A sharp productivity jump shows firms doing more with fewer workers. But the upside surprise also highlights growing risks about how these gains affect the workforce.
For years now, advisors and investors alike have been pouring significant attention — and inflows — into the broad spectrum of fixed income ETFs.
VettaFi recently sat down with Morten Paulsen, head of research for robotics & machinery at CLSA, to discuss the transition of physical AI into a tech-driven industrial up-cycle. Paulsen projects that persistent U.S. labor shortages will drive domestic robot shipments toward a historical high of 40,000 units in 2026.
At GMO, we have always defined a bubble as a two-standard deviation divergence of the price of any asset class above its long-term real price trend. The U.S. stock market has now been in bubble territory for a prolonged period. Sooner or later, the bubble will burst and the price will return to its historic level.
Private credit has grown from a small niche market to a major slice of the financial asset pie. Not many people outside of institutional finance talked about it twenty years ago.
As was widely expected, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to pause their rate cuts at the January meeting, keeping the fed funds trading range at 3.50%–3.75%. For those keeping track, the Fed had lowered ‘the funds rate’ by 75 basis points (bps) during the final three FOMC meetings of 2025.
Passive, active, Treasuries, corporates, munis, international, and more — the whole spectrum of fixed income ETFs seemed to come off a strong year in 2025. The year was also marked by a bevy of launches.
Private markets were historically for institutional and ultra-high-net-worth investors. Today, that exclusivity is breaking down, as many retail investors realize the value behind private markets and advisors look for additional diversification tools.
2025 capped off a record year for orbital launches, confirming that the space industry is more than alive and well. This creates a growth opportunity set for the Procure Space ETF (UFO), which can capture ongoing developments in the industry in 2026.
In this article, we look both back and forward, first at the 2025 capital markets to analyze not just what happened but also how it fits in the historical context and what we believe it means for 2026 and beyond. We then pivot to our return expectations for major asset classes in the next decade.
Gold surged to a record above $5,500 an ounce, extending a breakneck rally fueled by a weaker dollar and investor flight from sovereign bonds and currencies to a ninth day.
Jerome Powell has two more opportunities to adjust interest rates before his term as Federal Reserve chair ends — and he may not need them.
Apple Inc.’s stock is taking a hit as investors try to assess how much rapidly rising memory prices are eating into its bottom line. Investors will get a peek when the iPhone maker reports its earnings after the close Thursday.
Who could forget those heady days when Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella looked like the smartest man in tech? When ChatGPT emerged in late 2022, his decision to back OpenAI put Nadella’s company at the forefront of the AI boom.
The near-perfect timing of gold breaking through $5,000 while silver sliced through $100 has grabbed the market’s attention.
Concentration risk is the #1 controllable risk in your portfolio. If one stock goes to zero and it’s your whole bag, you're in trouble. But selling usually means a giant tax bill—until now.
Over the past year, Tether has quietly become one of the biggest players in the global gold market — the embodiment of a meeting of the crypto and gold worlds whose shared distrust of government debt is a major factor behind the surge in prices to never-before-seen highs above $5,200 an ounce.
Theoretically, the two foundational drivers of long‑run economic growth are population growth, which expands the labor force, and productivity, which determines how efficiently that labor can transform inputs into outputs.
Another blockbuster year for bond ETFs is in the books. After two straight years of record net inflows, taxable fixed income ETF assets have nearly doubled since 2020 – crossing the $2 trillion mark. But the big story in 2026 will be rising pressure to move out of money market funds.
By assessing the macro and market drivers that shape each outlook, we can lay out clear, practical tactics to prepare your portfolio for either path. Whether the bullish or bearish case prevails in 2026, your edge will come from disciplined risk management, not from guessing the future.
According to Baiocchi, advisors are reevaluating portfolios and recognizing gaps in exposure to companies driving major market themes.
As geopolitical tensions reshape global trade, capital flows and investor risk appetite, gold is once again surfacing as an important component of asset allocation. Some investors and central banks are arguably viewing gold as a risk hedge, supplanting US Treasuries as a safe-haven asset.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to halt its interest-rate-cutting cycle this week, as a steadier jobs market restores a degree of consensus at the central bank after months of growing division.
Investing in line with our beliefs, whether about social issues, environmental concerns, or politics, can feel principled and emotionally satisfying. But markets don’t care about our convictions.
Anthropic PBC is finally having its own ChatGPT moment. A powerful new version of its Claude chatbot can now take actions on a computer, and the broad repercussions of that advance are impossible to predict.
Blackstone Inc. is planning to hire more people across Asia to tap growing opportunities in private markets, said Ed Huang, the firm’s head of Asia Pacific private wealth.
Last week in our latest Cyclical Outlook, “Compounding Opportunity,” we argued that beneath the economy’s broad resilience lies a stark divergence. U.S. policy pivots combined with the surge in adoption of AI technology have created winners and losers.
Recently, stock market numbness closes the trading day. No wholesale crash, just a little wobbling for now with positive numbers for half of January. But I have a sense it’s in need of a cane to steady its momentum.
The circular investing phenomenon that is currently occurring among the Magnificent Seven companies is very similar to the Japanese Keiretsu concept. Under this business model, companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholders dominate a country’s economy.
This endless sequence of numbers that form ratios, known as the Fibonacci sequence, provides a technical analysis tool for managing financial securities. Before you assume we've lost our minds —relying on biology or, even worse, mysticism to predict stock prices — let us explain.
An increasingly unstable global geopolitical order has turbocharged stocks of military contractors in recent months. Now, with some of the biggest names in the industry set to report earnings this week, investors are eager for evidence that the rally is rooted in reality.
The best growth opportunities are overwhelmingly found among highly scalable technology and communications companies. Many of them get started with the help of venture-capital funding and are already behemoths when they go public.
It is critical to understand that 2026 will not deliver certainty. Instead, investors should focus and make decisions based on probabilities backed by data, earnings trends, policy shifts, and macro signals.
The Bank of Japan’s recent policy shift is sending shockwaves through global markets. Headlines this week highlight the dollar’s tumble against the yen and renewed chatter of an unwind to the massive yen carry trade, estimated at over $500 billion.
As seen in a How to Find Pure Play Approaches to Drone Technology webinar, a lot goes on behind the scenes when building an exchange-traded fund (ETF) — in this case, the REX Drone ETF (DRNZ).
In 2025, despite representing just over 10% of ETF assets, actively managed ETFs gathered nearly one-third of all ETF inflows. Investors increasingly turned to discretionary active equity and fixed income ETFs and not just index-based ETFs. That has persisted thus far in 2026, with active ETFs gathering 37% of new money.
While our outlook for the municipal bond market in 2026 is positive overall, we have identified five risks that we believe should be on investors' radar.
The real hero of the late-week recovery was the Information Technology sector. Despite a jarring 16% slide from Intel (INTC) following a tepid outlook shared on their Q4 2025 earnings call, the broader semiconductor space and "Magnificent Seven" megacaps provided the necessary ballast.
LPL Research explores the drivers behind the rally in metals, the associated risks, and the outlook for their durability.
The U.S. economy continues to display a complex mix of resilience and persistence. As markets brace for next week’s FOMC meeting, this snapshot breaks down the latest shifts in GDP, inflation, and consumer behavior.
Amplify ETFs had an impressive year in 2025, outperforming the broader market in both asset growth rate and performance across its thematic and income-oriented suites.
Healthcare stocks were rattled by US policy uncertainty in 2025. But signs of resilience have surfaced as the sector reaffirms its defensive strengths and growth potential, sparking a shift in investor sentiment.
As we enter 2026, the U.S. economic momentum continues based on the foundation of a solid private sector with fiscal and monetary policies also contributing to growth. As we refine our global asset allocation, we maintain a diversified overweight stance on U.S. equities despite relatively high valuations.
The dollar is in no danger of losing its status as the primary global reserve currency, but de-dollarization is chipping away at its dominance. It’s clear we’re moving toward a “multipolar” world where several currencies, along with gold, are making up a growing share of global reserves.
Recent acquisition deals highlight asset managers’ race to capture the booming demand for model portfolios and outsourced investment solutions.
Year-end S&P 500 price targets implicitly assume continuity and fail to recognize volatility and macro forces that affect markets throughout any given year.
Janus Henderson Group, a leading global asset manager, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Richard Bernstein Advisors (“RBA”), a research-driven, macro multi-asset investment manager. The acquisition positions Janus Henderson as a leading model portfolio and separately managed account (SMA) provider.
The whole world may be talking about AI nonstop right now, but that doesn’t mean other tech segments are falling off. Some are actually outperforming. Blockchain ETF BLOK, for example, has significantly outperformed its ETF Database Category average over the last year.
In the investment business, it’s common to address not only what occurred during the past twelve months but also to provide an assessment of future prospects.
Tokenized shares are conventional assets — stocks, bonds or private loans — whose ownership records are maintained using blockchain software, often with the goal of faster, more automated settlement behind the scenes.
