Closed-end funds may not be a hot topic right now, but they offer a highly compelling means to solve today's macroeconomic woes.
Goldman Sachs announced a partnership with Anthropic in early May, though you probably shouldn’t view it as just a cool innovation story. It is infrastructure in motion. When institutions like Goldman move, pay attention to what problem they believe they are solving.
Are utilities the ultimate hidden growth play? In this video, we break down why the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU) is moving the needle for smart investors. Traditionally known as a boring, defensive sector for dividend income , utilities are experiencing massive new demand driven by the massive energy and electricity needs of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data centers.
New York City is facing one of the most significant fiscal challenges in recent memory. The NYC Comptroller has projected a $2.2 billion budget shortfall for FY2026, growing to a $10.4 billion gap in FY2027 (Source: New York City Comptroller, January 2026). That is a two-year deficit of roughly $12.6 billion.
For the last eight years, GMO’s Asset Allocation team has held a differentiated view on Japanese equities. Long before Japan re‑entered the global investment narrative, we argued that the country was undergoing slow but durable structural changes aimed at improving corporate governance, growth, and capital efficiency. These reforms were never expected to deliver quick results. Instead, we expected them to compound quietly over time.
The essential feature of a useful alternative asset isn’t that it’s unusual or exotic, but that its returns aren’t tightly linked to the risks that already dominate the portfolio. The value of an alternative asset comes from the way it interacts with the other assets in the portfolio.
Before I recommend what to do, I want to first state what not to do. Don’t invest as if you think you know what long-term inflation will be. Will we return to the double-digit inflation of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s? The answer is: Nobody knows.
The assumption that muni equals tax-free is deeply embedded in how the asset class gets discussed and presented. But for high-net-worth clients in high-tax states, the gap between partially exempt and fully exempt is material enough to be worth a conversation.
It’s not often that investors encounter something truly new in markets. But they will soon when Space Exploration Technologies Corp., OpenAI and Anthropic PBC go public with trillion-dollar valuations, or close to it. No company listed in the US has ever come to market so extravagantly priced — by a long shot.
Mentioning artificial intelligence to the graduating class of 2026 has been sure to get you booed. And why not? Fresh graduates have spent the past few years being told about the wonders of AI and watched seniors struggle to get a toehold in the labor market.
The industry is entering a more customized phase of liability-driven investing, he said. While earlier stages focused on adding duration and raising fixed-income allocations, better-funded plans are now tinkering at the margins to more precisely match their holdings with their obligations.
US stocks headed for a positive open on Monday as traders remained hopeful that Washington and Tehran would strike a peace deal, even amid a rise in oil prices.
Nvidia Corp. is entering the PC market with a new chip aimed at loosening the stranglehold of Intel Corp. technology in that arena and modernizing the machines for the AI era.
Innovation drives productivity growth, which in turn raises the standard of living for a nation's population. Accordingly, we support the theory that AI will benefit the economy and the population. We laid this bullish case out in "The AI Economy: Looking Beyond The Façade Part I."
The dollar is supposed to be dying. We’ve heard that argument for the better part of a decade, and it’s getting louder, not quieter. Dollar dominance isn’t fading. In fact, the events of late April 2026 just delivered the loudest counter-signal in years.
Equities extend gains as earnings and semiconductors lead markets higher. Consumer confidence remains subdued despite economic resilience. Inflation is easing gradually but remains above the Fed’s targey.
Recent Federal Reserve communications have turned more hawkish, reflecting concern that persistent supply-driven price pressures could begin to feed into inflation expectations. But unlike in prior cycles, today’s environment is not defined by supply shocks alone.
Ahead of next week’s May employment report, the summer jobs market is coming into focus as teenagers and students finish the school year. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, teen hiring from May through July is expected to total just 790,000 jobs this summer, down slightly from 801,000 last summer.
In this video, Chuck Carnevale explains the true meaning of value investing and why valuation is one of the most important concepts investors can understand. - Why Value Investing is the Safest Way to Build Wealth. Chuck argues that value investing is not simply about buying “cheap stocks,” but about making prudent, rational investments that control risk while allowing investors to fully participate in a company’s long-term growth.
Artificial intelligence (AI) poses many ethical issues that may translate into risks for consumers, companies and investors. AI regulation, which is developing unevenly across jurisdictions, adds to the uncertainty. The key for investors, in our view, is to focus on transparency and explainability.
What is unusual about today, and I mean genuinely unusual, historically unusual, is that the people building the equivalent of Newcomen's engine today know exactly (or think they do) what they are building. They are not just pumping water. They “know” the vast potential.
In the 24-hour financial news cycle, there’s much buzz surrounding the buildout of infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI). What about infrastructure beneficial to humans? There are plenty of ETF opportunities in the sector that’s gone from defensive hedge to dynamic capital appreciation engine.
Last week’s data tracked a shifting economic trajectory over the last several months. While the latest reading on first-quarter GDP confirms the economy started the year with steady growth, subsequent inflation metrics moved higher and ultimately weighed on consumer confidence.
The reality is, the American people wouldn’t accept the level of taxation necessary to maintain the warfare/welfare state. There would be a tax revolt. So, the government resorts to a less obvious tax.
Many debates in defined contribution (DC) circles focus on fees, new asset classes, and ever more complex solutions. But the biggest improvement available to plan participants may come from something far simpler: how their fixed income is managed.
U.S. equities moved higher last week, with the S&P 500 advancing 0.9 percent – its eighth consecutive weekly gain and the longest such streak since 2023. The Russell 2000 fared even better, rising 2.7 percent.
Risk appetite remains firmly intact as optimism surrounding a potential resolution to the war with Iran continues to improve investor sentiment. The S&P 500 has now advanced for eight consecutive weeks, with price action remaining remarkably resilient throughout the recovery.
The next IPO wave may create a different kind of portfolio challenge for institutions already holding private stakes in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI.
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. agreed to have Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. reinsure a book of life insurance policies, freeing up about $6 billion of reserves.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is up 0.7% so far in May, as investors ramped up bets that the Federal Reserve will raise rates by early 2027, boosting the appeal of US assets. The gauge is on track for only its fourth monthly gain since the greenback’s 2025 downtrend began.
If you want a blueprint for how countries can survive this era of great power rivalry, look no further than Vietnam.
Growing excitement around the burgeoning space economy is increasingly favoring companies positioned to benefit not only from Elon Musk’s SpaceX filing for a public offering, but also from rising enthusiasm for space exploration and increased funding.
Large asset managers are rolling out a wave of actively managed emerging-market ETFs, pitching them as alternatives to benchmarks increasingly dominated by AI stocks.
As globalization gives way to reshoring and resurgent resource nationalism, emerging markets may offer fresh alpha opportunities through their ability to supply the raw materials required to fuel the AI boom.
Kevin Warsh was officially sworn in as 17th Federal Reserve chair on May 22. Warsh is likely to build consensus at the Fed rather than push for aggressive action to cut rates.
The U.S. government’s decision to invest $2 billion directly into nine quantum-computing companies through minority equity stakes—not just grants—signals a major shift toward treating quantum as a strategic commercial industry, with potential implications for investors seeking targeted exposure through funds like the WisdomTree Quantum Computing Fund (WQTM).
May is 529 Month. As college costs rise, learn five practical ways to maximize your plan’s tax benefits, flexibility and growth potential to prepare for the future.
Commodity market trends: Commodity markets have been on an impressive, and volatile, run so far this decade, with leadership oscillating between energy and precious metals. Not surprising, after commodities’ “Lost Decade” of the 2010s, given the asset class tends to move in long capital cycles.
Equity investors are facing monumental questions about their allocation strategies in a new market regime. Market concentration has risen sharply, valuations have climbed to record highs in parts of the market and factor volatility has dominated returns.
Recent market volatility and the conflict in Iran have understandably pushed many emerging market investors to the sidelines. But periods of uncertainty have historically offered attractive entry points into emerging market debt (EMD), particularly when underlying fundamentals are improving and asset flows are likely to increase.
Since early April, U.S. stocks have rallied sharply despite an ongoing war, rising inflation fueled by soaring oil prices (near $100/barrel), higher bond yields (up 0.6 to 0.7 percentage points), and frothy valuations (21 times projected earnings vs. a historical average of 17 times for the S&P 500 Index).
The ETF industry has exploded in popularity in recent years. Old mutual fund heavy firms have increasingly leaned into the space, while new shops have proliferated, adding all kinds of new ETFs for investors to consider. That has benefitted investors and advisors immensely.
On the surface, last week looked engineered to embarrass our positioning. The dollar index climbed to a six-week high above 99.3 by Friday and finished the week roughly flat at those levels.
California continues to demonstrate fiscal resilience, supported by strong liquidity balances and the absence of projected cash‑flow borrowing through FY 2026–27. However, Medicaid cost pressures, a progressive tax structure highly sensitive to equity market swings, and constitutional spending constraints remain key differentiators between California and other large states.
An unexpected rap on your front door is sometimes cause for anxiety. You are not sure who or what is out there, wanting to get in.
This persistent growth highlights how central low-cost core index products remain to advisor and retail portfolios alike. Even as asset managers roll out specialized strategies, capital continues to flow within broad-market beta.
A tidal wave of conversions has siphoned an unprecedented amount of capital out of mutual funds and into the ETF wrapper. Last year’s record 60 mutual-fund-to-ETF conversions in 2025 across 31 firms pushed total converted assets past $260 billion, and the past five years have now seen a grand total of 203 conversions.
Join Fidelity for an educational webcast exploring how active management could be beneficial to fixed income investors.
Treasuries rallied back to be little-changed on the day, erasing earlier declines spurred by higher oil prices, after a key US inflation gauge rose less than expected.
Shares of retailers spanning Kohl’s Corp. to Best Buy Co. and Dollar Tree Inc. rose on Thursday amid optimism that shoppers are still spending when they see what they want at the right price.
