded to that as you go through Q2 and Q3, I think even the perma bearers and the perma pessimists calling for the US economy to collapse overnight and 60% of companies in America are going to just cease to exist, all sorts of nonsense. There were recession probabilities calling for like 80% probability and a hundred percent probability, all sorts of goofy stuff. I think even they can admit that yes, the US economy’s really resilient, and by the way, we’re not having a recession anytime soon.