December 19, 2024 | News
Our Top 5 Blogs of 2024
William Blair News
General William Blair News
In 2024, financial markets grappled with a dynamic mix of opportunities and challenges—navigating persistent inflation and rising interest rates, adjusting to shifting geopolitical alignments, and keeping up with the rapid evolution of technology.
In such a complex environment, our investment teams continued their global research travels to uncover on-the-ground perspectives and identify promising opportunities. They also remained committed to sharing actionable insights that explored these trends in depth.
Below, we highlight some of our most impactful blogs of the year.
No. 5: Emerging Markets Diverge as a New Cycle Unfolds
In this blog, Todd McClone, CFA, partner, an emerging markets (EM) portfolio manager, provided his outlook for 2024.
At the time, in early 2024, EMs had regained their footing from October 2022 lows, but the recovery has been anything but uniform across individual markets.
As a new EM cycle unfolded, McClone expected that the heterogeneous dynamics and secular themes that drove performance in 2023 would continue to shape market behavior in 2024.
Among these trends were the divergent trajectories of China and India, surging demand for AI-related hardware, and reshaping of global supply chains.
No. 4: Waistlines and GLP1s—Expanding in Unison
In mid-2024 it seemed like everyone started talking about Ozempic, but this popular weight-loss drug was only one of many glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications establishing themselves as the cornerstone in the management of obesity.
In this blog, Daria Fomina, research analyst on our global equity team, explained how the category evolved and discussed the opportunities and risks for investors.
GLP-1 agonists, the author wrote, are not just transforming healthcare; they’re reshaping consumer behavior and impacting various consumer industries.
“Companies must consider these factors in their strategic planning and risk assessment to maintain competitiveness and relevance in a rapidly evolving market,” Fomina wrote.
No. 3: 3 Metals to Watch
Improving demand for electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy, and data centers, along with supply rationing in the form of production challenges or outright production cuts, strengthened fundamentals for copper, nickel, and aluminum in 2024.
In this blog, Alexandra Symeonidi, CFA, a senior corporate credit and sustainability analyst on our EM debt team, explained where she thought these commodities were headed in the second half of 2024 and the possible impact on our EM debt portfolios.
According to Symeonidi, the situation boded well for EM debt investors, as countries rich in copper, nickel, and aluminum tend to be in EMs and could increasingly benefit from their production and sale.
“For the corporate credit investor, this should translate into robust credit fundamentals, such as margins and cash flows,” she wrote. “For the sovereign debt investor, export value and tax revenue from these metals could increase due to higher production and a resilient price outlook, leading to an improvement in sovereign credit fundamentals.”
No. 2: Artificial Intelligence: The Fifth Paradigm Shift
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, paradigm shifts represent technological innovation that can reshape industries over time.
Over the past 60 years, we’ve witnessed four distinct technological revolutions. From the dawn of mainframe computers in the 1960s and the rise of personal computers in the 1980s, to the internet boom of the mid-90s and the mobility era of the late 2000s, each shift has led to changes over time.
Now, we stand on the brink of a fifth paradigm shift—artificial intelligence (AI).
In this blog, two members of our U.S. growth and core equity team—Jim Golan, CFA, partner, portfolio manager and research analyst, and Nancy Aversa, CFA, partner, research analyst, and Danny Goode, research analyst—discussed how they have been monitoring the ways in which AI is beginning to influence various sectors and industries, particularly within the large-cap technology and consumer spaces.
No. 1: Clouds Clearing in the Land of the Rising Sun
In early 2024, on the back of five recent trips to Japan, our global equity team explained that they had begun increasing Japanese equity exposure across its international strategies, narrowing the underweights it had maintained for some time.
There were three reasons: an improving macro environment for the first time in decades; the development of structural tailwinds; and a compelling bottom-up story from team members who had traveled to Japan five times since the fall of 2022, meeting with more than 300 companies.
“What we are seeing is bottom-up confirmation of a compelling top-down story,” wrote a portfolio specialist on our global equity team, noting that “we will continue to focus on high-quality companies with strong pricing power and where we believe profitability and total shareholder return are likely to improve.”