Forecasts about the next decade of investing tend to focus on new technologies, interest rates or the next market cycle. Yifeng Zhang, principal of the Yifeng Zhang Family Office and Senior Advisor at Arielle Holdings, starts somewhere else.
Asked which trends will shape private investing and the family office space over the next five to ten years, Zhang names two. The first is geopolitical risk and wars, and the second is what he describes as too much money in the market and too many passive funds.
Neither is a short-term call. Both describe structural conditions that can shape how capital is priced, where risk sits and where opportunity remains for investors willing to think independently. For an investor whose philosophy centers on spotting mega trends and holding the leading instrument for the long term, understanding that backdrop is part of the discipline. According to Yifeng, “innovations in space, AI, biotech, robotics etc, geopolitics events, and massive debt monetization will be the main themes over the next decade.”
Why Yifeng Zhang Ranks Geopolitical Risk First
Zhang places wars and geopolitical risk at the top of his list, and UBS surveys indicate similar concerns among participating family offices.
In the UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, which surveyed 317 single family offices across more than 30 markets, a major geopolitical conflict ranked as the second-largest concern for the year ahead, cited by 52% of respondents, behind a trade war at 70%. Looking five years out, 61% named a major geopolitical conflict as a key risk, the highest of any concern. A year later, UBS's 2026 report found that geopolitical conflict had become surveyed family offices' top risk over both short- and long-term horizons.
For a multi-asset investor, geopolitical risk is not an abstract headline. It can move commodity prices through supply disruptions, shift currency values as capital seeks safety and change the outlook for entire industries through sanctions, tariffs and export controls. Zhang's own portfolio spans equities, credit, commodities and foreign exchange across private and public markets, so these effects reach nearly every part of it. Geopolitical shocks also tend to arrive suddenly, leaving little time for portfolios built for calm conditions to adjust.
The UBS research also points to shifts in how wealthy families view the global monetary system. In the 2026 report, 65% of surveyed family offices said they expect confidence in the US dollar's status as the world's reserve currency to weaken.
Zhang favors investing in neutral countries away from war zones. Geographic distance, however, does not eliminate investment risk. In his view, conflict can raise inflation, term premiums and government borrowing, strengthening the case for considering commodities and other potential inflation hedges. He also sees defense-related spending as a possible source of innovation and growth, although neither the economic effects nor investment outcomes are assured.
The Passive Money Problem
Zhang's second force concerns the structure of the markets themselves. In his view, there is too much money in the market and too much of it sits in passive funds.
The rise of passive investing has been one of the defining financial shifts of the past two decades. According to Morningstar data reported by CNBC, US passive mutual funds and ETFs held $13.29 trillion in assets at the end of December 2023, slightly more than the $13.23 trillion in actively managed funds. It was the first time passive products had overtaken active funds across the US mutual fund and ETF universe, combining asset classes.
Passive investing has delivered real benefits, especially lower costs for ordinary savers. Morningstar's research also shows how hard it is for active managers to keep up. In its year-end 2025 US Active/Passive Barometer, only 38% of active funds survived and beat their passive peers in 2025, and just 21% did so over the 10 years through December 2025.
The concern Zhang raises is what happens when large amounts of capital follow similar benchmarks. Index funds seek to track an index rather than select securities based on an independent valuation assessment; their weighting and implementation methods vary. Zhang worries that growing passive ownership could affect price discovery, although its influence depends on trading activity and market conditions, not ownership shares alone.
In Zhang's view, these dynamics can cut both ways for active investors: crowded positions may become more fragile, while potential mispricings may create opportunities. Neither outcome is automatic, and identifying an opportunity does not guarantee outperformance.
Zhang sees rising government debt as a potential incentive for monetary accommodation, rather than an inevitable requirement to monetize debt. Against that backdrop, he considers gold, Bitcoin, blue-chip art, trophy real estate and sports teams as possible ways to diversify exposure to inflation and monetary risk. These assets do not provide reliable inflation protection in every period: Bitcoin and gold can be volatile, while art, property and sports teams can be illiquid and costly to hold. All can lose value. He also believes wealth creation linked to AI, companies such as SpaceX and the scale of passive funds could support elevated asset valuations for longer, although that remains his forecast rather than an assured outcome.
What It Means for Family Offices
Family offices are in an unusual position to respond to both forces. They typically answer to a single family rather than to outside investors, which allows them to take long-term positions without the pressure of quarterly redemptions. They can also invest across public and private markets in ways that many funds cannot.
The sector is growing quickly. Deloitte Private estimates there were about 8,030 single family offices worldwide in 2024, managing roughly $3.1 trillion, and projects more than 10,720 offices managing $5.4 trillion by 2030. As that capital grows, family offices are also adjusting their strategies. UBS's 2026 report found that 60% of surveyed family offices plan strategic changes to their allocations in the next 12 months, the highest share UBS has recorded. The same survey shows where much of that capital is heading: 65% of surveyed family offices are already invested in artificial intelligence, while power and resources and infrastructure were each cited by 37% as investment themes.
Zhang's own approach reflects the advantages of the family office structure. He describes himself as a long-term investor overall, concentrates on the leading instrument within each trend and backs his investments with a global network that can help portfolio companies around the world.
How Yifeng Zhang Plans to Navigate the Next Decade
Zhang's investment philosophy offers a framework for operating in this environment. He looks for a mega trend, aims to get in right before it takes off, invests in the No. 1 instrument and holds it for a long time. He pairs that long-term orientation with attention to macro timing.
In Zhang's framework, long-term conviction helps him remain invested in a structural trend through volatility, while macro timing informs when he commits capital or waits. Those intentions do not remove the risk of misjudging a trend, entering at an expensive valuation or mistiming the market.
His focus on the instrument he considers No. 1 is also his response to concerns about passive investing. A market-cap-weighted index gives larger companies greater weights. Zhang instead concentrates capital in the company or asset he judges best positioned to capture a trend. That selection is based on his own assessment rather than benchmark rules, although it can overlap with an index's largest holdings. Concentration can magnify losses if that assessment proves wrong.
The trends Zhang is watching most closely include space and longevity, fields he believes are innovating to create a better future. His outlook emphasizes understanding geopolitical risks and market structure, alongside a willingness to act independently of the crowd. Whether that approach delivers stronger returns will depend on investment selection, valuations, execution and future market conditions.