The lines between public and private markets are blurring, capital allocators have more choices than ever, and companies are competing for investor attention across a more complex ecosystem.
That backdrop set the central themes for Nasdaq Texas ConnecTXions in Dallas, a gathering of bankers, asset managers, infrastructure executives, and policymakers shaping the Texas economy.
The day opened with a fireside chat between President George W. Bush and Nasdaq Texas’s Rachel Racz on leadership and decision-making. “Decisions based upon principles are enduring,” Bush told the room, a line that carried through to the two panels that followed.
The conversations examined the mechanics of an evolving capital markets ecosystem: where capital is flowing, why Texas keeps attracting it, how companies compete for it, and what role public markets play in the next phase of growth.
Here is what stood out:
Trends in Asset Allocation and How Texas Plays a Role
In the first panel of the day, Nasdaq’s Yanni Angelakos, Head of Investment Insights, Capital Access Platforms, sat down with Rich Nuzum, Head of OCIO, Franklin Templeton, and Michael Lane, EVP and Head of Asset Management, SEI, to unpack where institutional investors and wealth management capital is actually being deployed, and why Texas keeps showing up in the conversation.
Portfolio construction is being redefined. Lane argued that goal-based investing should drive allocation decisions. “What is the money for?” he asked. In addition, stock and bond returns continue to show positive correlations. It may be more appropriate to reframe the traditional “60 (public market equities)/40 (public market fixed income)” portfolio to, instead, “60% public markets, 40% private markets,” reflecting more holistic portfolios and a search for true ballast.
Texas’s scale lets capital go deep. Nuzum put it plainly: “If you want to go deep somewhere, Texas is the place to do it.” If Texas were its own nation, it would rank among the world’s largest economies, large enough for specialized investors to build focused, meaningful exposure. “Texas is big enough to matter globally. It moves the needle for portfolio allocation, and yet it’s focused,” he said.
Texas is a live test of the AI investment thesis. Nuzum called the state “a microcosm” of whether the broader economy can deliver on the productivity promise of digitalization, pointing to the convergence of power generation, data centers, and compute demand within its borders.
The wealth channel has an education gap. Individual investors and their advisors are still catching up to how private markets behave differently from public ones, particularly around liquidity, and to the importance of balancing both within an asset allocation framework, Lane noted.
Texas has become a global case study. Viewing Texas as a model for economic competitiveness, Finance ministers and state treasurers from other countries now ask Nuzum how to replicate what Texas has built. “These days, I point them to Texas,” he said.
What’s Behind “Texas’s Edge”?
If the first conversation followed where capital is flowing, the second explained why so much of it is landing in Texas. Racz moderated a discussion with Ned Fleming of SunTx and Jeremy Ford of Hilltop Holdings on the infrastructure, financing, and policy choices fueling the state’s growth. Framing the discussion, Racz asked, “What makes Texas the place where you want to keep building?”
Both executives were candid about what could slow the momentum, from affordability to political durability, but their message was ultimately a call to stay engaged with the people building Texas’s economy, not just the capital flowing into it.
Three pillars supporting Texas’ growth. Fleming described Texas’s advantage as people, pro-business government, and sustained infrastructure investment working together. “When you build infrastructure and you finish infrastructure, it allows people to come,” he said, citing a single Frisco interchange that catalyzed $50 billion in nearby investment.
The numbers underscore Texas’ edge. Texas has invested $20 billion in infrastructure, more than North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee combined, while state GDP has grown from roughly $750 billion to $3 trillion over 25 years.
Financing is keeping pace with growth. Ford noted that Hilltop’s municipal advisory business had a record year, with commercial construction and development lending up double-digit percentages year over year – reflecting Hilltop’s broader activity, including its significant Texas business.
Growth is statewide, not just Dallas and Austin. Ford pointed to real momentum in the Rio Grande Valley and the Permian Basin as evidence that Texas’s growth is not confined to its largest metros.
The risks ahead are political and social, not economic. Both panelists flagged affordability and the need for wage growth to keep pace with GDP growth. As Fleming put it: “People matter. Don’t forget the people matter at every single level of an organization.”
The Nasdaq Texas Thread
Across both panels and the fireside chat, one message was clear: Texas’s economic momentum is not accidental. It reflects decades of deliberate choices around tax policy, regulation, infrastructure investment, and a business court system designed to compete with Delaware. Together, those factors have helped transform Texas from a regional success story into a market that global capital allocators increasingly view as impossible to ignore. As Racz put it from the stage, “Nasdaq Texas enables the connections that power the state’s economy.”