The US economy grew less than expected during the second quarter of the year, up 1.5% quarter over quarter, dragged down by strong growth in imports. However, final sales to private domestic purchasers increased by 3.9%, underscoring the strength in domestic demand, which continues to rely too heavily in AI investment spending and strong spending from high-income consumers, or what has been called the K economy.
Market volatility—and the feelings of uncertainty that follow—tend to frighten investors. Yet for investors with an overlay program, one approach to volatility is evergreen—rebalancing.
Electricity has become a major global focus. It essential to powering the modern economy: regions with capacity will generate growth, while those without adequate supplies may be vulnerable to shocks.
As companies race to capitalize on the AI boom, water security is emerging as a material risk across the value chain. While data centers attract headlines, semiconductor fabrication remains one of the value chain’s most water-intensive activities, requiring reliable supplies of high-purity water.
There are 38% fewer companies listed on U.S. exchanges today than at the peak in the mid-1990s. The forces behind that decline—regulatory burden, the abundance of private capital, and the quiet disappearance of mid-sized public companies—are structural, not cyclical.
Learn what Trump Accounts for advisors mean for financial planning, including contribution rules, employer funding, 529comparisons, and ETFs.
Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
On Thursday, July 30, Amazon Inc.(AMZN) released its Q2 2026 earnings report. Given its crucial position as a Mag 7 mega-cap straddling both tech and e-commerce, Amazon’s earnings reports are usually closely watched by the broader investing community.
In this video, Chuck Carnevale introduces Charles, the new AI-powered research assistant built into FAST Graphs for Premium subscribers. Charles is designed to help investors research stocks faster, more thoroughly, and with greater confidence—without telling them what to buy or sell.
The AI bear case is worth taking seriously on price and financing. It is not worth taking seriously on demand. Anyone selling you the whole package as a single story, bull or bear, is selling you a mood, not an analysis. The revenue is real. The cash flow is the thing to watch. Price accordingly.
Mega-cap tech stocks have helped large caps dominate small-cap ETF flows and performance for years. However, this year a shift is taking place. In 2026, small-cap index ETFs are outperforming their large-cap peers as the market has broadened out.
This week’s vote from the Federal Reserve FOMC committee is going to have implications for quite some time. I think most of the pundits who are writing about this have their analysis wrong. This was not just a vote to not raise rates. I think there was a lot more going on behind the scenes.
Schwab Sector Views is our six- to 12-month outlook for stock sectors, which represent broad sectors of the economy. The Schwab Center for Financial Research (SCFR) combines a factor-based approach with a market and economic assessment to determine the ratings.
As concerns grow about the market’s biggest companies, investors are looking further down the market-cap scale. Mid-cap innovators are drawing more attention because they have more room to grow.
Following historic inflows, momentum in the covered call ETF market continues unabated. Yet first-generation buy-write products were often viewed somewhat narrowly as high-yield income vehicles built on sacrificing equity upside for immediate cash flow. While early strategies proved the massive appetite for yield, they also exposed key advisor pain points — from steep NAV erosion in bull markets to tax-inefficient distributions.
One of the most noteworthy data points during July was the June CPI report. While some moderation in price pressures was expected, the actual ‘cooling’ in inflation that was reported was greeted as a long sought after welcome development by the financial markets.
LPL Research explores whether hyperscalers can generate attractive returns on massive AI investments through a framework focused on ROIC, growth, and capex.
Fixed income can serve several important purposes within an investment portfolio, including income generation, capital preservation, diversification, and supporting future cash flow needs. Unlike growth assets, an individual bond generally provides a defined schedule of interest payments and a stated maturity date.
Energy markets have reached a precarious moment, with the path of prices over the remainder of the year – and potentially beyond – hinging on two key questions.
In part two of AB’s “Build a Better Path” Disruptor SeriesTM, we shifted from diagnosing the challenge of long-term investing to a potential approach for solving it. With practical, actionable steps, investors have the potential to translate the concept of improving up/down capture into strategies aimed at improving portfolio design.
Cash is king. Not for investors right now, but among the hyperscalers. The craving for capital is high as the AI arms race takes new twists and turns.
Forecasting is always fraught, but geopolitical turmoil makes it especially hazardous. Economic projections are only as reliable as the assumptions behind them, and those inputs can change quickly when conflicts are involved.
In this report, John P Kerschner, Global Head of Securitized Products, Daniel Siluk, Head of Global Short Duration and Liquidity, and Michael Contopoulos, Head of Multi-Asset Macro Investing, make the case for why it’s time for short-duration bonds.
GMO’s liquid alternatives are hedge fund strategies (e.g., equity long-short, global macro, event-driven) managed with an emphasis on risk control and liquidity. The GMO Alternative Allocation Strategy (“ALTA”) is a liquid alternative solution combining several underlying strategies; ALTA is available in a mutual fund with daily liquidity.
Oil markets have entered a period of heightened volatility. Geopolitical tensions, shifting supply expectations, and uncertain demand forecasts continue to weigh on investor sentiment. This environment can make traditional energy investing challenging. However, it also increases interest income generation strategies like the Amplify Energy & Natural Resources Covered Call ETF (NDIV).
The Federal Reserve left its policy rate unchanged in July, with three participants dissenting in favor of a hike. Prior to the meeting, markets had priced roughly a one-third probability of a rate hike, so the hold was dovish relative to market pricing.
As families prepare for college move-in season, the packing list usually starts with the obvious essentials: bedding, a laptop, chargers, school supplies and plenty of snacks.
Healthcare systems across the country are facing a difficult reality. Costs are rising faster than revenues, balance sheets are under pressure, the pacing of private market allocations are harder to manage, and liquidity has become an important topic for many organizations.
Once again, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to remain ‘on hold’, keeping the fed funds trading range at 3.50%–3.75%. Although there had been earlier conjecture in the money and bond markets the Fed may raise rates at the July gathering, that sentiment ultimately faded, and the final result was largely expected.
U.S. equities finished lower last week as investors weighed an escalating conflict with Iran against renewed concern over the scale of AI-related spending. The technology-heavy NASDAQ Composite was the worst performer, falling 2.1 per cent, while the S&P 500, an index of the largest U.S. companies, declined 0.6 per cent.
Private equity has become easier than ever for individual investors to buy. Founders, executives, physicians, and business owners now regularly see private funds offered through banks, wealth platforms, feeders, evergreen vehicles, or registered interval funds. However, just because these funds are more readily available, and at lower minimums, does not mean they should immediately be invested in.
Artificial intelligence is a transformative new technology, but we believe that it’s likely to follow a familiar pattern. From spreadsheets to the internet, innovations have historically given early adopters an edge—for a time. In our view, the ability to maintain that advantage depends much more on how effectively an asset manager integrates it throughout the organization.
South Korea and Taiwan are grabbing the majority of financial news headlines when it comes to international exposure, but a peek inside Latin America reveals potential opportunities. Brazil, in particular, could be offering investors ample value in both equities and bonds beyond those aforementioned countries already benefiting from the artificial intelligence (AI) buildout.
A continued escalation in the Middle East, where the Iranian-backed Houthis joined the conflict in an attempt to disrupt Saudi Arabian crude shipments that pass through the Red Sea via the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, drove oil prices higher, while new tariff announcements and Alphabet's earnings release created headwinds for equities.
Kevin Warsh’s second meeting as Fed Chair saw no change in rates and minimal edits to the Fed Statement, but included a press conference giving insight into what the Fed is focused on.
Considering that the Federal Reserve has been meeting this week, it’s safe to say that inflation is likely front-and-center on the minds of many advisors and investors. After all, energy prices and supply chain constraints have kept inflationary pressures far more persistent than the Fed would like.
In the current macroeconomic landscape marked by higher-for-longer interest rates, investors looking to optimize their short-term capital allocations may want to consider collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) as a higher-yielding potential alternative to traditional cash proxies like money market funds.
Leverage, ratings arbitrage, liquidity transformation, and a growing willingness to embrace complexity and illiquidity are becoming more visible across parts of the financial system.
The US economy grew 2.0% in 2025 and it looks like it is growing another 2.0% this year. Real GDP grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the first quarter and, as we set out below, it looks like it grew at a 2.0% rate in the second quarter.
The market encountered its stiffest test in months last week as rising oil prices, higher bond yields, and renewed scrutiny of AI capital spending combined to pressure many of the year’s biggest winners. Easing tensions over the weekend have buoyed stocks. If the Strait of Hormuz was opened, I believe the market would be 5% to 10% higher.
As the Q2 earnings season kicks into high gear, market sentiment around the AI trade is undergoing a critical sanity check. Alphabet’s second quarter results last week served as a barometer for how Wall Street is weighing artificial intelligence investments against current profitability.
With the US-Iran conflict nearing the five-month mark, equity markets have mostly shrugged off the latest escalation. On one hand, that’s understandable – a healthy economy and record corporate profits continue to support the market’s fundamentals. But a note of caution is warranted.
Without the support of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, it’s been a lethargic year in terms of performance by municipal bonds and the related ETFs, but that doesn’t mean advisors and fixed income investors should ignore this bond segment.
On a recent episode of the Money Metals Podcast, host Mike Maharrey welcomed veteran market strategist Gregory T. Weldon, publisher of the Global Macro Strategy Report, for a wide-ranging discussion on precious metals, inflation, Federal Reserve policy, artificial intelligence, and global macroeconomic trends.
For many years, globalization felt like a one-way street. Supply chains stretched effortlessly across continents. Companies built “just-in-time” systems that assumed goods, data, and capital would flow smoothly around the world. Investors could buy a global index fund and feel reasonably confident that they were capturing the benefits of ever-closer integration.
Discover Aberdeen’s closed-end funds (CEFs) for high yields, illiquid assets, long-term investments, and resilient income for 2026.
If you own treasuries, you need to make two separate decisions rather than one blended bet. The liquidity sleeve holds the bill exposure and does the work people mistakenly ask the long end to do. The duration sleeve stays deliberately small, sized as recession insurance rather than as a conviction call on falling inflation.
US earnings are set to grow briskly in 2026, but much of the expected gains are being driven by expanding profit margins that may be hard to sustain. Equity investors should ask whether portfolios are exposed to businesses with durable demand and profitable reinvestment—or merely a favorable margin cycle.
The structural backdrop for U.S. inflation increasingly suggests that the long run equilibrium range is migrating from roughly 1.5–3.5% toward 3.5–4.5%, with a significant risk of episodes of inflation above 5%. An important core reason is the steady erosion of the disinflationary architecture that dominated the 1990–2020 period, even as various cyclical pressures also play a role.
