How Top Investors Find Opportunities In Times Of Uncertainty

The world’s most influential dealmakers, investors and financial titans share tips for navigating today’s volatile economic climate at the 2025 Forbes Iconoclast Summit.

From a weakened U.S. job market to global economic tensions, inflation and interest rate concerns, today’s investors are keeping a close eye on how key regulatory and policy decisions impact the financial market.

While some leaders view this moment of uncertainty as a reason to move with caution, others believe that economic times like these are prime for finding opportunities and profits. That’s according to conversations from the 2025 Forbes Iconoclast Summit, where the world’s most influential dealmakers and investors convened to discuss the critical issues impacting the economy and markets today.

From billionaires like Ken Griffin and Todd Boehly, to banking executives such as Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Asset & Wealth Management, to sports investor Clara Wu Tsai of the WNBA’s New York Liberty and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, these iconoclasts offered their insights on how they are navigating the current financial climate.

Remain Resilient

As founder-CEO of Citadel LLC, one of the most profitable hedge fund companies with over $66 billion in assets under management, Griffin criticized President Trump’s tariff policy and the toll it has taken on the economy. But despite his concerns about the president’s policy decisions so far, Griffin said he’s hopeful the administration will pivot and return to a “pro-growth, low-tax deregulation” economy, which will put many more investors at ease.

“Right now, the biggest challenge for any investor is to understand how to navigate this moment of policy uncertainty,” he told summit attendees, while noting that in a recent conversation with 150 American executives, 30 to 40% said the last few months have been the most challenging period they’ve faced in their entire leadership career.

But amid these tough times, Griffin said he admires any leader committed to moving forward. “It’s really powerful to watch corporate executives say, ‘All right, how do we navigate these cross currents?’” he said. “No one is giving up. No one is throwing the towel in. Everybody is focused on how we navigate these choppy waters and move forward, and that’s a statement about the resiliency of our nation.”

Don’t Get Caught Up In Headlines

JPMorgan’s Mary Callahan Erdoes, who manages a $5 trillion business and was named to Forbes’ 2025 America’s Richest Self-Made Women list with a $365 million net worth, said every investor who walks into their bank has two biases in their portfolio. One is a home-country bias, where they want to invest in things they can see or that are near them. Two, there is a liquidity bias: they want to be able to pull their money out tomorrow if needed. The problem, she explained, is that to really build wealth and have your money compound for you, you have to push past these biases and headlines about global tensions and economic turmoil to see what overlooked opportunities make sense for you long-term.

She encouraged investors to ask themselves, “With everything that’s changing, ‘Am I afraid of what I’m hearing in China or am I supposed to be thinking that’s the new opportunity?’” She added that with all of the conversations about large bets in the private equity markets, investors should be asking themselves, “How do I think about that and not be afraid to have less liquidity in my portfolio because I don’t need all that money every day.”

Erdoes emphasized that these are “fabulous times” to invest and said that investors should “not get sidetracked by all of these headlines.”

“You want things to have seismic change so you can say, ‘Where can I go where others may not be looking right now?’”

Invest In Growth Assets

As co-owner of two professional basketball teams and one of America’s Most Powerful Women In Sports, Clara Wu Tsai discussed the importance of investing in growth assets with long-term upside. When looking at her sports investment portfolio, she described the NBA as a “scarce, premium and mature” asset, while the WNBA is still growing.

“There’s so much monetization that’s available and that disconnect there between the growth of viewership and revenues that’s the investment opportunity,” Wu Tsai said about the WNBA. She pointed out that while the broadcast viewership of WNBA games is catching up to that of the NBA, the revenue share is still a small fraction. Last year, the WNBA signed an 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal, which pales in comparison to the NBA’s 11-year, approximately $75 billion deal.

“We don’t know what the ceiling is for the WNBA,” she said. She added that with investments in the league overlooked for so long, “there is still so much upside and you can be really creative about your sponsorships, about how you bring in customers and I just think it’s a lot of opportunity.”

Remain Adaptable

Dambisa Moyo, a member of the UK’s House of Lords and co-principal of Versaca Investments, said that moments of uncertainty are nothing new, and that the key for leaders looking to thrive is to adjust and pivot their strategies, as needed.

“The most important thing I can emphasize is that we’re always in an era of uncertainty,” she said. “Sure, the distribution of outcomes may have changed … but from a board perspective, our responsibility is not only to risk mitigate, but also to continue to find opportunities within which a board and organization can grow.”

Looking back in history, she says there have been several periods where a pandemic, deglobalization or geopolitical warfare took place. Therefore, any organization that has been around for several decades should have it built into its DNA to adapt to change.

“This is to say that our job is not to navel gaze because of all the uncertainty that has emerged,” she said. “It’s really to see through it and, of course, think about updating our processes and making sure financially, strategically and operationally the organizations are sound.”

At the same time, she said leaders should use this moment to look for opportunities to “improve their delivery, to think about margin increases, and to invest in different regions or different products.”

Invest In Unstoppable Industries

Banking executive Ida Liu, the former global head of Citi Private Bank, says that the confluence of events happening today makes the current economic cycle unlike anything we’ve seen before. But, she said, “when there’s volatility and when there’s uncertainty, there is also a tremendous amount of opportunity.”

Her advice is for investors to invest in industries that seem resilient and unstoppable during challenging times. “In our opinion, it’s AI, it’s tech, it’s healthcare, it’s clean energy going forward, and it’s also looking at alternatives to traditional ways of investing,” she said. This includes, she said, “looking at directs, co-invests and different types of ways to participate in secondaries that are really going to bolster portfolios going forward.”

Move Quickly Where You See Value

As co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Sparks and Chelsea Football Club, Todd Boehly knows how to spot a valuable investment when he sees one. Boehly, who also serves as chair of the holding company Eldridge Industries, said that the key to navigating market volatility is to have a diverse portfolio and to move with urgency.

“Ultimately, if we see value in something, then we want to be able to move really quickly,” he said. He references how his ability to move quickly on an investment is linked to the diversity of companies in his portfolio. For example, if he’s looking at a media opportunity, then he brings his entertainment company A24 into the mix, which allows him to quickly conduct due diligence to see if the opportunity is worth the investment.

“That collection of capabilities is really what we try to distinguish ourselves with,” he said, emphasizing how the diversity of his company’s investments is what keeps them competitive in today’s uncertain market.