By Guest commentary Friday, May 8th, 2026

By John Grace

For years, investors were told one simple story: own U.S. stocks, add bonds, and relax. That worked, until leadership changed and the script flipped. 

In 2025, U.S. equities delivered solid gains, with the S&P 500 up in the mid-to-high teens. Not bad. 

But international markets didn’t just participate, they outperformed. 

The MSCI World ex-U.S. index surged dramatically higher, fueled by cheaper valuations, a softer dollar, and a rebound in global industrial and financial sectors. 

By early 2026, the trend continued. While U.S. markets chopped sideways, held up largely by a handful of mega-cap names, international equities again moved ahead. Translation: the era of “U.S. or bust” is fading. Leadership rotates. It always has.

And yet, many portfolios still look like it’s 1995, clean, simple, and dangerously ill-prepared for 1929 again.

The classic 60/40 model, 60% stocks, 40% bonds, was built for a world of falling interest rates and predictable correlations. 

Today? Stocks and bonds can fall together. 

That “balanced” portfolio starts wobbling like a two-legged stool on uneven ground. Meanwhile, the smartest money in the room, endowments and foundations, quietly rewrote the playbook years ago. 

They didn’t abandon public markets. They expanded beyond them. 

They built portfolios that include liquid, semi-liquid, and illiquid investments: private credit, private equity, infrastructure, real assets, and even direct exposure to manufacturing and supply chains. 

The goal isn’t complexity for its own sake; it’s resilience. More levers to pull. More ways to win. Think, bull or bear, you don’t care.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Some of these opportunities aren’t available to everyone.

Certain strategies require investors to have meaningful assets outside of their primary residence, often $1 million to $5 million or more, to qualify. 

That’s not exclusivity for ego’s sake; it reflects the longer time horizons, reduced liquidity, and different risk profiles involved. 

For example, newer structures have emerged that give qualified investors access to diversified private equity portfolios through a single vehicle. One fund provides exposure to a broad range of private companies and strategies in a semi-liquid format. 

Some of these investments trade daily. Others don’t. That’s intentional. Illiquidity can be uncomfortable, but it can also provide access to return streams that don’t move in lockstep with public markets. It’s designed to open the door, at least partially, to an asset class once reserved almost entirely for endowments and institutions. 

And these portfolios aren’t just buying traditional businesses. 

They can include stakes in manufacturing, student housing, infrastructure, data centers, and yes, even professional sports franchises. That’s a very different menu than just stocks and bonds.

The result? A sturdier stool.

Instead of relying on one or two market drivers, these portfolios spread risk across multiple engines, public and private, liquid and illiquid, domestic and global. 

Here’s the bottom line: markets don’t move in straight lines, and leadership doesn’t stay put. The U.S. had a dominant run. 

Now the rest of the world is reminding investors it exists. If your portfolio is built for yesterday, it may not survive tomorrow. 

Because there’s always a bull market somewhere, and the question is whether you’re positioned to participate, or stuck watching history in your rear view mirror, or a spectator watching the action from the sidelines.

• John Grace is a financial planner and president of Investor’s Advantage in Thousand Oaks.