In his responses for the Asian Private Wealth Investment Outlook 2026, Alan Lee, Managing Director at Blackhorn Wealth Management, outlines a distinctly Asia-centred and actively managed investment strategy shaped by rising geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, and evolving regional fundamentals. He highlights opportunities across defence, strategic minerals, AI applications, and Chinese and Japanese equities, alongside a renewed case for healthcare and medtech. Across portfolio construction, alternatives, thematics, and digital asset exposure, Lee emphasises active allocation, diversified hedge fund strategies, and selective regional tilts as key tools for managing risk and capturing opportunity in an increasingly complex investment environment.

Market Outlook 2026: What are the key opportunities and risks you anticipate for major global and Asian equity and fixed-income markets in the coming year?

On the back of heightening geopolitical tensions across the world, global defence, rare earth and strategic minerals sectors should outperform the broader market. We also believe in the continuation of AI developments will diversify away from semis into companies that can leverage AI applications to maximise productivity and improve on their bottom-line. We are monitoring closely on opportunities in the Chinese technology space particularly in robotics, drones and AI applications.

We also think Healthcare and Medtech trading as laggards to begin to gain back some traction. We also think Japanese companies are fundamentally different and very promising nowadays. We believe earnings growth is sustainable. We are keeping this as our core strategic equity allocation.

 

Portfolio Construction: For a medium-risk private wealth client, how would you position portfolios across equities, fixed income, cash, and alternatives—and what regional tilts would you prioritise?

40% equities – 50% in Japan and China/HK, 30% US, 20% in Australia and Europe

40% fixed income – predominately in the IG/Quasi-Sovereign 5–7-year space

20% hedge funds – prefer multi-strategy

And a FX overlay strategy with short USD bias

 

Alternatives Demand: To what extent are you seeing increased client interest in private credit, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, hedge funds, or commodities—and are you proactively encouraging these allocations?

We are seeing our managers increasingly adding alternatives into clients’ portfolios and continuing to emphasise on the importance of having alternatives in the portfolio to produce steady returns and reduce volatility.

 

Active vs. Passive & Thematic Drivers: How are you balancing active and passive strategies for 2026, and which structural themes (e.g., AI, energy transition, demographics) are shaping your positioning?

We are always actively managing the components in the portfolio whether it’d be single security positions or ETFs or open-ended funds. We do however have a passive play in key emerging market equities. Thematic wise, we like Healthcare and Medtech and believe the prolonged undervaluation will begin to attract attention.

 

Digital Assets & Safe Havens: How are you approaching gold, other safe-haven assets, and digital assets—including tokenised products—within private wealth portfolios? Is client demand rising, stabilising, or shifting?

The ongoing development in the digital economy is something that is inevitable in the current world we live in. The increasingly use of ETFs to gain exposure and portfolio implementation in the digital asset market is becoming common across our managers. And we do trade around companies that have exposure in in the digital asset space.