The coming year is going to see more economic and geopolitical volatility for investors to navigate. Paul asks members of the Aberdeen Investments research team to outline the big questions they are asking as we head into 2026 – including the outlook for monetary policy under a new Fed chair, whether China can tackle its deflation problem, and the risk of an AI bubble bursting.

The much-anticipated UK budget has finally been announced. Paul and Luke are joined by Lizzy Galbraith to break down the economic and market implications of the tax rises, spending increases, and higher fiscal headroom. Financial markets liked what they saw in the budget, but the team highlight the backloaded nature of the tax increases, question markets around future spending plans, and the possibility of change at the top of UK politics in 2026.

The world isn’t deglobalising, it’s fracturing – splitting into US and China blocs, along manufacturing, technological, and financial lines. Paul speaks to Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist at Capital Economics and author of The Fractured Age: How the Return of Geopolitics Will Splinter the Global Economy. Paul and Neil talk about what the hyper-globalisation consensus that economic interdependence was stabilising got wrong, how the return of superpower rivalry will force other countries to pick a side, and the ways investors can navigate this new economic and geopolitical environment.

US export controls on high-end semiconductor chips, and Chinese control over rare earth supply, are just the most recent examples of major economies weaponising chokepoints in the global economy. Paul and Luke speak to Edward Fishman, a former US State Department sanctions official, Colombia University professor, and author of “Chokepoints: How the Global Economy Became a Weapon of War”, about the US’s and increasingly China’s control over these chokepoints, how financial and legal chokepoints arise out of the structure of the modern global economy, and how major powers use chokepoints to pursue their geopolitical interests.

France has been cycling through Prime Ministers, as the government struggles to pass a budget through a divided parliament. Paul and Luke talk to Lizzy Galbraith and Felix Feather about France’s political and fiscal challenges, what’s unique about France’s problems compared to other ageing and indebted Western democracies, and what a potential victory for the extremes of French politics at the 2027 Presidential election would mean for the economy and markets.

With the US Federal Reserve under intense political pressure and the labour market at an inflection point, understanding how the FOMC might respond to shocks is critical for financial markets. Paul and Luke talk to Professor Tara Sinclair of George Washington University about her groundbreaking working paper FOMC in Silico, which uses AI personas to model the Fed’s decision-making process. They also explore how AI can augment decision-making more broadly and assess its impact on the labour market.

The UK Budget is about two months away. The Chancellor is once again facing the prospect of her fiscal rules being breached, and the likely need to tighten fiscal policy. Paul Diggle and Luke Bartholomew are joined by Lizzy Galbraith, senior political economist at Aberdeen, to discuss the Chancellor’s tough choices, potential tax increases, and the state of the UK economy more broadly.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is under sustained attack from the Trump administration. But despite the totemic significance of the Fed to the global financial system, markets so far seem relatively sanguine. Luke and Paul discuss the history of independent central banks, why they matter so much to the economy, and what the journey to full fiscal dominance might look like. They also talk to Aaron Rock and Max Macmillan, senior fixed income and macro investors at Aberdeen, about how they think about monetary policy independence and whether markets should be more worried about fiscal dominance.