The next edition will be our yearly Art Special to coincide with Art Basel 2026

Table of Contents

• 2 speed market

• Few numbers

• Big fortunes, small democraties : the blind spot o …

• B-R & H Finance

Market Review

2 speed market

In 2026, equity markets are increasingly split in two: an AI‑fuelled, mega‑cap highway on one side, and a much slower lane for the rest of the economy.

Big picture

Over the past month, equities stayed firm, with the MSCI World up about 4.4%, led by US and Asian indices. The Korean KOSPI jumped 33.4% and set the pace for global markets. Behind it, the Nikkei 225 gained 12.1%, the Nasdaq 100 10.1% and the S&P 500 5.1%, while the Eurostoxx 600 managed roughly 2.5% and the CAC 40 just 1.5%. Commodities were mixed: gold slipped slightly (‑1.4%), while Brent crude fell sharply (‑13.9%), alongside a 10.6% drop for Bitcoin and ‑13.6% for Ethereum.

This resilience in global indices comes even as real growth slows in Europe: French GDP contracted by 0.15% in the first quarter of 2026, before tensions in the Middle East and the Iran shock were fully reflected in the data.

The AI obsession

The core of the market is now unmistakably tech‑centric: 48% of the S&P 500 is, in one way or another, linked to AI – from semiconductors to cloud and software. Unsurprisingly, almost all of the month’s winners sit in that ecosystem. Micron Technology led the pack with +78.13% in a single month, followed closely by SK hynix (+77.06%), Murata Manufacturing (+76.40%), MediaTek (+71.26%), Snowflake (+69.38%) and Datadog (+68.11%). Super Micro Computer (+56.91%), Qualcomm (+55.96%) and Dell Technologies (+54.16%) complete a top 10 that is firmly “AI‑related”. On the losing side, we find much more defensive or domestic names: Zoetis (‑31.24%), OSI Systems (‑21.53%) and Herbalife (‑21.53%) are among the biggest decliners.

The symbol of this new era is the speed at which markets are pricing the “picks and shovels” of AI. Micron took just 48 days to move from a 500 billion to a 1 trillion market value, while Berkshire Hathaway needed 1,500 days to make the same journey. SK hynix has also crossed the 1 trillion mark, carried by the rush into high‑performance memory. In this context, the return of AI‑themed IPOs – from SpaceX to Anthropic – looks like a replay of past listing waves; the hope is simply that retail investors do not once again end up as the last ones holding the hot potato.

Luxury and quieter corners

Away from this tech euphoria, some sectors are having a bumpier ride. Luxury, as a group, is only up 2.20% year‑to‑date, with a slightly negative month at ‑0.23%. Zegna stands out with +40.41% since January, followed by Swatch at +34.41% (helped by its Oak Pop) and Salvatore Ferragamo at +13.12%. At the other end of the spectrum, several heavyweights are struggling: Hermès is down 22.48% year‑to‑date, LVMH 24.13%, Kering 15.28% and Burberry 8.14%.

This dispersion within a single sector captures today’s environment rather well. The market no longer pays for a “brand story” in bulk; it discriminates between those who manage to rebuild desirability and those who are feeling the slowdown in demand from China or Europe. For long‑term investors, this argues for sharper stock‑picking rather than buying the sector as a block.

For long‑term investors

Beyond the eye‑catching moves, the key question is how durable the AI premium really is. Market caps at 1 trillion and monthly gains of 50–80% cannot compound forever; at some point, the cycle will re‑align expectations with actual cash flows.

For a wealth‑preservation portfolio, the lesson is to stay exposed to the tech wave – because it is real – but keep discipline on valuations, diversify across regions and sectors (including more defensive areas such as healthcare and staples), and hold some liquidity to exploit excesses when the ride eventually slows.

Few numbers

• The average person in North America/Oceania earns about thirteen times more than the average person in Sub‑Saharan Africa, even after adjusting for price levels.

• In 2025, average education spending per child (in purchasing‑power terms) was around 220 in Sub‑Saharan Africa, versus 7,430 in Europe and 9,020 in North America/Oceania.

• The share of capital in global income has risen from roughly 39% to 47% since 1980, strengthening the role of asset owners in wealth creation.

Editorial

Should we still learn our history?

One evening, I am talking with a master’s student in quantum physics from a leading Swiss school, ETH or EPFL. He handles equations that are beyond me; he moves through Hilbert spaces the way others move through tram corridors. But if I mention Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Kissinger, Metternich, nothing happens. Polite silence.

A few weeks later, another conversation, another master’s degree, another field. We are talking about the Middle East, the word Israel comes up, and I realise that my interlocutor does not actually know when the state was founded. It is not a lack of intelligence, nor a lack of personal curiosity. It is simply a blind spot.

These are not exceptions. They are not “cases” that need fixing. They are highly competent, highly sought‑after profiles, very representative of a generation for whom the future is a project and the past, often, just a background.

We often quote the line: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It sounds dramatic – and it is not entirely accurate. You can live, work, even succeed while knowing nothing about Metternich. But you pay an invisible price: you think you are original while replaying very old scripts. The illusion that “this time is different” has probably done more damage, in politics as in investing, than many crises.

You do not need these names to code, invest or build a company. You can have a fine career without ever opening a book on the Congress of Vienna or Cold War diplomacy. The modern world even tells you that you are right: things are moving so fast that the past looks like a distraction. The problem, brutal and concrete, lies elsewhere: if you do not know at least a little history, you fail to see what is inevitable. And what is inevitable is not AI or quantum computing. It is humankind pride, fear, jealousy, selfishness, repetition.

Sun Tzu writes about winning before the battle. Clausewitz describes the fog and the chaos when nothing goes to plan. Machiavelli focuses on people as they are, not as they say they are. Kissinger and Metternich think about fragile balances that keep a continent in relative peace. You can forget their names, but you will meet their situations: in a company, in a boardroom, in a country, in your portfolio. History is not there to shine in small talk. It is there to help you recognise the set before you walk on stage.

Talleyrand defined the art of governing as the ability to see what must inevitably happen and to prepare for it. That is exactly the point. Technology opens doors; strategy decides which ones to walk through, when, and with whom. A quantum algorithm can optimise a decision. It cannot decide what is acceptable, bearable, sustainable. That remains your responsibility. And to shoulder it without too much damage, a few centuries of attempts, errors and corrections are not a luxury.

You can believe the world begins with you. Many people have believed that before. They invented remarkable things and at the same time repeated, sometimes almost identically, the mistakes of their great‑grandparents. In the end, the choice is simple enough: move very fast in the dark, trusting that instinct will be enough, or carry at least two or three compasses borrowed from those who have already crossed a few storms.

Physicists work – often without thinking about it – on the shoulders of Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger. Mathematicians operate in a landscape shaped by Euclid, Newton, Gauss, Grothendieck, the 20th‑century geometer who received the Fields Medal for his work in algebraic geometry. Doctors rely every day on Pasteur, Fleming, Curie (my son disagreed on her) and on decades of protocols refined by trial and error. No one finds it absurd to use this inheritance to heal better, calculate faster or understand matter more deeply. In physics, mathematics, medicine, starting from scratch would be seen as nonsense. Why then, as soon as we talk about strategy, power or diplomacy, does it suddenly seem reasonable to behave as if nothing had been tried before us?

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Wealth

Big fortunes, small democraties : the blind spot of inequalities

The “World Inequality Report 2026” has just been released. It provides a very detailed snapshot of income and wealth gaps across the globe. It shows that the top 10% hold around three‑quarters of global wealth, while the poorest half of humanity owns only about 2% of total assets. Even more striking, fewer than 60,000 people – roughly 0.001% of the adult population – own three times as much wealth as this entire poorer half.

The report insists on a point often forgotten in public debate. These inequalities are not presented as the result of a moral failing of a small minority, but as the outcome of political, fiscal and institutional choices accumulated over time. The authors do not prescribe an “ideal” level of inequality or a single social model; they limit themselves to providing a factual basis for democratic discussion.

Europe emerges as one of the least unequal regions once redistribution is taken into account. Before taxes and transfers, the authors estimate that in Europe the average income of the top 10% is about 19 times that of the bottom 50%; after taxes and benefits, this ratio falls to around 10. At the other extreme, some regions combine low average incomes with ratios above 40 between the top 10% and the bottom half, and far less redistribution.

Another key message is that private wealth has risen sharply while the net position of states has often weakened. Between 1995 and 2025, global wealth increased from a little over 400% of annual income to more than 600%, but most of that increase accrued to the private sector. In several developed regions, the net wealth of households and companies now exceeds 500% of income, while public wealth is close to zero or even negative, as states have become net debtors.

Worldwide, women receive only a little over a quarter of labour income, and their share has been edging up only slowly since 1990. Once unpaid domestic work is included, women work more hours on average than men but earn only about 32% of men’s hourly income, which severely limits their ability to build independent wealth.

And the blind spot?

Two countries – Switzerland and Luxembourg – are absent from the report. Yet both display very high wealth dispersion, a high density of large fortunes and a central role in international finance. They are not singled out as symbols of “injustice”. In other words, the mere presence of big fortunes is clearly not enough, in the authors’ eyes, to label a country a major inequality problem. What matters are the surrounding conditions: the average income level, the safety net, access to education and healthcare, institutional stability, and the capacity to redistribute.

Taken together, the report describes a world where wealth concentration is real, sometimes spectacular, but where each country’s situation depends heavily on its institutional architecture.

B-R & H Finance

Founded in 2004, B-R & H Finance SA is a Swiss entity specialized in wealth management. We offer a full range of personalized and independent investment services and advisory solutions. Regulated by SO-Fit and authorized by FINMA, we are also members of the ASG (Swiss Association of Independent Asset Managers) and work with leading custodian banks.

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