#risk-mitigation

#risk-mitigation

Claire Kamembattu, Orla Muldoon, Gavin Duffy and others highlight strategies for dealing with volatile personalities

While 2025 battered the broader housing market with inflation, elevated interest rates, and rising labor and material costs, the luxury segment continued to thrive. "The luxury market has been extremely resilient and continues to outperform the overall market," says Nishu Sood, a housing expert at John Burns Research & Consulting, an independent research firm specializing in real estate. Yet this resilience masks a more complex reality.

Imagine you've set the goal of running a marathon that's 90 days away. You've hired a trainer who says this a less than optimal amount of time, but if you stick religiously to her fitness routine, nutrition plan, and sleep schedule, you'll be ready come race day. Cheat in any of those three areas, she warns, and you won't be able to run 26.2 miles on three month's notice.

Maven is perhaps more focussed on mitigating losses than any other VCT manager. It does that by focussing on more established B2B businesses, ideally with recurring revenues, operating in defensive sectors like cybersecurity and diagnostic services. The Maven VCTs are also notable for the diversification they offer. Spread an investment across all four Maven VCTs and an investor will be invested in over 130 private and AIM quoted companies.

Take a look at the picture above. Countless dials, each presumably conveying critical information about the health of a nuclear reactor. Is this well designed? From the "functionality" perspective - yes, it works. It does what it is intended to do. But from a perspective of human error it couldn't be worse. The design makes it almost impossible to detect changes, to identify critical components, and most importantly, to make decisions based on the information. The result will be an inevitable catastrophe.

A small fraction of employees (just 10%) are responsible for 73% of risky behavior. Organizations relying solely on security awareness training have visibility into only 12% of risky behavior.

Although it's not perfect, JP Morgan Chase's JEPQ comes close to the ideal "Holy Grail" investment due to its use of derivative strategies for dividends.