Chief Market Strategist Troy A. Gayeski, CFA dives into his new Perspectives note on where he sees opportunities across private equity, credit, commercial real estate and liquid markets.

Can the brief slowdown in Q2 consumption lead to even greater future growth? Will businesses be able to optimize for the new onshoring trend? And how will these trends impact private markets investors? Troy joins Content Strategist Harrison Beck to discuss how he’s balancing recession risk with U.S. economic resilience, his case for complementing public equities with middle market PE, and why “delayed but not denied” is a useful mindset for investors in the second half of 2025.

Get more from Troy, plus the latest from our private markets research experts, at futurestandard.com/insights.

Harrison Beck: The US economy continues to defy the predictions of pessimists, but that doesn't mean the macro environment has escaped this year's volatility unscathed. Can the brief slowdown in Q2 consumption lead to even greater future growth? Will businesses be able to optimize for the new onshoring? where does this put opportunities across private equity credit, commercial real estate, and liquid markets? I'm Harrison Beck, future Standards content strategist. Luckily, we've got Chief market strategist, Troy Gayeski in the Future Standard Podcast Studio to give us some answers. He'll walk us through the insights in his most recent perspectives note, including where he's seeing opportunities across private markets. Troy, welcome.

Troy Gayeski: Good to see a Harrison. Happy tail end of the summer.

Harrison Beck: Happy tail end of the summer. Well, let's start with the macro backdrop. You've titled your most recent perspectives note delayed, but [00:01:00] not denied. is this a useful mindset for investors in the second half of 2025? And what does it mean for the current economic landscape?

Troy Gayeski: Well, to be fair, let's give credit where credit is due. You and the marketing team came up with that, uh, title A as you always, uh, parse through all the statements and come up with something very creative. But you know, the, the original genesis of gratification delayed but not denied. It actually comes from middle market private equity, which as we've discussed before, is the definition of growth at a reasonable price. And you know, it stemmed from the fact that coming out of last year, the, after the election outcome in particular, there was so much enthusiasm, you know, markets were ripping again, uh, eclipsing the 2021 multiples. And, and, and private equity assets had not only not gone up, they went down even more in terms of value.

Harrison Beck: Mm-hmm.

Troy Gayeski: and so when you think about that from a profit standpoint or a return on investment standpoint. [00:02:00] The, the multiple re expansion of private assets is going to happen. It's just gonna take longer than it would've otherwise because of the trauma that the economy and markets went through, uh, through Liberation Day. So, you know, as you extend that delayed, um, but not denied, uh, framework, it, it affects a lot of different areas of investing. And so we'll, we'll hit the economy first, as your question alluded to, that, you know, as you go through Q2. In Q3, I think even the perma bearers and the perma pessimists calling for the US economy to collapse overnight. And 60% of companies in America, you know, are gonna just cease to exist. All sorts of nonsense. Um, you know, there were pro recession probabilities calling for like 80% probability, a hundred percent probability, all sorts of goofy stuff. I think even they can admit that yes, the US economy's really resilient, and by the way, we're not having a recession anytime soon.