Call it the season of IPO prep. Recent launches and announcements from OpenAI and arch rival Anthropic are aimed at laying the groundwork to go public in late 2026 or early 2027, and for OpenAI, which just closed a $122 billion funding round that values it at $852 billion.
Last week, the stock market rally was one of the best performances in nearly a year. The S&P 500 surged 3.4%, the Nasdaq climbed 4.4%, and the bulls declared the correction over. As I have stated before, having watched markets for more than 35 years, I have come to recognize the difference between a relief rally and the end of a corrective cycle.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, jet fuel prices in the U.S. have more than doubled. According to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the year-to-date percent change in U.S. jet fuel prices stood above 120% as of the end of March.
The economy continues to show resilience, and the March jobs report reinforced that view. Payroll growth came in stronger than expected, prior months were not meaningfully revised away, and the unemployment rate edged lower. Wage growth eased, but the broader message was clear: the labor market remains too firm to support any near-term case for Fed easing.
The US-Iran conflict has altered Iran’s regional influence and, more broadly, has many other consequences. It pressures government relations as well as global and financial market trading.
With the conclusion of a volatile first quarter in 2026, the Amplify Energy & Natural Resources Covered Call ETF (NDIV) demonstrated the resilience of its underlying index (VettaFi Energy and Natural Resources Covered Call Index).
Gold’s recent drop from $5,600 to $4,400 is a classic liquidity story where investors are selling their most liquid winners to raise cash.
The middle is typically not where you want to be. In American sports, teams in the middle of the standings aren’t contenders for either a championship or a high draft choice. The middle seat on an airplane, subject to incursions from either side, is not very comfortable. The middle manager is accountable in every direction, empowered in none.
It was a rough first quarter for the Broadleaf Growth Equity Portfolio and the markets in general as investors tried to identify market leadership buffeted by AI spending concerns, talk of escalating private credit market risks, and ultimately, the emergence of War in Iran.
An Exchange conference panel explored bitcoin's evolving role, allocation tactics, and ETF structures for advisors building crypto portfolios.
Join the experts at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as they explore the current state of the fixed income market and discuss why a "set-it-and-forget-it" approach to fixed income may no longer be sufficient as investors consider actively managed fixed income ETFs to help navigate today’s environment.
When investors want to reduce risk, one commonly used tool is beta. For instance, an investor may sell higher-beta stocks and replace them with lower-beta ones to cushion against an expected market decline. Such a strategy is intuitive and widely used; however, it can be greatly flawed.
Breakeven real rates can inform us how much of a total return portfolio’s realized risk premium would be required merely to catch up to the benefits of delayed claiming, arguably an inefficient use of the equity risk premium.
The debate over ETFs versus mutual funds has never been particularly useful for advisors who actually build portfolios. In practice, the question was never which vehicle is better — it was always which vehicle is better for this objective, in this sleeve, for this client. In 2026, that discipline matters more than ever.
I have written for years that oil prices act like a tax on the economy, both in the US and globally. It is actually simply the price paid, but the effect on the economy is similar to a tax. If the price goes up, it takes more money from individual consumers that would otherwise be saved or spent somewhere else. Just like taxes.
After more than three decades of watching oil markets upend economies, one pattern keeps repeating: investors learn the wrong lessons from the last shock. The 1973 OPEC embargo taught us that geopolitical disruptions are temporary.
March 2026 was a rough month for financial markets. Broad indexes experienced large selloffs, led by international stocks, though many of these still remain up in 2026. The dollar rallied strongly, breaking its year-plus downtrend.
Volatility is a trader's bread and butter: Without it, profits are harder to come by. However, when volatility remains elevated for an extended period, it could be the sign of a more deeply rooted market shift.
Generational wealth doesn’t disappear because families fail to invest well. It disappears because the knowledge, communication, and decision-making structures surrounding that wealth were never intentionally passed down.
The war in Iran has been costly, in a number of ways. First and foremost, the humanitarian consequences have been substantial: the price paid by those in harm’s way is immeasurable.
Cities such as New York and Chicago are in deep financial trouble. Broadly speaking, they have two options: Make the difficult but appropriate choice to raise taxes and reduce the scale of government, or continue to live in a state of denial, increasing their pension obligations while also promising their residents more services.
BlackRock Inc. is setting its sights on a corner of the $13.7 trillion US exchange-traded fund industry long controlled by Invesco Ltd: tracking the Nasdaq 100 Index.
The next 12 months are expected to bring a bumper crop of mega initial public offerings to market. Billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company SpaceX has reportedly filed for a potentially record-breaking offering.
For much of the past decade, U.S. investors didn’t need much convincing to stay close to home. But according to experts at a recent AllianceBernstein (AB) Product Due Diligence Session, the tide shifted dramatically in 2025, signaling a “new dawn” for non-US stocks.
Amid hopes that the conflict in Iran will soon de-escalate, stocks rallied in recent days. This provided some much needed relief for the growth-heavy Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX). However, advisors and experienced investors know that things can change in a heartbeat.
US equities and crude oil prices edged higher as investors focus on signs of a potential diplomatic push toward a ceasefire in the Iran war.
Bond traders kicked off the week betting that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates on hold for the coming year, with the Treasuries market holding steady ahead of President Donald Trump’s extended deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
As Q1 2026 comes to a close, we follow up on an article we published last week on buybacks by analyzing corporations' other favorite way to return value to shareholders. The percentage of companies increasing dividends in Q1 was the highest level since Q1 2019 (45%).
Markets often react sharply to geopolitical developments, but just as often, they overreact. Investors today are grappling with heightened global tensions, rising oil prices and uncertainty around central bank policy. The key question is whether these risks meaningfully alter the economic outlook or simply create short-term volatility.
Exchange-traded fund issuers are shutting new products at the fastest pace in years as competition for investor money intensifies.
March 2026 ETFs: Investors pivot to safety with $29B in short-term bonds and a record $5B in Energy as Tech faced a Q1 recalibration.
Finding the right strategy for long term growth means understanding how AI is reshaping the research process and curating a repeatable, integrated investment framework. Join the experts at Baron Capital as they unpack technology, innovation, and long term growth investing.
Income ETFs using options have been one of the biggest categories in recent years. As global volatility has risen, advisor clients and investors of all kinds have clamored for some added income.
A look at ETF flows for the month of March suggests caution is back in vogue. Fixed income ETFs showed serious muscle in the asset gathering race last month, capturing nearly 45% of net creations.
It has now been over three years since GMO launched our Small Cap Quality Strategy in September 2022. During that period, the world has shifted, and we have navigated unexpected market conditions.
Rising demand for critical microelectronics, bolstered by AI capex and defense spending, is driving semiconductor prices higher and posing upside risks to global goods inflation.
Every March people around the country start talking about their brackets. Most are referring to their basketball tournament bracket, hoping to predict the winners and maybe earn some office bragging rights.
SpaceX has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company closer to delivering the biggest-ever listing.
The stock market is looking past the sharp interest rate hikes priced by Europe’s bond market, risking losses for investors backing the wrong outcome.
Big names in crypto, payments and cloud infrastructure are racing to build the financial plumbing for a world in which AI agents — not humans — handle transactions on the internet.
Total return is the entire amount of income passed to an investor holding a particular security. It annualizes any price change plus any dividends or interest earned over time.
Less than two months ago, projections showed the US government on track to borrow some $2 trillion this year with budget deficits exceeding 5% of gross domestic product indefinitely. Since then, this dire outlook has worsened — thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs, the war with Iran, the prospect of slowing economic growth and rising interest rates.
Unilever Plc’s Fernando Fernandez haslucked out by selling the company’s food businesses, including Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr stock cubes, to McCormick & Co. But Fernandez, who’s been chief executive officer for just over a year, shouldn’t squander his good fortune; he needs a clear vision for what comes next.
When Edward Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old boy with cowpox in 1796, the principle was radical: Expose a healthy body to a mild, manageable version of harm, and it builds the defenses to survive something far worse. The cowpox patient never got smallpox. Markets work in much the same way.
Oil prices are the key transmission channel, and how far they rise and how long they remain elevated could shape the outlook for growth, inflation and policy, with implications for bond markets.
Systematic equity investing is a way to invest in the stock market using clear rules and data, rather than guesswork or hunches. Instead of trying to pick stocks based on trends or headlines, this approach uses research, data, and technology to systematically identify opportunities across global markets.
Systematic indexing removes the psychological stress of timing crypto markets by allowing advisors to capture broad asset-class returns through disciplined rebalancing.
Join us on Wednesday, April 1 at 11:30 a.m. CT where we will look further into this differentiated way of investing outside the US.
DoubleLine continues to fortify its presence in the ETF market, adding a new active fixed income solution designed for today’s complex interest rate environment. The DoubleLine Ultrashort Income ETF (DLUX) launched on NYSE Arca on April 1, marking the latest expansion of the firm’s rapidly growing ETF lineup.
All eyes were turned toward the Middle East throughout the month of March, with the US and Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran causing energy prices to surge. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, alongside damage to energy infrastructure across the gulf region, caused crude to rise above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022.
