On November 3, 2026, the Amundi Alternative & Private Assets team held the 3rd edition of the Amundi Alternative Investment Virtual Conference, bringing together leading experts from across the hedge fund industry to discuss the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping alternative investments.

Against a backdrop of greater dispersion and continued market uncertainty, our speakers explored how the current environment is creating opportunities for active and alternative investment strategies.

The conference focused on three key areas: navigating the macro landscape, harnessing data and signals for alpha through systematic investing, and unlocking value through dispersion and event risk in fundamental strategies.

Key themes

  1. The macro backdrop remains challenging, with the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank still biased toward tighter policy, bond yields expected to stay elevated, and political developments adding further uncertainty. In this environment, hedge funds can provide selective diversification within portfolios.
  2. AI is becoming an important cross-asset theme, but its investment implications remain uncertain, with questions around monetisation, adoption, and real-world constraints.
  3. Systematic investing continues to evolve through signals and alternative data, but robust live evidence, careful validation, and close provider partnerships remain essential to distinguish genuine alpha from overfitting.
  4. Fundamental strategies are finding opportunities in event-driven and relative value markets, particularly through merger arbitrage, European M&A, and dislocations in European financial credit.
  5. Active manager selection remains crucial, as investors look for differentiated sources of return and attractive risk-adjusted outcomes across macro, systematic and fundamental strategies.
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