Noah Theran moderated a Global Alts New York 2026 panel on the macro regime change now reshaping how capital gets priced. Mark Sullivan of Wellington Management, Brian Friedman of Brevan Howard, and Zachary Squire of Tekmerion Capital joined for a forty-minute working session on AI CapEx, central bank reaction functions, and what comes after the post-GFC playbook stops working.

The post-GFC macro regime is over. Sullivan opened with the framing the rest of the panel built on. Two decades of positive supply shocks gave central banks the luxury of managing demand. That world has flipped to negative supply shocks driven by deglobalization, conflict, and a labor market that no longer adjusts the way the textbook says it should. The Fed has missed its inflation target for five straight years and, until very recently, kept contemplating additional cuts. The macro regime change shows up in that asymmetry, where hikes are treated as bad and cuts as good even when the data argues for symmetry.

Why the macro regime change runs through AI CapEx

The panel pulled AI CapEx out as the single largest swing factor. Sullivan framed it as the most significant economic event of his career, multifaceted and still being underwritten in real time. The order of magnitude matters. Hyperscaler CapEx plans now run into the hundreds of billions per year, and the resulting demand for power, land, water, and skilled labor is reshaping regional economies in ways macro models did not anticipate.

Friedman pushed on the second-order consequence. AI CapEx is partly responsible for the productivity case that has kept growth stronger than most macro forecasters expected. The capital share of income has never been higher. Labor share is falling.

What the Fed reset tells us about the macro regime change

Squire walked through the policy implications. The Fed reset is not just about the next meeting. It is about a central bank that has telegraphed an asymmetric reaction function. Policymakers will support real growth aggressively at the first sign of weakness. They will tolerate above-target inflation for longer than the dot plot suggests. For allocators, that maps to a structural bid for real assets, a higher term premium, and a more durable dollar role than the consensus expects.

Sullivan added the fiscal dimension. The post-GFC regime ran with central banks doing most of the work. The new regime runs with fiscal authorities running large deficits even outside recessions, central banks accommodating the resulting issuance, and a yield curve that has not yet repriced fully for either.

How allocators should position for the macro regime change

The panel converged on practical conclusions. Macro hedge funds are back as portfolio diversifiers because the dispersion across rates, currencies, and commodities is wider than at any point in the post-GFC period. Long-duration assets carry more risk than the consensus prices, particularly in fixed income. Real assets, hard infrastructure, and selective private credit benefit from the supply-side reset. AI-exposed equity remains the highest-conviction beta but increasingly needs to be paired with hedges against the CapEx digestion cycle