Alternative Investments

The magnitude of the Democratic victories in both the Senate and gubernatorial races was surprising and exceeded what many market participants appeared to be pricing. While the outcome is politically significant, investors should resist the temptation to view it as an immediate economic regime change.

A global tech rout continues to remind investors that volatility can strike at any time. That’s especially true in today’s market environment, where stretched megacap technology valuations and broader equity indices have elevated concentration risk.

Domestic demand for gold bars and coins tends to rise modestly under Democratic administrations. However, elections have not historically had a significant impact on gold’s global performance over the long haul.

Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

Portfolio Manager Denny Fish explains why the market was justified in assigning a higher level of regulatory risk to the AI ecosystem after the midterm elections. But in his view, the secular strength of this theme, along with the massive bottlenecks and geopolitical implications, mean that this historic investment cycle will likely continue.

Franklin Templeton Institute’s Stephen Dover and Larry Hatheway opine on the US stock market’s recent volatility in the wake of the US midterm elections and the path forward for investors.

The big story last week? The Federal Reserve paused despite stronger growth and persistent inflation. It was a hawkish pause, with a December hike still the base case, according to Franklin Templeton Fixed Income. Third-quarter gross domestic product showed the US economy's resilience, but also its growing dependence on artificial intelligence investment, and household purchasing power took a hit.

Investors are grappling with an evolving set of risks as 2026 draws to a close. The scale of the AI build-out is influencing more sectors and industries. Rising interest rates are reshaping market dynamics as inflation threats linger.

The 2026 midterms may have changed Washington, but they haven’t changed the macro regime. Tariffs, geopolitics, and deficits remain key forces for investors.

The votes have been cast. While control of the House and Senate has been decided, now we wait for the final tallies (and celebrate the end of the political ads — at least for another 20 months or so). We’re not political strategists, but policy does move markets, so it’s important to pay attention.

Amid a rapidly changing world, where China’s rise as an industrial powerhouse has nations around the globe on alert, we believe that American reindustrialization will be an important driver of investment returns in the decade ahead. Standard U.S. equity indexes are poorly positioned to capture the benefits of this generational opportunity due to their global, technology-heavy composition.

We have been writing extensively about the rapid evolution of crypto ETFs, and recent data reinforces why digital assets remain top of mind for wealth managers. According to CoinShares, financial advisors hold roughly 55% of Wall Street’s total bitcoin ETF stake at the end of the second quarter, cementing their role as primary drivers of long-term digital asset adoption.

Duration management is a key function of fixed income portfolio management. However, as yields have moved approximately 100 bps in 2026 and the monetary regime has sharply changed from rate cuts to rate hikes, duration management has come into greater focus.

On the surface, financial conditions appear to be easing: the FOMC held rates steady last week, and Treasury yields have retreated from their recent highs. But that rally reflects a flight to safety, driven by growing questions about the durability and financing of the AI investment cycle.

If history is any indication, when push comes to shove, the Fed will ultimately choose more easy money despite elevated inflation to support the markets and the broader economy.

October reminded investors that markets rarely move in response to a single factor. The US economy continued to expand at a moderate pace, supported by healthy consumer spending and solid business activity, even as markets contended with higher energy prices, renewed inflation concerns and heightened geopolitical tensions.

Following U.S. midterm results, Paul Eitelman, Chief Investment Strategist, Russell Investments, shares the potential implications for markets and the data center rollout. Views are as of 10:00 am Eastern Time on November 4, 2026.

Notwithstanding that the major U.S. equity indexes are sitting on healthy double-digit gains heading into the final two months of 2026, the calm at the index level belies a lot of churn and rotation underneath.

Taken together, these trends point to a healthier, broader economic backdrop than the AI-driven narrative alone would suggest. For us as investors, it reinforces the case for individual, fundamental stockpicking over simply riding the AI wave. There's more supporting this market than one theme, and that breadth matters for how we position portfolios.

Equity markets are caught between tighter liquidity conditions and increased geopolitical uncertainty on the one hand, and solid economic growth and corporate earnings on the other. We have consequently reduced our exposure to stocks leading into year end.

As investor interest in Anthropic’s upcoming IPO grows, ETFs are finding new ways to offer exposure to private companies through derivatives tied to perpetual futures. Recent regulatory developments could accelerate the use of these instruments across the ETF industry, but they also introduce new risks and complexities.

One concern raised by the recent backup in rates is whether CRE is about to relive the stress of 2023, when depressed post-pandemic office demand coincided with rising rates and a regional bank crisis, including Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. The selloff in public REITs suggests investors are repricing property values for a higher-rate world.

Almost three years have passed since the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, bringing crypto and digital assets investing to a whole new audience. The asset class has evolved in that time, becoming a bigger and bigger part of investor and advisor plans.

Sometimes the best lessons are the simplest ones, and right now, the market is offering a good old-fashioned lesson on the benefits of diversification. Stay invested, stay diversified, and stick to your financial plan.

We expect the rotation to continue. The earnings bar is high—very high. Any minor misstep has led to punishment, which has led to rotation. Rotation is not a bad thing, and if you are running a diversified equity portfolio, you should be in good shape.

The broad markets experienced volatility in the 3rd quarter with concerns over the impact of energy prices on inflation as well as CapEx spending by hyperscaler companies in the AI space driving technology stocks. The price of WTI Crude oil rallied sharply during the quarter by nearly 30%.

A few years back, I compared two island-nations whose leaders came to power in 1959. At the time, Cuba was by far the wealthier of the two—rich in sugar, tobacco and tourism—while Singapore was a sleepy former colonial outpost with almost no natural resources.

Last week, the AI trade began to crack further with Alphabet’s release, missing on both the top and bottom lines. Mirroring Meta’s print from the prior week, massive AI capex turned free cash flow negative, alarming investors.

With the one constant being that gold fell again, this time by 6.6%, October’s price action is a mirror image of what happened in markets in September. In September, tech and momentum led the charge higher, with anything value- or rate-related leading the selloff. October was the exact opposite.

Innovation takes time—very often years—and can be expensive. For example, it wasn’t so long ago that Nvidia was considered to be just a gaming company. Today, it is one of the largest companies in the world with a dominant position in hardware and software tools powering the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

Credit problems in the AI space are not going to be contained to just the AI space. It is going to have impacts all throughout the economy and global markets. I guarantee you central banks are paying attention as it is affecting what they have to charge for sovereign debt.

Rising U.S. Treasury yields have added fresh strain to the U.S. housing market. The average 30-year mortgage rate, which generally tracks the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield plus a mortgage spread, rose to 7.5% in October 2026, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data, worsening an affordability crunch that remains a top concern among U.S. households.

Starting December 6, 2026, Nasdaq and NYSE Arca will officially launch extended trading sessions, expanding U.S. stock trading to up to 23 hours a day, five days a week.

Infrastructure has long been valued for its defensive characteristics, income potential and ability to protect against inflation. Essential assets such as electricity networks, pipelines, railways, airports and toll roads typically benefit from high barriers to entry and predictable revenues.

In this episode of the Money Metals Midweek Memo, host Mike Maharrey considers how artificial intelligence could affect trust, cybersecurity, and investors’ access to their money. He also discusses silver’s sharp correction, the long history of gold jewelry, and ways listeners might use precious metals as a physical store of value.

The economy appears to be settling into a new equilibrium. Economic growth has moderated to a sustainable pace. While inflation has picked up over the last few months, there does not seem to be a fundamental shift in the underlying trend.

The AI investment boom has become one of the largest sources of demand in the U.S. economy. Announced annual capital spending across large U.S. technology companies points to more than $1 trillion in desired investment, up dramatically from only a few years ago.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to keep rates unchanged, maintaining the fed funds trading range at 3.75% to 4.00%. After some early back and forth on the chances for a rate hike at this gathering, this result was largely expected. In fact, fed funds futures were pricing in more than a 90% chance that the fed funds target would remain unchanged.

Franklin Templeton plans to launch two ETFs Thursday that use stock dividends to buy bitcoin instead of more shares.

Royce Investment Partners: Co-CIO Francis Gannon details why recent volatility looks like the typical pattern of a US small-cap leadership cycle.

After overshooting projections for years, AI capex is slowing down. The shift doesn’t spell the end of the AI trade but a move to a more mature, predictable cycle that favors higher-quality borrowers.

How many eyeball-grabbing headlines can we stuff into the next few weeks? For tech investors, AI concerns mount, with rising credit default swap prices among the hyperscalers and sagging neocloud equities.

With the recent movements in both the stock and bond markets, there was some noteworthy news that got kind of lost. Indeed, the U.S. government posted a $1.99 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year (FY) 2026. While technically it is not a record amount of red-ink, it represented the largest non-COVID-related shortfall ever recorded in modern history.