The AI trade now touches nearly every corner of global equity markets, and for portfolio managers the question is not whether to participate but how much risk is the right amount. Global equity portfolio manager Paul Moroz uses Homer's Odyssey as a frame for thinking through the discipline that investment decisions require in this environment. He walks through the team's approach to memory semiconductors and the case of SK Hynix, examines what a wave of large IPOs means for capital allocation and cost of capital, and then turns to the harder question: when underexposure to AI and overconcentration in AI are both genuine risks, how do you decide which one to live with. Above all, he returns to a principle that has run through his recent work on the portfolio: staying balanced, diversifying across more names, and treating humility as a process requirement rather than a sentiment.

Canadian equity PM Mark Rutherford explains the gap between the domestic economy and the stock market, why a large weight in financials can represent more diversification rather than less, and with increasing concentration in indexes, he ends the conversation with a simple idea: knowing what you own matters more than ever.

In this episode, portfolio manager Steven Visscher covers how Mawer's balanced portfolios navigated 2025 and how they are positioned in 2026. With a war-driven energy shock on one side and an AI investment boom on the other, the market is pulling in two directions at once. Steven walks through what that means for asset mix, where the team is seeing signs of investor complacency, and why cracks in private credit could soon create a meaningful opportunity.