Capital markets are moving beyond a framework defined by sectors, regions and business cycles. In Euronext’s view, the next phase of portfolio construction will be shaped by structural forces that cut across traditional classifications: blockchain as financial infrastructure, private capital as a growing locus of value creation, artificial intelligence as both a productivity engine and an energy-intensive system, and climate investing as a discipline increasingly grounded in measurable transition data rather than narrative-led ESG scores.
Euronext’s response is to develop index methodologies designed to translate these structural trends into transparent, rules-based and investable exposures. Across the four themes, the emphasis is on measurable economic relevance rather than broad thematic labelling: estimating blockchain-related revenue exposure, using listed vehicles to approximate private equity participation, linking AI to clean energy and electrification through granular revenue data, and building climate indices around a consensus-based score that combines emissions intensity, transition trajectory, green capital expenditure and governance quality.
Taken together, the paper presents a broader institutional proposition: that market infrastructure must evolve with the economy it seeks to represent. Euronext positions its index innovation not as product extension, but as a necessary adaptation to a world in which structural change increasingly drives returns. For institutional investors, the message is clear: accessing the economy of tomorrow will require benchmarks that reflect how value is actually being created today.
The whitepaper argues that these themes are not transient allocations but long-duration shifts in how growth is financed, technologies are commercialised and risks are assessed. Yet they remain imperfectly captured by conventional benchmarks. Blockchain exposure, for example, sits across financials, technology and industrials rather than within a standalone sector; private equity returns are generated largely outside public markets; AI’s expansion is inseparable from the power and grid infrastructure required to sustain it; and climate alignment demands forward-looking metrics that avoid simplistic sector tilts.
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