Markets

Consider this fact: Last year, even as fundraising across private markets fell by roughly 17 percent, co-investment fundraising rose by more than 17 percent year over year to about $27 billion.

This article is adapted from Weekly Economic & Bond Market Insights by Thomas Simons, CFA, Chief U.S. Economist at Jefferies, and Michael Bacolas. Simons brings two decades of experience analyzing Federal Reserve policy and is a frequent commentator on CNBC and other major financial media outlets.

Nestled at the edge of Germany’s Black Forest, Baden-Baden has long been known as one of Europe’s most elegant destinations. The UNESCO-listed spa town combines more than 2,000 years of history with a reputation for bringing together influential leaders, investors, and decision-makers in a setting designed for meaningful conversations.

Five years ago, it was a sliver of the broader secondaries business — a tool sponsors primarily used to manage liquidity for challenged assets and/or funds. Now investors are increasingly seeking trophy assets in the secondary market and through continuation vehicles (CV), which is just one reason why Jefferies expects global transaction volume to reach $30 billion, up from roughly $20 billion in 2025.

The European private markets landscape — and GP-led secondaries market in particular — is increasingly central to the global conversation around capital allocation. Its combination of institutional scale, growing liquidity, and depth of high-quality assets is shaping how capital is deployed worldwide like never before. Consider that Europe is now home to approximately 8,000 of […]

After years of false starts, the IPO market feels like it is approaching a genuine inflection point. The consensus among bankers and investors at this year’s conference was notably more optimistic than the macro backdrop might suggest. That optimism has since found its first proof point: shares in chipmaker Cerebras Systems more than doubled on its market debut after raising $5.5 billion, the largest IPO of the year, confirming that investor appetite for the right AI story is very much alive. 

With volatile front-end oil prices, an escalating conflict in the Middle East, and a closing window on favorable antitrust conditions, the upstream energy market is navigating a complex set of conditions heading into the second half of 2026. Yet dealmaking has not slowed. If anything, it has accelerated.

While volatile oil prices have introduced uncertainty across the energy sector, midstream is experiencing something closer to the opposite effect. The geopolitical disruptions reshaping global supply have reinforced one fundamental truth for midstream operators: volumes are coming. The question is no longer whether production will be drilled, but when and that shift in certainty is driving a meaningful acceleration in midstream deal activity. 

The IPO market has reopened to the industry, and private equity is playing an increasingly important role. Meanwhile, the defense sector, as reflected by the ITA ETF, returned more than 38% so far this year, far outpacing the S&P 500.