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Despite their volatility, natural resources remain an essential part of a diversified portfolio, both for their growth potential amid the energy transition and their inflation-hedging qualities. 

The Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources Index, which tracks companies tied to energy, metals, agriculture, timber, and water, shows that while commodities can be unpredictable, they tend to outperform when traditional assets falter. In 2022, for example, as stocks and bonds plunged together, the index gained more than 15% thanks to surging prices in oil, metals, and timber driven by inflation and supply disruptions. 

Recent years have favored technology-driven markets and left resource exposure underrepresented, inflationary pressures, geopolitical tensions, and the green energy shift may revive their relevance. 

Finsum: Ultimately, natural resources offer diversification and resilience, qualities that matter most when the rest of the market is under stress.

As markets decline amid tariff concerns, investors are increasingly turning to structured notes for downside protection, income generation, and help staying invested through volatility. These tailored instruments combine features of debt and derivatives to offer asymmetric returns, limiting losses while allowing partial participation in market gains. 

Structured notes with “static buffers” can, for instance, protect against a 15% market drop while providing steady coupon payments. They also enable investors to enhance yield potential by reallocating portions of cash or fixed income holdings into structured products. 

Historically, structured notes with downside buffers have preserved principal in more than 90% of 20-year backtests, illustrating their resilience during turbulent markets. 

Finsum: While not maybe for all investors, structured notes can serve as a strategic tool to maintain exposure and stability when uncertainty runs high.

Coinbase Asset Management and Apollo have partnered to launch tokenized credit products, combining Apollo’s private credit expertise with Coinbase’s blockchain infrastructure to introduce new stablecoin-backed strategies in 2026. Their initiatives follow the GENIUS Act, which established the first U.S. federal framework for stablecoins and is expected to drive the market to $3 trillion by 2030. 

Meanwhile, fund managers such as Hamilton Lane and Laser Digital have begun tokenizing credit funds via KAIO, a protocol purpose-built for institutional-grade onchain assets, with over $200 million already tokenized. KAIO, backed by Nomura, recently integrated with the Sei blockchain to provide fast, compliant access to funds like Hamilton Lane’s senior credit platform and BlackRock’s ICS US Dollar Liquidity Fund. 

In a related move, Securitize announced plans to go public through a merger with Cantor Equity Partners II, valuing the company at $1.25 billion and positioning it at the forefront of a $19 trillion market for real-world asset tokenization.

Finsum: Demand for tokenized assets is rising sharply, with Broadridge reporting that while only 15% of asset managers currently offer tokenized funds, 41% plan to do so soon.

The democratization of private markets is accelerating as asset managers, regulators, and ETF innovators work to expand investor access to what was once an institutional-only domain. Once viewed as opaque, illiquid, and high-cost, private markets have grown from $4 trillion to $15 trillion in assets over the past decade, as investors seek diversification, income, and long-term growth beyond public markets. 

ETFs are now at the forefront of this movement, with products like the SPDR SSGA Apollo IG Public & Private Credit ETF (PRIV) breaking new ground by offering direct exposure to private credit within a liquid wrapper. credit CLOs, each offering a distinct way to capture the returns of the private economy. 

As demand grows, firms like VanEck note that private market managers are increasingly expanding into wealth management and retirement channels, further broadening investor participation. 

Finsum: The push to make private assets more accessible marks one of the most disruptive and promising frontiers in modern investing.

Rapid Growth and Popularity: Interval funds are gaining momentum, with 19 new launches through May 2025, on pace to surpass the 2024 record of 27. Assets under management have grown nearly 40% annually, reaching almost $100 billion as of April 2025.

Unique Structure and Flexibility: Unlike mutual funds, interval funds allow quarterly redemptions, offering a semi-liquid structure that enables managers to invest in less-liquid, higher-return opportunities like asset-backed securities or CLO equity. 

Advantage in Volatile Markets: During market dislocations, interval funds can act as opportunistic buyers rather than forced sellers, taking advantage of discounted high-quality assets when others are liquidating positions, demonstrated during the COVID-19 sell-off in early 2020.

Finsum: This structure better aligns fund liquidity with long-term investments, and advisors should track the horizon for their clients