Our broad message for the second half of 2026 is this: Income still matters, but investors should be selective. Despite the recent rise in Treasury yields, we suggest investors favor a below-benchmark average duration with their bond holdings, favoring short- and intermediate-term maturities.
An increasing number of our neighbors are now retired. As they have made that transition, their sensitivity to the costs of living has increased, as has their skepticism over the way that inflation is measured. A common refrain: “I don’t care what the numbers say…things are REALLY expensive these days!”
With tech stocks pushing to new highs on enthusiasm around transformational technologies, the real question isn’t just momentum. It’s whether markets are becoming frothy, even bubble‑like, reminiscent of the dot‑com era. We don’t think so.
Trade policy returned to the spotlight this week as the United States announced new tariffs on 60 countries, with rates of either 10% or 12.5% depending on the trading partner.
Confirming that the bar is high for artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor makers’ earnings reports, shares of Broadcom (AVGO) plunged 12.59% on June 4, a day after the chip giant delivered quarterly results. The results weren’t the problem. It was a lack of a positive update regarding AI semiconductor demand.
In my more than two decades covering index funds, I have never seen anything quite like the frenzy surrounding the SpaceX IPO. The sheer scale and market anticipation of this pending debut this week have done something rare. It has encouraged index providers to re-evaluate how they build and maintain benchmarks that are tracked by trillions of dollars.
The U.S. labor market took center stage last week as three major labor market indicators outperformed forecasts. Robust payroll additions in both the public and private sectors, paired with a massive surge in job openings, point to a workforce on solid footing.
For years, the retirement industry has framed the challenge the same way: Participants aren’t engaged enough. Employers need better communication. Advisors need to educate more.
In this episode of the Money Metals Midweek Memo, host Mike Maharrey argues that reports of inflation's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Drawing on both recent economic data and historical parallels, he contends that the United States may be entering a second wave of a broader long-term inflationary cycle reminiscent of the inflationary era of the 1960s and 1970s.
The $1.8 trillion private credit industry is finding out that trying to shake investor angst about the market is more of a marathon than a sprint. Such is the nature of long-term lending — there are few quick answers to the concerns that the market became too concentrated on software assets, a sector that’s ripe for disruption by artificial intelligence.
SoftBank Group Corp.’s payments unit is buying the life insurance unit of T&D Holdings Inc. for ¥134.3 billion ($840 million) to broaden its offerings and better compete in Japan’s ballooning fintech market.
In the first phase of the generative AI boom, the winning strategy was straightforward: own the physical bottleneck. Alphabet’s plan announced this week to raise $80 billion suggests that the next phase may hinge on something else—the ability to finance AI capacity at scale without undermining returns.
The latest Emerging Markets Insights discusses companies across various sectors that have expressed cautious optimism for the second half of 2026 despite ongoing geopolitical pressures and higher input costs. Templeton Global Investments highlight what they observed at a recently attended summit.
Some of that tension is also being felt by their clients, advisers say. Along with the anticipation of a life-changing windfall, the initial public offering is eliciting more complicated emotions, as well, ranging from apprehension to confusion.
Currencies in the developing world sank after a blowout US jobs report provided the clearest sign yet that the labor market is breaking out of a prolonged period of lackluster hiring, undercutting the case for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
The largest ski resort in the US, in a corner of Utah long popular with wealthy travelers and second-home buyers, is expanding — and turning to the municipal bond market to help pay for it.
On June 4, Vanguard launched the Vanguard U.S. High-Yield Corporate Bond Index ETF (VCHY) on the Cboe BZX. VCHY provides ultra-low-cost exposure to higher-yield U.S. corporate bonds. It comes with an expense ratio of just five basis points.
Ride the momentum wave. Discover how tech-fueled factors propelled momentum and high-beta ETFs to historic, benchmark-crushing gains.
Bond ETFs secured a record $64 billion in monthly inflows, driving total fixed-income ETF assets above $2.5 trillion.
When it comes to systematic investing, numbers tell only part of the story. Traditional quantitative models rely on prices, earnings, and balance sheet data, but words matter too.
There are short duration bonds and corresponding ETFs. For advisors and fixed income investors who really want to minimize interest rate risk, there are ultra-short alternatives. Those products are worth considering this year.
The top-performing non-leveraged ETFs of 2026 span a distinct blend of digital assets, next-generation semiconductor technology, and localized international equity plays. For advisors assessing portfolio allocations heading into the second half of the year, these performance figures highlight a sustained risk-on appetite among investors.
When someone told me recently that her favorite use of AI is for financial advice, I was horrified. I am a retirement economist, and my first reaction was self pity: Now I know how doctors feel when people use AI for medical questions.
Elon Musk can still enchant investors with his vision of the future. Any questions about SpaceX’s record-breaking initial public offering — be it about the valuation, the company’s trajectory or technical execution — were brushed aside as the retail marketing for the deal got under way.
The stock market keeps setting records. Bitcoin has minted millionaires. Gold has peaked at new levels. Yet one of the most popular trades is to sit in cash or, more precisely, money-market funds.
Soaring US power bills are threatening to claim their biggest victim yet — the nation’s largest electric grid operator.
Get ready for an absolute blockbuster of a summer, and then some. While mega-cap tech stocks have been busy hogging the headlines on the corporate event calendar, a quiet transformation has been taking place just off the exchange floors. The IPO market, which spent the better part of the last few years stuck in a defensive crouch, has officially smashed the accelerator to start 2026.
It’s May 2026 and once again civilization and financial markets have made it 5-ish months into a new year without self-combusting like a Spinal Tap drummer. It is important to note that dozens of people and stocks spontaneously combust every year, but despite the increasing universality of AI, it’s “just not really widely reported.”
As a symbol of economic vibrancy and opportunity, it’s hard to beat the public market. Its storied venues, where everything from butter to trillion-dollar tech companies are bought and sold, are a foundation of the modern world.
For weeks now, media reports have been suggesting that Washington and Tehran are moving closer to a memorandum of understanding (MOU). In practical terms, that would extend the current ceasefire by roughly 60 days and create a window to negotiate a more durable peace agreement.
The U.S. economy appears resilient, judging from key economic measures. AI-driven capex continues to power investment, support equity markets, and sustain a wealth effect that has propped up consumption. Real GDP growth remains positive. Private sector balance sheets are in generally good condition and many higher income and wealthy households have benefited from equity markets gains.
Climate change has become a defining force in geopolitics. As governments respond to record heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts, their policies and economic posturing are reshaping manufacturing, trade and energy security across the capital markets.
The rise in U.S. Treasury (UST) yields, specifically the ten-year note, since late February has captured the attention of global investors in a very visible fashion. Just a couple of weeks ago, headlines were blaring that the UST 10-year yield had reached its highest level since the beginning of 2025, leaving market participants to wonder: What comes next?
We are expecting inflation in energy prices and a decline in interest rates when the poop hits the AI mania fan. For these reasons, we are overweight in oil stocks and home builders. These industries prospered in the 1970s, once the stock market mania broke in late 1972!
While insurance coverage has broadly kept pace with rising catastrophe exposure, the protection gap — in absolute terms — has gone up as the value of exposed assets has grown, the Swiss Re Institute said on Wednesday.
The top-performing non-leveraged ETFs of 2026 span a distinct blend of digital assets and localized international equity plays.
Join the experts at J.P.Morgan and VettaFi for a, 30-minute discussion on Thursday, June 4, at 2 p.m. ET as they explore the use case for MLP ETNs and an overview of the Alerian MLP Index ETNs (AMJB).
The closed-end fund landscape may be seeing a big change as regulations may be shifting at the SEC, per recent announcements.
Here's an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation?
On Wednesday, June 3, Wellington Management and The Hartford announced that Wellington will be acquiring Hartford Funds. Once the acquisition is complete, Hartford Funds will operate under Wellington’s brand through the firm’s U.S. Wealth business.
The first phase of the artificial intelligence investment trade was relatively straightforward: if you wanted to capture the AI boom using familiar names, you bought semiconductors.
A seemingly endless appetite for buying US stock dips has propelled Vanguard Group’s S&P 500-tracking ETF past $1 trillion in assets, making it the first fund of its kind to reach a milestone once thought unimaginable for the ETF industry.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon plans to discuss the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering with thousands of the bank’s high-net-worth clients, part of an unprecedented nationwide push in coordination with the rocket maker’s leaders.
Cliffwater LLC’s flagship private credit fund capped redemptions at 5% in the second quarter after investors looked to pull about 17% of shares, in a sign of enduring pressure on the $1.8 trillion market.
The IPO market may be entering one of its largest cycles in years, but the next wave may be defined less by breadth than by scale. Instead of hundreds of companies listing, a smaller group of AI and strategic infrastructure leaders could reset the market on their own.
Foreign investors led by the likes of Stanley Druckenmiller and major Wall Street banks are returning to Argentine stocks this year after some had exited ahead of 2025’s volatile midterm election cycle.
Despite rising global yields and renewed inflation concerns, equities moved higher in May on the back of a strong US earnings season and continued momentum in AI-related stocks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 8.4% for the month, while the S&P 500 rose 5.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.9%.
Emerging markets offer important exposure to economic growth through rapid industrialization, natural resource endowments, and strong demographic dynamics.
Wealth today is more complex than ever. Investments, taxes, estate planning, insurance, and even family dynamics are deeply interconnected, and decisions in one area can have meaningful consequences in another.
Stocks extended their advance for a ninth consecutive week, with the S&P 500 rising more than 5 percent in May on the heels of April’s 10 percent rally. This nine-week run coincides with the market’s March 30 bottom, when early signs of a potential off-ramp or ceasefire in the Middle East began to emerge.
