This bargain-hunting environment sets up a stark divide for upcoming earnings. Walmart (WMT) remains uniquely positioned as its dominant grocery business continues to draw trade-down traffic from higher-income households, whereas Target (TGT) faces headwinds due to its heavier mix of discretionary home and apparel goods.

For savers, it drives them to seek bigger and bigger returns to keep up with the government’s monetary devaluation. At first, a simple savings account with a relatively low yield will do the trick. But as the dollar loses purchasing power, you need a better return to keep up. So, maybe you stick your money in a higher-interest-yielding CD.

Join the experts at Eaton Vance for an educational webcast that unpacks the nuances of preferreds amid the new Fed regime, geopolitical landscape, and economic backdrop.

Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

Hoisington Investment Management — managed by Hunt and Hoisington — sharply reduced its clients’ bond duration and put the proceeds in Treasury bills. That reversal of such long-held opinions deserves serious attention. I will summarize Hunt’s new views and some counterpoints to help you assess his new stance.

Today’s market does not represent today’s economy. The ratio of market value dependent on future economic activity versus present activity has never been higher. These companies have earnings now, but those earnings stem from investments in the future, not present consumption.

US existing home sales fell a little in July, according to data released last week by the National Association of Realtors. But what really stands out when one looks at the numbers is how little they’ve changed over the past three years. This July, homes were selling at an annual pace of 4.06 million. In July 2023, it was 4.08 million.

Patients need financing that is approved on the spot and fits the cost and timing of their specific procedure. This is the gap that a newer class of lenders — including CareCredit, Affirm, Sunbit, and Cherry — has been built to fill. The growth of buy now, pay later healthcare financing over the past two years reflects how quickly demand has caught up with supply.

Gone are the days of capital-light and cash-flow-rich technology businesses such as internet search, e-commerce and social media. The game now is artificial intelligence, and you had better have hard assets and deep pockets to play, the kind of money few companies have laying around.

So let’s do the work the timeline skips, starting with separating what actually happened from what the narrative needs you to believe. Then we’ll ask the only question that pays: should any of it change how you’re positioned this morning?

As investors debate whether and when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, market expectations for further tightening are building around the world — and spelling trouble for bonds.

Reasons to be wary about stocks are quickly disappearing and a Goldilocks scenario looks increasingly likely. That’s precisely why it’s a perfect time to hedge against a market priced for perfection.

Gold extended a two-week advance as pared back expectations for further Federal Reserve rate hikes put pressure on the dollar, making bullion cheaper for most buyers.

We are in a debt trap. Our political process can’t reduce spending and/or raise taxes enough to balance the budget, so the debt grows and grows. This has to end, and I think it will do so in the event I’ve called The Great Reset.

Investors are remaining cautious about the markets, according to our U.S. stocks and economy report this month. Our report notes that while investors have continued to pile into the market via strong ETF flows and high margin debt balances, they've done so reluctantly with more subdued attitudes.

Recent trends are sending confusing signals about the health of the U.S. labor market. Since late 2025, the employment/population ratio has moved lower even as the unemployment rate has declined.

The softening inflation data for June and July was broadly supportive of our view that monetary policymakers should keep interest rates unchanged for the remainder of the year. Unfortunately, the picture is likely to become less favorable over the next several months, particularly if oil and gasoline prices continue to move higher. While lower gasoline prices contributed to the improvement in inflation during June and July, they do not tell the whole story.

Whether fixed income investors are focused on locking in yield, managing duration risk, or building resilient core portfolios, bond ETFs have been seeing elevated demand this year.

The arrival of the new academic year prompted me to revisit a piece that we wrote in 2023, which detailed the damage that the pandemic had done to young students. In the years immediately following COVID-19, achievement scores skidded, suggesting that online learning was a poor substitute for time in the classroom.

Many things in healthcare really have gotten dramatically better and cheaper. Sequencing a human genome, for instance, cost close to a billion dollars in 2003. Today, under $1,500, making CRISPR therapy available to treat a plethora of diseases that once had no cure.

In 3Q26, global fixed-income markets continue to navigate a complex backdrop as resilient growth, elevated inflation, hawkish central-bank pricing and the AI infrastructure buildout intersect. Growth remains supported by the US consumer, fiscal spending in Europe and AI-related capital investment, while inflation is expected to moderate through 2026 and into 2027.

Franklin Templeton Institute finds valuations across fixed income sectors becoming more attractive, with all-in yields approaching compelling levels—a signal to consider moving from a short-duration bias toward core bond portfolios.

The US will soon announce unprecedented economic measures against Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, intensifying the Trump administration’s effort to force Tehran’s capitulation after almost six months of war.

The Venezuelan gas deal comes at a time when prolonged hostilities between the US and Iran have hampered global energy supplies, including about a fifth of liquefied natural gas shipments that normally traverse the war-choked Strait of Hormuz.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s agreement to buy Neos Investments for as much as $2.25 billion marks a new front in Wall Street’s ETF battle: paying up for specialist firms that have found growth beyond the industry’s low-fee giants.

For most high-net-worth investors, the bond sleeve of a portfolio isn't there to generate eye-popping returns or provide cocktail party fodder. Its job is much more mainstream: support a targeted lifestyle, cover tax bills, dampen equity market volatility, and provide "dry powder" when the world turns sideways.

The S&P 500 towed an anchor for much of the summer as a historic momentum and leverage unwind under the surface dragged on the equity benchmark before breaking out to fresh records last week.

The consumer remains resilient, but spending is becoming increasingly selective. Bank of America’s August Consumer Checkpoint showed total card spending per household increased 5.0% year-over-year in July, with spending excluding gasoline up 4.3%.

Royce Investment Partners: Co-CIO Francis Gannon examines the myth that rate hikes are bad news for US small-cap returns—and finds that history tells a different story.

In this video, Chuck Carnevale, co-founder of FAST Graphs, aka Mr. Valuation explores 14 growth stocks that he believes offer strong growth potential at reasonable valuations. While finding quality growth stocks has become more challenging, opportunities still exist for investors willing to focus on fundamentals, valuation, and future earnings growth.

While institutions have embraced private markets for decades, individuals have historically had limited access to these potentially valuable and versatile tools. Tony Davidow from Franklin Tempelton Institute demonstrates that private markets can be potentially valuable sources of growth and income during the accumulation and distribution phases of retirement.

The release of ChatGPT in 2022 ushered in the AI era. Since then, technology stocks have emerged as a key driver of market performance. The extraordinary gains have naturally sparked questions about whether the momentum can continue, particularly as technology companies invest heavily in AI infrastructure.

The world’s busiest airport is coming to market with a more than $1 billion municipal bond sale, boosting issuance in the lagging airport sector.

Artificial intelligence data centers are hitting a power problem that has little to do with computer chips, according to a new report from Thornburg Investment Management.

SpaceX has completed a $60 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence coding startup Cursor, a key part of Elon Musk’s bid to gain ground on rivals Anthropic PBC and OpenAI.

There are routes towards adding innovation exposure in portfolios without going overboard on the biggest names. The ETF ecosystem has provided for significant innovation in investment strategies in recent years.

As we write this, long TIPS yields once again yield 3.0% and, as in 2008, these rates may not last long. That means: You snooze, you lose. The time to buy TIPS is now. In this article, we lay out the options and make recommendations.

Life rarely stands still, and for families caring for a loved one with special needs, change can introduce both emotional and financial complexity. Marriage, divorce, the loss of a parent, an unexpected inheritance, or shifts in public policy may all significantly impact eligibility for benefits, long-term financial security, and family dynamics.

European stock markets are booming. But that doesn’t mean Europe is. Traditionally, a bet on European equities is actually a bet on growth everywhere else. The companies that make up the Stoxx Europe 600 — which has risen by about 12% this year — get almost half their revenues outside the continent, according to the index’s owners.

The US government is about to sell 30-year bonds at the highest interest rate in a quarter of a century, after a historic selloff that has stirred speculation the nation will tilt borrowing further toward short-dated maturities.

After years of tests with digital versions of securities, cash and trading networks, the focus has shifted to whether these technologies could work together. This time, nearly 40 firms were testing how tokenized assets could move through the institutions that keep modern markets moving.

The US military campaign against Iran has so far failed to force the regime to capitulate. The Trump administration is betting once again that suffocating economic pressure will do the job.

The fixed income landscape continues to offer real opportunity this year as well as persistent, events-driven uncertainty. Still, cutting through the headlines, investors can find major opportunities inside the portfolios and in adding new funds.

The days of unfettered globalization, multilateral rule of law, commonly accepted limits on economic statecraft, and widely shared macroeconomic objectives are now long gone. A perpetual, directionless transition is our new reality, and corporate executives, investors, and policymakers must adapt accordingly.

A robust industrial rebound is underpinning the economy, and it has powered through an energy shock from the US-Iran war; elevated inflation that’s kept interest rates high and homebuilding low; and a bout of new, perhaps more permanent tariffs.

The risks of a rate hike have increased lately, but we don't believe we're there just yet. If the data changes—specifically if inflation comes in hotter-than-expected over the next few months—we'll likely change our view.

All told, global equities are near all-time highs, despite the sharp June-July semiconductor drawdown. Fundamentally, an eye-popping 50% Q2 SPX earnings growth rate fuels the rally. Of course, it has been a perfect storm of sorts for domestic large-cap profitability. ​

Charitable donations aren’t the only way you can support missions close to your heart. Your investments can also advance goals and issues that matter to you. A growing number of companies, often called social enterprises, build a charitable mission into the business itself. Investing in them is a potential two-for-one deal.

Among the key benefits of the ETF wrapper is the wide range of tools it gives advisors and investors to build tailored fixed income portfolios. And given today’s complex rate and inflation environment, it certainly helps to have a wide range of options available.

There’s been no summer vacation for the bond market this year. It seems there’s a new headline every day that needs to be processed and responded to. In terms of Treasuries (UST), yields at the back-end of the curve have risen in notable fashion and have resulted in rates being at levels not seen in almost twenty years in some cases.