As the industry matures, innovative operating models have emerged to address the diverse needs of both acquiring and selling firms. This analysis examines the primary models driving consolidation in the RIA space and explores their strategic implications for industry participants.
When you think about money behaviors that don’t serve you well, I suggest tuning in to your financial boardroom. Start with a little curiosity. What emotions surface? Which voices are the loudest?
Big US banks marked the beginning of the Q4 earnings season when they released results last week, and overall they were positive. Because of their position opening up the earnings season they tend to set the tone for things to come.
Markets vigorously adjusted expectations for a new regulatory, economic, and geopolitical landscape driven by U.S. politics.
As economists and financial market forecasters, we are constantly amazed at how so many people analyze, forecast, research, and discuss important topics without ever addressing the elephant(s) in the room.
In last week’s discussion with Thoughtful Money, I noted that we are becoming more “tactically bearish” as we progress into 2025. While we have remained primarily bullish in equity positioning over the last two years, several risks are now worth considering.
I’m devoting this column to reminders around change management and what to think about for the human element in the midst of change.
This past week brought promising news for the markets and the broader economy. Inflation data came in at or below expectations, while economic indicators, including housing starts and retail sales, demonstrated surprising resilience.
REX Financial’s Greg King discusses the firm’s recent crypto ETF filings, including those for TRUMP and DOGE, and explores the growth of leveraged single-stock ETFs, such as the T-Rex 2X Long MicroStrategy Daily Target ETF (MSTU). VettaFi’s Zeno Mercer offers a preview of the year ahead for the “Magnificent Seven” stocks and provides a brief tour of the artificial intelligence ETF space.
On this episode of the “ETF of the Week” podcast, VettaFi’s head of research, Todd Rosenbluth, discussed the Invesco KBW Bank ETF (KBWB) with Chuck Jaffe of Money Life. The pair discussed several topics related to the fund to give investors a deeper understanding of the ETF overall.
Spray-and-pray marketing is a good model for selling T-shirts but not so good for getting advisory clients.
Stock market stoicism isn’t just philosophy – it’s a practical approach to investing where we focus on what we can control (research quality, disciplined decisions, and our reactions) while accepting what we can’t (market whims and short-term sentiment shifts).
The pairing of active management and fixed income could be as important as any time in recent memory.
Apple Inc. received a pair of analyst downgrades, in the latest sign that soft iPhone sales are becoming an increasing concern for investors, as artificial intelligence fails to act as a hoped-for growth catalyst.
There’s a lot of chatter on Wall Street about artificial intelligence replacing analysts — the folks at banks and brokerages who tell investors which stocks to buy, hold or sell. The bots should be able to make those recommendations just as well as humans.
Since the start of the new year, the bond market has been urging Congress to come to terms with America’s spiraling budget problems. Soon it might be demanding immediate action.
US government bond yields approached their lowest levels of the year after President Donald Trump refrained from immediately implementing tariffs and oil prices declined, easing inflation concerns.
President Donald Trump launched a sweeping overhaul of US energy policy hours after taking office Monday, putting the weight of the federal government behind fossil-fuel production and pulling back from the fight against climate change.
Donald Trump opened his second term as US president with a market-jolting recalibration of his tariff policies, in a sign of turbulence ahead for investors and corporate executives.
At the start of every year, we publish our popular Periodic Table of Commodity Returns, an interactive infographic of the gains and losses across the commodities market.
Outlooks for higher education and healthcare are the weakest while transportation and essential utilities are the strongest. Resiliency to withstand an economic downturn is strong for all sectors.
Last week in my 2025 forecast letter, I predicted A Partly Cloudy Year, generally mild but with occasional storms. Today we’ll talk about the second half of that sentence. What could go wrong and lead to a worse-than-expected year? In short, what are the main risks to my forecast?
Everybody has an opinion about quantum computing lately. Last week Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested we were 15–30 years away from “useful” quantum computing
Today’s video on the Real Estate Sector (REITs) is another in the continuing series of videos where we are looking for value in each of the 11 major sectors as reported by Standard & Poor’s.
2024 was characterized by megacap dominance, with the S&P 500 reaching new all-time highs and gaining roughly 25%. Megacap leadership resulted in the largest companies growing their share of the index. As of this writing, the top seven stocks in the S&P 500 make up 34% of the S&P 500.
The wildfires may affect some municipal bond issuers in the devastated areas, but the impact to other California bonds or to the broader muni market is likely limited.
In 2025, two titans of technology stand at the forefront of innovation: quantum computing and robotics. Each offers a vision of a future transformed, where the impossible becomes achievable and industries are redefined.
New Yorkers bowing their heads into a cutting wind is typically a bullish sign for natural gas prices, and this January is no exception.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that President Donald Trump signed into law in December 2017 imposed a $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted on a federal income tax return.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House will likely protect US stocks from a big selloff, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists, as investors focus on his protectionist agenda and proposals for lower corporate taxes.
A look at how the renewable energy opportunity may and may not change.
As we close the chapter on Biden’s presidency, we take a moment to reflect on his legacy.
At CES 2025, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, offered a compelling vision of AI’s future—one that combines bold technological advances with practical applications.
The Federal Reserve faces a reckoning: Sometime soon, it’ll probably have to subject its stress tests to public scrutiny, highlighting serious flaws in what has become its primary tool for ensuring the resilience of the banking system.
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are crafting a wide-ranging sanctions strategy to facilitate a Russia-Ukraine diplomatic accord in the coming months while at the same time squeezing Iran and Venezuela, people familiar with the matter said.
BlackRock Inc. is tapping into a fast-growing corner of the options-powered ETF world with an offering aimed at Wall Street investors bracing for the S&P 500 to tread water.
MicroStrategy Inc.’s Michael Saylor may soon have almost as many common shares at his disposal to help fund the company’s Bitcoin buying spree as market behemoths Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. have outstanding.
Microsoft Corp. has plowed tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence. With its stock struggling, the key question is how quickly those investments can prove to be successful.
Canada’s stock market — where returns have lagged the US for two straight years — might offer investors protection against a downturn in US stocks, a Toronto-based asset manager says.
Technical analysis is one of many tools we use to manage clients' wealth. While inconsistent, as with every forecasting model, it is the best means for quantifying investors' collective behaviors. Simply put, historical price and volume data provide a critical context for price levels likely to motivate buyers and sellers.
In response to the 2008 stock market and real estate crash, the Federal Reserve stimulated the economy by reducing interest rates to (almost) zero under its zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP). It “printed money” that amazingly did not bring serious inflation, yet.
There will be more humanoid robots than people by 2040, Elon Musk recently bragged.
With all eyes focused on the White House, investors must decide what the incoming President’s policies will mean for markets and how to position accordingly. Ahead of the inauguration, we asked our portfolio managers what they think should be front of mind.
U.S. Treasury yields have increased notably since September, particularly at the long end of the curve, with the 10-year yield up over 100 basis points from its recent lows. We unpack the drivers behind this big move in rates and our outlook for bonds going forward.
Something unusual came down the chimney late last year. During the holidays and the preceding weeks, there were a slew of splits among US ETFs – the most in the past four years, according to Wall Street Horizon’s data.
Despite challenges, the U.S. market saw strong returns in 2024 with a "soft landing" for the economy, leading to key questions and emerging themes for investors in 2025.
For this edition of Bull vs. Bear, the VettaFi writers debate the case for using sector ETFs to make bets on the new market regime.
Earlier this week we posted an update on the median household income for the 50 states and DC which includes annual data from 1984 to 2023. Let's now look at the actual purchasing power of those median incomes. For this adjustment, we're using the "C2ER Cost of Living Index" produced by C2ER, the Council for Community and Economic Research.
Friday’s rip-roaring jobs report has pushed the betting markets to price in a single rate cut for the entire year of 2025.
Whether you’re speaking with Europe’s largest money manager, Australia’s giant pension funds, or a cash-rich insurer in Japan, there’s a resounding message you’ll hear when it comes to US Treasuries: They are still hard to beat.
