While in 2025 venture capital funds delivered good results – above the CDI (Brazilian interbank deposit rate) – but it was fixed-income funds that attracted investors, this year should be different.
The recommended balance for investors is to reallocate part of their assets to post-fixed income investments, that is, in equity, multi-market, and credit funds.
“It’s time to start migrating a bit from the ‘warm pool’ of Brazil’s high real interest rates in post-fixed income and start looking at opportunities in other asset classes, especially in equities,” says Sylvio Castro, head of global solutions and fund of funds at Itaú Unibanco, in Wealth Point , a NeoFeed program.
In addition to the catalyst of falling interest rates (the rate-cutting cycle is scheduled to begin in March), the stock market is setting new records for appreciation even without the interest of Brazilian investors.
This is because global flows to emerging markets continue to support the stock market even with domestic retail underallocated, a trend that will continue. But to capture this movement, the best vehicle is actively managed funds.
“ETFs certainly have a lot of room to grow, but managers will better capture this appreciation due to their pro-cyclical bias, historically giving more weight to domestic stocks that benefit from the fall in the cost of capital and due to sensitivity to sectors that capture risk premium compression,” says Castro.
Multi-market funds , which have experienced years of redemptions, may return to portfolios – albeit on a different scale.
According to Castro, the asset class will not return to its past "disproportionate size" in the Brazilian investor's portfolio, but will maintain a key role as a tactical engine and diversifier of risk factors. This is especially true in less directional strategies, something valuable in a year of political and geopolitical events that can generate short-term zigzags.
Fixed income remains relevant, starting from a still high interest rate base, but fine-tuning has begun. The bank recommends slightly reducing excess and calibrating between pre-fixed and inflation-linked investments, with an emphasis on inflation-linked credit portfolios, taking advantage of high real interest rates and tax efficiency in certain instruments.
In the incentivized debenture class, the outlook is for tighter spreads than a year ago, but they remain attractive.
In the international segment, Castro outlines two paths. For those with accounts abroad, it's worthwhile to build a global "complete pie" (government interest rates, credit, stocks by region and style, alternatives) without hedging against the Brazilian real, because the reference point becomes the portfolio's own currency.
For those looking to diversify within Brazil, the recommendation is to invest with currency hedging to protect against fluctuations and potential devaluation of the dollar, in which case exposure to variable income is preferable to fixed income.