For investors, the first half of 2025 rewarded smart positioning in selective asset markets. Money poured into artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, defence stocks, and gold, which all outperformed, while the expected rotation into small caps companies didn’t happen, as elevated funding costs and destabilising US trade policies weighed on smaller businesses.

Looking ahead to the second half of the year, the game plan is the same, with some adjustments to gain exposure to winning asset classes and add portfolio resilience.

Nvidia has become the first company in history to top $U4 trillion in valuation.Credit: Bloomberg

Our approach continues to centre on three core exposures: growth via AI, resilience via gold and real assets, and valuation discipline via global companies with strong earnings and reasonable pricing.

AI adoption continues to broaden across sectors, with enterprise software, infrastructure, and semiconductor companies such as Nvidia and Broadcom driving earnings resilience and pricing power.

Gold has reasserted its role as a reliable macro hedge amid elevated real yields, inflation volatility, and rising global uncertainty, gaining over 26 per cent year to date in USD terms to July 7. Silver has also gained a........

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