Financial markets are increasingly rewarding companies backed by tangible, long-lasting assets as new artificial intelligence models reshape investor expectations, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.
In a research note, analysts including Guillaume Jaisson and Peter Oppenheimer referred to these businesses as “heavy assets, low obsolescence,” or “HALO.” They pointed to sectors such as power grids, pipelines, utilities, transportation infrastructure, critical industrial equipment and long-cycle manufacturing capacity as key examples of HALO companies.
Goldman said that “asset intensity” has emerged as a “key driver of valuations and returns,” noting that its basket of capital-intensive HALO stocks has outperformed more asset-light peers by 35% since 2025.
“Higher real yields, geopolitical fragmentation and supply chain rewiring have shifted equity leadership back toward tangible productive assets,” the analysts wrote. “Markets are rewarding capacity, networks, infrastructure and engineering complexity — assets that are costly to replicate and less exposed to technological obsolescence.”
The analysts added that the rapid development of new AI models has pressured profit expectations for mega-cap companies committing significant capital to the technology, while also increasing disruption risks for software and IT services firms. Many of these businesses belong to Goldman’s “capital light” category — industries that previously thrived on scalability and digital expansion rather than physical infrastructure.
Although these companies experienced strong growth in the years following the global financial crisis, they are now facing higher capital costs driven by supply-chain disruptions, the conflict in Ukraine and what the analysts described as a “structural rethink of globalization.” These changes, they said, have also renewed focus on the “importance of economic resilience.”
“Energy systems, supply chains, infrastructure and national security capabilities are no longer treated as peripheral assets; they have become strategic and scarce, and increasingly priced as such,” the analysts said. “As a result, the valuation gap between capital intensive and capital light businesses has narrowed materially [.]”