Rockefeller Capital CEO Greg Fleming on The Pulse, Discussing Markets, AI and Private Credit

Well, it's a complicated time and I'd say a few things in response to this. Number one, coming into the year, we were coming off of three years of strong equity returns, over 50% over three years. That hasn't happened very much in history and typically the fourth year has more challenges. You're later in the cycle, you're later in the credit cycle. So, coming into the year, we knew there would be more volatility. So, you add on to that, the second thing I'd say here is an oil shock, which has obvious implications for inflation, but it also has implications for demand, particularly in parts of the world. You just mentioned Asia. There are certainly economies there that are really going to struggle if this holds in there longer. But the third point I'd make, which I think is the countervailing point, particularly in the American markets, but maybe more broadly, is AI, which remains a major theme and for good reason. Because the speed with which the technology is being deployed and the breadth of companies that are now either directly or working in partnership with some of the big providers, like Anthropic and OpenAI, to implement the tools and begin to show productivity improvements is quite high. So, I think, you know, when you piece all those things together, there's a lot of uncertainty. Nobody in fact really knows where it's going to go because of the interplay of the different parts of this. But it's not as clear cut as people might have thought when the war started that you're going to have an oil shock, markets will be down and down for an extended period of time. That's clearly not the way the markets are reacting.

100%. Now remember, Anna, our clients are high net worth and ultra high net worth. So we have long-term plans in place with them. They typically stick with these plans even through times like what we're dealing with now. We're not looking to make major shifts with them. Our private advisors work with them on these plans and they stick to them. You might make pivots and adjustments based upon what happens in markets, but clients are pretty steady in our client base. But they are very focused on AI. They're very focused on AI in many ways from an investment standpoint. You know, there's obviously shifts there. I mean you look at what's happened in the software industry over the last 12 or 18 months and that was significant and rapid. What are other industries that are going to be affected by AI in a way that you need to think about investments there, you know, from an investment standpoint, but also industries that are going to be able to create a lot more productivity. And then our clients are focused on AI and how we're implementing it at Rockefeller Capital Management. How are we going to use the tools to make our interface with them more efficient and better for the client?