A year after UBS Group AG completed its emergency takeover of failing rival Credit Suisse, the project is faring better than the Swiss bank dared hope. It’s cut unwanted assets, people and costs faster than it promised — enabling it to deliver forecast-beating profits so far in 2024.
The headlines suggest catastrophe for the global food supply: Biblical heatwaves, floods, storms and wildfires. And yet, in the world’s breadbaskets, the weather has been fair this growing season — so good that we’re facing an oversupply of key agricultural commodities and thus much lower prices than in 2022 and 2023.
Regulators and investors have always had a keen interest in the trades that corporates executives and board members make in their companies’ own shares. The government has to look out for the integrity of financial markets, of course, while investors are eager to ride insiders’ coattails. Unfortunately, it’s never been easy to read the insider tea leaves.
There’s no denying that consumers are digging around for more deals and prioritizing essentials over discretionary items.
The KraneShares Sustainable Ultra Short Duration Index ETF (KCSH) offers low risk income investing with notable yields and diversification.
A Universal Basic Income (UBI) sounds great in theory. According to a previous study by the Roosevelt Institute, it could permanently increase the U.S. economy by trillions of dollars. While such socialistic policies sound great in theory, history, and data, they aren’t the economic saviors they are touted to be.
Common wisdom is that consumers are pulling back on spending, but some green shoots are sprouting that might break ground as big retailers prepare to report second-quarter results.
The financial markets appear to be rather confident the Fed will finally begin its rate cutting process at the September Federal Open Market Committee meeting, at a minimum. The debate has now shifted as to what this easing cycle will ultimately look like.
Previously reliable recession signals have not worked in this cycle.
The flexibility offered through individual bonds translates well for tailoring individual financial goals and needs.
For plan sponsors, the trend toward de-risking often leads to a simplification of the equity manager lineup in the return-seeking portion of the portfolio.
The Jensen Quality Growth ETF is a high-conviction U.S. large-cap ETF with a growth tilt. The ETF’s investment approach is rooted in bottom-up fundamental analysis, focusing on quality companies that have demonstrated consistent performance and resilience over time.
Franklin Templeton’s David Mann highlights the firm’s diverse ETF lineup and offers perspective on stocks, bonds, and crypto. VettaFi’s Zeno Mercer goes in-depth on the “Magnificent Seven” stocks.
Oil prices have been resilient in 2024, and US natural gas prices have staged an impressive rebound. Oil demand remains in focus for energy markets, even as natural gas sees new long-term structural demand drivers.
You can deal with a yes or no (the truth), but what you can’t afford is to waste your precious and valuable time chasing “ghosts.”
Baby Boomers likely won’t have time to recover from the next crash. Their loss is also their heirs’ loss. There’s $70 trillion in play. Baby boomers shouldn’t be greater fools.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he’s skeptical that inflation will return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, citing risks including deficit spending and “remilitarization of the world.”
Staying invested through volatile periods has provided superior returns vs. selling when volatility rises and reinvesting later.
MSCI Inc. continues to cull China stocks from its indexes, setting the stage for a further drop in the nation’s share of a key emerging-market benchmark.
Having been warned about the risk, investors now ask if the yen carry trade unwind is complete. Here's how far it might still go.
US producer prices rose in July by less than forecast, reflecting the first decline in services costs this year amid an ongoing moderation in inflationary pressures.
It's an ideal time to add bonds, especially if they are poised to outperform stocks over the next 10 years.
When two popular trades, such as buying US big tech stocks and selling the Japanese yen, are unraveling at the same time, investors naturally think they are somehow related.
The tricky last yards of closing in on — and then maintaining — the hallowed 2% inflation target that all the major central banks adhere to requires a change of tactics. Over the past two years, a mantra of economic data-dependency has been drummed into us, keeping interest rates higher for longer.
No one enjoys getting dumped. This holds true in finance and investing as much as it does in romantic relationships. When companies are dumped from the major indexes, their managers and shareholders may feel jilted and their stock may flounder post-breakup.
Last Monday morning, I tried to shake up the conversation about how far behind the curve the Federal Reserve (Fed) is currently by suggesting an inter-meeting 75 basis points (bps) cut and another 75 bps cut in September.
The Bank of Japan needs to proceed cautiously.
The acquisition further expands Janus Henderson’s private credit capabilities and complements Janus Henderson’s existing highly successful securitized credit franchise and expertise in public asset-backed securitized markets, and further expands our capabilities into the private markets.
Pretty much every month there’s one week that has the most important economic reports. For the month of August that’s this week. The reports this week include consumer price inflation, producer prices, retail sales, industrial production, housing starts, and unemployment claims.
During volatile times, it is important to maintain perspective, stay focused on your long-term objectives, and avoid knee-jerk reactions based on the latest twists and turns in the market.
On this episode of the “ETF of the Week” podcast, VettaFi’s Head of Research Todd Rosenbluth discussed the ALPS O’Shares US Small-Cap Quality Dividend ETF (OUSM) with Chuck Jaffe of “Money Life.” The pair talked about several topics regarding the fund to give investors a deeper understanding of the ETF overall.
Exaggerated concerns about the viability of Social Security continue to circulate like a persistent urban legend that refuses to die. They have only intensified during the political silly season leading up to the November elections.
Haidt’s The Anxious Generation documents the post-iPhone 4 explosion of anxiety and depression disorders among adolescents. Haidt calls the substitution of screen time for play “The Great Rewiring” of young brains that is directly responsible for the dramatic increase in adolescent mental health disorders.
The statistical and investment views of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the blockbuster book The Black Swan, are easy to summarize. First, most probability distributions are fat-tailed, not thin-tailed like the normal distribution. That renders useless or wrong the application of almost all conventional statistical techniques.
One of the most critical factors explaining the performance differences between small-cap value and large-cap growth stocks is the sector in which the companies operate, and the earnings growth associated with each industry.
The benchmark indexes for emerging-market equities and currencies, respectively, moved in opposite directions Monday, deepening a trend that emerged last week, when their short-term correlation was interrupted for the first time in 21 years.
One of the most widely followed gauges of the stock market, for decades a reliable indicator of future returns, has led investors astray in recent years. Its misdirection comes down to the freakish earnings growth of big technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. But there’s a way to revamp this market barometer as worries about elevated expectations and prices grow.
The recent decline in mortgage rates on stronger evidence that the Federal Reserve is poised to ease policy has fueled hopes of better times ahead for companies tied to the housing market. That’s likely true, but the evidence of the past few weeks suggests it’s already too late for a revival this year.
First the private credit firms came for the banking industry’s lucrative corporate loan business. Now they’re grabbing a chunk of their consumer-lending work. The pressing question for this thriving multi-trillion dollar industry is whether it has timed its latest incursion badly.
Slower employment cements the case for the Fed to start a series of rate cuts.
A dizzying start to August, which saw US stocks whiplashed by economic jitters, lackluster earnings and the unwinding of the global yen carry trade, has left Wall Street searching for corners of the market that may have been unfairly punished.
Economic indicators are released every week to provide insight into the overall health and performance of an economy.
I can't let this month pass without noting a significant anniversary: This is the 25th year I’ve been writing Thoughts from the Frontline. You can visit the archive and see every issue since January 2001.
On Monday morning, investors woke up to plunging stock markets as the “Yen Carry Trade” blew up. While media headlines suggested the sell-off was due to fears of a recession, slowing employment growth, or fears over Israel and Iran, such is not the case.
On Monday, global equities and digital assets underwent a dramatic selloff as the unwinding of the Japanese yen carry trade rattled markets. The S&P Global Broad Market Index (BMI), which measures the performance of more than 14,000 stocks around the world, retreated 3.3%, its worst trading day in over two years.
When the Federal Reserve (Fed) cut rates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, mortgage rates fell below 3% in 2021 and many households refinanced or obtained new loans.
Actively managed ETFs continued to gain traction in July with $24 billion of net inflows. This represented 19% of the industry’s net inflows.
Emerging-market currencies are set to clock their biggest weekly gains of 2024, led by a rise in Brazil’s real on expectations its central bank could raise interest rates later this year.
China’s two-speed economy and the internationalization of the renminbi suggest long-term opportunities may be found amid near-term challenges.
When I was in high school, I really wanted a car. My loving parents took every situation as an opportunity to teach. They told me that if I wanted a car, I would have to earn it.
