Many investors, depending

on their time in life, as well as their current career and their income generating capabilities, that if they're in a very high earning part of their life, most likely income is less of a consideration.

right and they can stomach volatility they're probably looking at higher growth strategies but for other passive investments they may couple that with hedge fund strategies because of the need for having an asset class that can compound an attractive rate of return and that really is at the crux of it it's for the advisor to understand and they know this i mean advisors are clearly highly intelligent people who have a very large responsibility to their clients as custodians of their assets and their family legacies and having those deep conversations to get an investor to have the opportunity to plan forward and look ahead and understand what is the process they're trying to implement.

So then you start to identify very quickly, all right, what is the appropriate lever? We have equity, we have someone who's built up tremendous success of their personal income because of the businesses they've owned and now has savings.

And what we're looking to do is take chips off the table.

That individual is clearly a hedge fund investor, wants to compound an attractive rate of return, reduce equity like volatility.

I mentioned it before.

How are you balancing that dynamic of bringing in new managers, new mindsets, new approaches, new disciplines that might be relevant in going forward while still keeping true to your process, if you will, or your magic sauce of identifying managers that have a great track record over multiple market cycles?

Is much of what we saw in 2025 basically a continuation into this year or does the story change somewhat?

Well, despite what the name behind me says, we don't really have a crystal ball, but we do look at the factors that are out there.

And again, I just talked about one.

One would be the tremendous amount of volatility, or let's at least peg it in moderate to high vol that you're seeing from a geopolitical standpoint and so many other factors, as you were attributing to earlier, Sam, with your previous guest.

The fact that risk-free, and as long as interest rates continue to stay somewhere above 2%, it would reward the third factor, which is that there has been very little correlation between many stocks.

And as a result, it rewards stock pickers.

So you look at an investment manager, a hedge fund specifically, that has the ability to leverage their skill as opposed to being driven by the market's direction.

As far as the strength that we saw, I mean, can they follow it up this year?

So just talk us through where are some of the opportunities right now in alternative investing? I mean, where are you seeing some of that demand?

Well, I mean, I think you've, I've been watching your show for a while and I've seen throughout the week, the stories have really been around artificial intelligence as one key theme, private credit.

But let's take a step back.

I mean, alternatives is an asset class that should be within quotes all weather in terms of the allocation being a consistent approach, right? Investors should have something that through time has already demonstrated, whether it's hedge funds to be a lower volatility, fixed income substitute to traditional equities, to whether there are levers of growth that need to be pulled.

And then you're looking at clearly private markets.

I mean, these are asset classes that now have been around for some time, but still continue to pose barriers to entry.

So for advisors who are looking for a diversified approach, not looking for a specific price target, but really looking to bring the benefits of this asset class.

I'm just wondering, you know, what you're seeing as far as, you know, some of the appetite out there, some of the conversations around the circularity of financing, the depreciation as well, as you look across the alternative investment market.