Global Data Sentiment: Information-driven multi-asset outperformance

Performance overview 2025

2025 was an exceptional year for Global Data Sentiment (GDS), marked by strong absolute performance and clear outperformance versus traditional CTA benchmarks. In a market environment dominated by powerful narratives, abrupt regime shifts, and elevated uncertainty, GDS delivered +13.37% with attractive risk-adjusted returns.

• GDS: +13.37%
• SocGen CTA Trend Index¹: +3.04%
• SocGen CTA Index²: +0.56%

This outcome highlights the structural advantages of GDS: early signal generation from news flow, fast regime recognition, and dynamic multi-asset allocation, particularly during periods when traditional price-based trend-following strategies struggled.

Table 1: GDS key figures in comparison to CTAs in 2025

The magnitude of outperformance reflects structural advantages, not general CTA exposure.

Market environment 2025: A year of narratives and regime shifts

The investment landscape in 2025 was shaped by a combination of persistent structural trends and event-driven shocks:

• A broad, year-long AI-driven equity rally, reinforced by successive waves of innovation
• Political uncertainty and volatility surrounding Trump’s Liberation Day in April
• A “higher for longer” Federal Reserve regime emerged as the new baseline scenario, particularly toward the end of the year, creating challenges for fixed income trends

These conditions rewarded strategies capable of interpreting information flow in real time, rather than relying on price confirmation alone.

Asset class performance and positioning

The following section illustrates how narratives identified in the news flow turned into concrete positioning, and how Global Data Sentiment leveraged the resulting opportunities across equities, fixed income and FX.

Equities: Building and scaling conviction

Equities were the primary performance driver in 2025.

• Equity sentiment was constructive early in the year and strengthened progressively as AI-related narratives broadened and earnings momentum improved.
• GDS maintained a net long equity stance throughout the year, scaling exposure as conviction increased.
• The ability to rapidly increase leverage following regime confirmation proved crucial for performance.

Overall, 2025 reinforced that being structurally long equities was strongly rewarded, and that dynamic exposure scaling was a key differentiator versus traditional CTA approaches.

Fixed Income: Agility in a “higher for longer” world

Fixed income markets remained challenging amid persistent inflation uncertainty and firm central bank communication.

• GDS adopted a disciplined and flexible approach, avoiding prolonged exposure during unstable rate regimes.
• Positioning shifted rapidly when narratives pointed to renewed upward pressure on yields, allowing the strategy to benefit from short duration exposure at key moments.

Fixed income contributed positively while supporting overall portfolio efficiency.

FX: A gradual shift against the US Dollar

FX positioning evolved steadily over the course of the year.

As global growth expectations broadened and risk appetite improved, GDS moved toward a persistent negative USD stance. FX added diversification and incremental performance during risk-on phases.

While FX contributed marginally negatively in absolute terms, positioning remained close to neutral at the second half of the year and enhanced portfolio diversification, particularly during periods of cross-asset volatility.

The following case studies highlight how information-driven signals translated into timely positioning and effective cross-asset allocation during key moments of 2025.

Case Study 1: Post–Liberation Day equity rally (April 2025)

Trump’s Liberation Day initially triggered market turbulence and elevated uncertainty. At the time of the event, GDS maintained only a small net long equity position.

As news flow shifted rapidly toward:

• de-escalation narratives,
• improving confidence in US growth,
• strong technology and earnings momentum,

GDS detected a decisive regime change before it was fully reflected in prices.

The strategy scaled equity exposure aggressively, moving to a highly leveraged long position, capturing one of the strongest equity rallies of the year — the best-performing period of 2025 for the fund.

At the same time, news-based signals pointed to rising US rates, prompting a fast shift from long to short fixed income positioning, which contributed positively as yields moved higher.

Case study 2: Multi-Asset signal alignment (September 2025)

September provided another clear illustration of GDS’s strength in capturing evolving narratives.

During the month, GDS delivered a positive performance, driven primarily by equities, with additional positive contributions from fixed income and FX.

Key narratives captured by the strategy included:

• US election uncertainty beginning to clear, improving risk sentiment
• Firm Federal Reserve communication, pushing rates higher
• A timely switch from long to short fixed income exposure
• Positive Q3 earnings revisions
• The emergence of a second wave of AI-related investment themes

By processing these developments in real time, GDS reinforced equity exposure while tactically adjusting bond and FX positioning, demonstrating effective cross-asset alignment.

Case study 3: US government shutdown (October/November 2025)

Robust performance without macro data:

The US government shutdown in October–November 2025 led to widespread delays and suspensions of official macroeconomic releases, creating a challenging environment for data-dependent strategies.

Because GDS relies on real-time news sentiment rather than hard macro data, signal generation remained fully operational throughout the period.

• Equities: GDS maintained a long S&P 500 position in October, benefiting from resilient sentiment, and shifted to neutral in November as political uncertainty increased.
• Fixed Income: News-based signals accurately anticipated movements in US T-Note futures, resulting in a particularly strong fixed income performance in November, despite the absence or delay of official data.

This episode highlights the structural resilience of GDS in environments where traditional data-driven strategies struggle and underscores the advantage of information-based signals when data availability is impaired.

Forecast dynamics: Speed, conviction, and adaptability

Across 2025, GDS forecasts strengthened over time rather than fading:

• Equity and FX signals intensified as narratives persisted.
• Exposure was scaled dynamically, rather than held static.
• Major regime shifts were captured early, notably in April and September.

This stood in contrast to traditional CTA and trend-following strategies, which rely on price confirmation and therefore reacted more slowly, contributing to muted benchmark performance.

Conclusion

2025 demonstrated that markets increasingly move on narratives before prices. By systematically analysing large-scale news flow, GDS was able to:

• identify regime shifts early,
• scale conviction decisively,
• and allocate risk efficiently across equities, fixed income, and FX.

In a year where trends existed but required speed and adaptability to monetise, GDS delivered strong absolute returns and significant risk-adjusted outperformance versus both CTA benchmarks — reinforcing its role as a distinct, next-generation alternative investment strategy.

Outlook for 2026

As markets move into 2026, the investment landscape remains shaped by powerful structural forces alongside elevated uncertainty. While many of the dominant themes of recent years are still in place, their sustainability and interaction are increasingly being questioned — reinforcing the importance of adaptability and information-driven decision-making.

Artificial intelligence continues to be a central driver of corporate investment, productivity expectations, and equity market leadership. Whether the AI theme can remain as powerful and durable as in recent years, or transitions into a more selective and differentiated phase, will be a key question for investors. In either case, narratives, expectations, and sentiment around AI are likely to remain highly influential for asset prices.

At the macro level, monetary policy credibility and independence remain under close scrutiny. Questions around whether the Federal Reserve can maintain policy independence in a politically charged environment, and how it balances growth resilience against inflation risks, are likely to create periodic regime shifts across equities, fixed income, and currencies.

More broadly, trends are still present, but experience suggests that they may be interrupted more frequently by abrupt changes, driven by political decisions, policy communication, or geopolitical developments. This favors strategies that can recognise both trend continuation and sudden narrative reversals.

Geopolitical risks are expected to remain a major driver of sentiment. The evolving global landscape raises questions about a potential new geopolitical world order, with implications for trade, supply chains, defense spending, and regional growth dynamics. These themes are likely to manifest first in news flow and narratives, before being fully reflected in prices.

In Europe, the key question remains whether the region can close the innovation gap and participate more fully in global growth themes, or whether it continues to lag behind more dynamic economies. Shifts in policy, investment priorities, or political alignment could alter sentiment quickly in either direction.

Against this backdrop, news and narratives will continue to drive markets forward. With its ability to systematically analyse large-scale information flow and adapt signals in real time, Global Data Sentiment (GDS) is well positioned to navigate an environment characterised by both, opportunity and disruption. Ongoing model enhancements and continuous product development further strengthen this positioning as markets evolve.