27 April 2026
Michael J. Mattioli, CFA, Portfolio Manager, Core Value Equity

We would describe the current market environment as having a wide range of potential outcomes, just given what's going on with geopolitical events, as well as the rise of artificial intelligence.
When you think about the U.S. economy, really, there's some positives and negatives going on. The consumer’s still spending quite a bit, but when you're looking at unemployment levels, that's starting to tick higher. It's something that obviously is making us a little bit nervous there. In terms of an opportunity, we're finding high-quality businesses trading at a significant discount relative to the broader market.
Right now, we're finding a fair bit of opportunity within high quality companies that seem to be left behind due to narrow market leadership.
For our investment process, it all comes back to the price that you pay relative to the worth or insurance value of the business. So, when we look at areas such as healthcare, the more durable growth types of areas like consumables, or med-tech, or even managed care. Those are screening very well on our numbers.
It’s controversial right now, but parts of core application software, most notable around human capital management and customer relationship management, and also system of records—when we look at our numbers, many of them are trading between our bear- and worst-case set of assumptions.
Obviously, current geopolitical events are going to be difficult to forecast.
Some of the things that we're watching though are commodity prices and interest rates, both which are headed higher. Consumption makes up such a large portion of U.S. GDP. Thus, if that were to falter any bit, we're not really seeing that much anything going on there. But for us in our investment process, everything comes back to what's the range of values, what's the price that we could pay. And right now, we're finding a great deal of value within quality companies relative to the rest of the market.
2026 Mid-Year Outlook Series: GEDI
Against a highly uncertain backdrop in the first half of 2026, Manulife’s Global Equity Diversified Income (GEDI) Fund (‘the Fund’) posted resilient performance with relatively lower volatility. This result was driven by the Fund’s four investment pillars, which favour an income-centric approach, coupled with global diversification across growth, value, and income equities. In this 2026 Mid-Year Outlook, Paul Kalogirou, Head of Client Portfolio Management, Asia & Global Multi-Asset Solutions, explains how the Fund’s unique structure allows for consistent income generation and potential upside across the market cycle, while also identifying key opportunities and risks for the second half of the year.
2026 Mid-year outlook: Global Semiconductor
The semiconductor sector remains a key enabler of the global economy, underpinning artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and electrification. As highlighted in our earlier insights, it represents a broad ecosystem supported by structural demand and real infrastructure investment. Following strong year-to-date performance, we see growing conviction that momentum can extend into the second half of 2026 and into 2027, driven by earnings strength, sustained capital investment, and early-stage AI adoption.
2026 Mid-year Outlook Series: Diversified Real Assets
Global supply chains are resetting under deglobalisation and geopolitics, shifting from global efficiency to more expensive regional resilience, embedding higher structural costs. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a new demand driver, accelerating investment in power, infrastructure, and materials. Against this backdrop of structurally higher inflation and dual demand pressures – from both supply-chain rewiring and AI capital expenditure – we believe real assets may play an increasingly important role in portfolios, offering exposure to long-term secular growth and AI trends.
2026 Mid-Year Outlook Series: GEDI
Against a highly uncertain backdrop in the first half of 2026, Manulife’s Global Equity Diversified Income (GEDI) Fund (‘the Fund’) posted resilient performance with relatively lower volatility. This result was driven by the Fund’s four investment pillars, which favour an income-centric approach, coupled with global diversification across growth, value, and income equities. In this 2026 Mid-Year Outlook, Paul Kalogirou, Head of Client Portfolio Management, Asia & Global Multi-Asset Solutions, explains how the Fund’s unique structure allows for consistent income generation and potential upside across the market cycle, while also identifying key opportunities and risks for the second half of the year.
2026 Mid-year outlook: Global Semiconductor
The semiconductor sector remains a key enabler of the global economy, underpinning artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and electrification. As highlighted in our earlier insights, it represents a broad ecosystem supported by structural demand and real infrastructure investment. Following strong year-to-date performance, we see growing conviction that momentum can extend into the second half of 2026 and into 2027, driven by earnings strength, sustained capital investment, and early-stage AI adoption.
2026 Mid-year Outlook Series: Diversified Real Assets
Global supply chains are resetting under deglobalisation and geopolitics, shifting from global efficiency to more expensive regional resilience, embedding higher structural costs. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a new demand driver, accelerating investment in power, infrastructure, and materials. Against this backdrop of structurally higher inflation and dual demand pressures – from both supply-chain rewiring and AI capital expenditure – we believe real assets may play an increasingly important role in portfolios, offering exposure to long-term secular growth and AI trends.