The REIT sector has faced many challenges over the past few years, including COVID-related closures and tightening monetary policy. Franklin Equity Group Portfolio Managers Blair Schmicker and Daniel Scher discuss how a return to pre-pandemic monetary policy could mean a promising 2024 for publicly traded real estate.
Recently I saw a T-shirt for sale that said, “Science Doesn’t Care What You Think.” I used a similar metaphor recently, observing how many experiments show that jumping off a cliff will send you rapidly downward. If you want to test that theory, please add me to your will first.
NVIDIA reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2023 this week, and I’m still picking my jaw off the floor.
Careful data management and having a formal impact measurement framework in place are essential to preventing greenwashing and ensuring consistent impact delivery.
Cloud computing is one of the sub-sectors of technology that are benefiting from last year’s rally. When it comes to specific names, CrowdStrike is a notable one helping to push the Direxion Daily Cloud Computing Bull 2X Shares ETF (CLDL) even higher.
Electric vehicle (EV) equities and related exchange traded funds currently appear as though their check engine lights are on.
Immigration is a vital source of economic growth.
The importance of major canals to global trade cannot be underestimated. Franklin Templeton Institute’s Kim Catechis highlights some of the challenges they face, including militant attacks and climate change.
Record issuance in the corporate bond market is giving fixed income investors an abundance of opportunities. However, due diligence is necessary as high-yielding bonds may uncover a risky proposition that doesn’t quite match an investor’s risk profile.
Short-term bonds are generally defined as debt with maturities of one to three years. Additionally, these bonds come in a variety of forms, including Treasuries.
Short-term bond yields are high currently, but with the Federal Reserve poised to cut interest rates investors may want to consider longer-term bonds or bond funds.
NVIDIA’s spectacular quarter and forecast are dominating headlines this week.
GMO has published a new 7-Year Asset Class Forecast.
The Magnificent Seven stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla) have been the largest driver of equity returns in recent years and were again the dominant contributors in 2023, accounting for more than half of the market increase.
Many investors remain in cash, but we think it’s time to shift exposure to bonds.
Active ETFs had a big, big year in 2023. At the recent ETF Exchange conference in Miami, active strategies dominated the discussion, with growing interest among issuers and investors in actively managed funds.
Even if you have not heard of the Magnificent Seven stocks as a group, you likely know the companies. The Magnificent Seven comprises Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Nvidia (NVDA), Meta Platforms (META), Tesla (TSLA), and Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL).
Bitcoin recently had a scorching hot run. It has some crypto market observers believing new all-time highs are right around the corner. Additionally, it’s having the predictable, though still welcomed, effect of lifting some stocks with intimate ties to the largest digital currency.
History shows that when the Federal Reserve (Fed) is paused and easing, longer duration higher quality fixed income has outperformed riskier assets, as well as money market instruments.
The current speculative environment seems to increasingly resemble the Technology Bubble of 1999/2000. All bubbles eventually burst and the burst of the Tech Bubble led to the so-called lost decade in equities.
The Fed’s close monitoring and well-signaled tapering of QT should prevent disruptions to the short-term funding markets—despite converging risks.
Regarding the surprisingly strong employment data, Fed Chair Powell said the quiet part out loud. The media hopes you didn’t hear it as we head into a contentious election in November.
The chip sector comes into sharp focus ahead of a key earnings report, with signs of divergence in the sector.
One of the pleasant surprises of 2023 was how quickly inflation decelerated in major economies. Most of the good news came from falling goods prices.
Higher for longer. This was the key message to me from advisors and ETF industry folks at the Exchange conference when talking about fixed income.
What do passive ETFs really do? Many investors are used to the comfort of simply allocating to a big index and almost forgetting about it, only checking in every so often.
Walmart leads the way as major retailers start weighing in on a positive year for consumer spending. But will it hold true as individual companies report results?
We think market optimism can persist for now but stay nimble. We get more active in our long-term portfolios given a greater dispersion of returns.
A key economic mistake people make is thinking growth leads inflation. One reason they do that is because inflation is a monetary phenomenon. When money is too easy, first growth rises, and then inflation rises with a longer lag due to excess dollars in the system.
The challenges in banks' portfolios will work out over time.
Looking back, I believe the financial advisors who were most willing to adapt to changing times were generally more able to set themselves apart from the crowd and experienced a higher rate of success.
The real estate sector represents a mere 2.31% of the S&P 500. Just two sectors – materials and utilities – command smaller allocations in the benchmark domestic equity gauge. That low weight garnered by real estate stocks and REITs belies the popularity of those assets among investors.
With one month in the books for 2024, and markets still waiting for a sign from the Fed, many investors may be looking to shake up their portfolios. What worked in 2023, after all, may not necessarily work in 2024.
This year continues to follow in the footsteps of 2023, marked by increased investor optimism but ongoing uncertainty. For now, much remains unknown, and a higher January inflation print only proves the challenges that still lie ahead.
Patience is required when embracing long-dated bonds and corresponding exchange traded funds. In standard market environments, intraday price action for long duration Treasurys usually isn’t breathtaking. Nor are investors expecting it to be.
Relatively hot inflation reports might be blips, but they reinforce why the Fed's rate-cutting cycle might be more gradual, which could be a better backdrop for stocks.
Investors are turning toward active ETFs and away from mutual funds thanks to the ETF wrapper, per data from Trackinsight’s Global ETF Survey. The survey, which came out this week, showed growing investor favor toward active strategies.
While the bulls remain entirely in control of the market narrative, divergences and other technical warnings suggest becoming more cautious may be prudent.
Sentiment data is beginning to match relatively strong "hard" economic data.
Even at the risk of sounding like a parrot by repeating the same thing again and again, we think that it is, once again, appropriate at this time to do so: “One data point doesn’t a trend make.”
In this video, Chuck Carnevale, Co-Founder of FAST Graphs, a.k.a. Mr. Valuation, and Professor Nathan Mauck, will discuss insights on European dividend growth stocks. They will analyze several stocks, highlighting their consistent earnings growth, dividend records, and fair value multiples.
When consumers fall behind, the credit card bill goes unpaid.
The deceleration of the core PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) inflation rate in the second half of 2023 catalyzed a pivot in monetary policy messaging and shifted market pricing for the path of policy rates in 2024.
Investors looking for a “story stock” need not look much further than semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA). Proving that lofty valuations aren’t detriments to the upside, the stock is higher by 46.72% year-to-date. Additionally, it is now the third-largest U.S.-based company by market capitalization.
WisdomTree’s Head of Distribution, Americas, Joe Grogan, sat down with VettaFi to discuss the firm’s message to advisors, its digital assets and tokenization capabilities, model portfolios, and more at the recent ETF Exchange conference.
If you’re a parent or grandparent, you may know of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” storybook series. Written in second person, they make “you” the hero.
More than just demographics, Head of Franklin Templeton Institute Stephen Dover and Investment Strategist Kim Catechis think education and government policy are of critical importance to economic growth.
Secure lifetime income is a top wish-list item for defined contribution plan participants, and it has benefits for plan sponsors too. But there are very different ways to deliver it.
A record month of issuance in January and still relatively high yields could be prime drivers of demand for corporate debt in the current market environment. With that, an all-encompassing approach to corporate debt is available in the Vanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF ETF Shares (VTC).
With added excitement surrounding artificial intelligence, the Magnificent Seven may be one of the easiest ways to play this trend without investing in obscure small-cap stocks.
