For all of 2023, global M&A activity dropped 16 percent from a year earlier, to $3.1 trillion - a showing even weaker than the pandemic year of 2020, according to a McKinsey report.

This contrasts with other market benchmarks, such as the S&P 500, which climbed 24 percent last year on the wings of a handful of technology- and AI-driven stocks. A longer-term view s