Global macro conditions remain constructive for risk assets, according to Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions. Get the team’s views across global assets in the latest “Allocation Views.”
The financial world is replete with terms and definitions, many of which overlap in concept or application. Perhaps I can simplify a familiar concept for most investors who strive to grow and preserve their wealth.
There has not been a fundamental innovation in broad-market cap-weighted indexing in decades. Until now. With the Research Affiliates Cap-Weighted Index (RACWI), we introduce a fresh approach designed to fix a costly but little-known “bug” in cap-weighted indexing.
Earnings expectations for the Magnificent Seven (or Mag Seven) mega-caps remain optimistic, but profits may face pressure as spending rises. Equity investors should carefully evaluate each of the mega-caps while searching across other sectors for solid sources of profitable growth.
Markets cheered an imminent Fed rate cut, with small caps outpacing the S&P 500, but rising unemployment, sticky inflation, and slowing job growth point to stagflation risks. Advisors face a market both buoyed by near-term catalysts and shadowed by longer-term vulnerabilities.
Making the case for potential rate cuts in his recent speech at Jackson Hole, Fed Chair Powell noted that policy is presently in restrictive territory.
This summer has been a big one for digital assets in the U.S., with major policy steps moving forward in Washington. The White House has been clear that the goal is to strengthen American leadership in digital financial technology, and the bills and executive actions we've seen over the past two months all fit under that theme.
Although the relationship between fundamental returns and total returns after a decade is solid, valuations do matter – their impact is evident in the vertical distance between each stock observation and the diagonal line on the chart.
Markets are hoping for a “Goldilocks” outcome: tariffs that don’t hurt margins, inflation under control, and just enough labor softness to justify rate cuts. It’s an appealing story, but history suggests this mix is rare, and chasing it could set investors up for disappointment.
Private equities are a growing and increasingly significant part of the investing landscape.
DoubleLine CEO/CIO Jeffrey Gundlach, widely known in the capital markets as the "Bond King," spoke at a Total Return Webcast.
Market uncertainty continues to linger in the back of fixed income investors’ minds. But that can force much-needed recalibration of portfolios as tariffs and rate cuts loom. A compelling option to consider: corporate bonds.
How should investors think about integrating private credit into their portfolios?
Progress on reducing fiscal deficits has stalled in some large economies around the world. Should investors be worried?
LPL Research sees bull market strength as stocks follow recovery trends, with AI growth, Fed cuts, and economic resilience driving upside.
Gold, digital gold (blockchain-backed gold), and critical minerals are drawing interest as money supply grows and certain resources become scarcer.
The rise of private markets has brought new attention to private investment grade (IG) credit, which can offer investors a premium over public IG for giving borrowers customized terms – though that premium comes with certain risks.
As summer fades and the first hints of fall appear, football fans have reason to celebrate – the new season officially kicked off last night. But while excitement builds on the field, the equity market may be losing steam.
The U.S. dollar is experiencing a rare volatility squeeze, indicating that a major move is near. While the most likely direction is downward, any move will have a big impact on precious metals.
Surface-level diversification is no longer enough in a market increasingly driven by passive flows and dominated by a few mega-cap names. Owning multiple funds or asset classes does not guarantee protection if the underlying exposures overlap. Investors must go deeper and look beyond labels and into the actual drivers of risk and return.
Healthcare has been the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500 so far this year.
There are many ways to describe the strong performance in large cap US stock prices this year. You could simply call it a bull market, with the S&P 500 total return index up 31.2% since its low in early April and up 11.5% year-to-date.
Over the past several years we’ve watched the S&P 500’s performance become increasingly tethered to a handful of Mega-cap technology companies.
The U.S. economy has thus far avoided recession, yet growth has decelerated and economic risks persist.
Our biggest concern today is that if the labor market is as weak today as the numbers are showing, what will happen when all the federal government workers start dropping out of the employment numbers at the end of the fiscal year and during the next several quarters.
The U.S. market has outperformed the rest of the world over the past decade but may fade, making international equities—a timely and overlooked opportunity.
On this week’s edition of Market Week in Review, Global Chief Investment Strategist Paul Eitelman discussed new records for the U.S. stock market as well as the resilience of the American economy. He also covered bond-market volatility in Japan, France and the UK.
The market got exactly what it needed last week: confirmation that the economy is slowing—not collapsing—and that the Federal Reserve has the green light to start cutting rates. Payroll gains softened, manufacturing remains weak, and broader job slack is showing up with U-6 underemployment rising to 8.1%.
Looking back over the past 20 years, airline equities have tended to outperform in the final three months of the year, with the NYSE Arca Global Airlines Index gaining over 3% on average in October; this is followed by an even stronger showing in November and a 3% increase in December on average.
Over the past twenty years, in spite of incredible new technologies, US real GDP growth has averaged just 2.0% at an annual rate. By contrast, in the twenty years prior to the most recent twenty – from the mid-1980s thru the mid-2000s – real GDP grew at a 3.2% annual rate.
Bond investors may need to look elsewhere to supplant income lost from falling yields — they may want to try heading overseas. It's not just a weaker dollar that's been diverting attention to international bonds, but U.S. debt itself.
A market-wide boom of private equity investment is turning small, local residential service providers into big business. From the outside, it's been easy to miss.
The Federal Reserve may cut rates a couple of times by year-end, but the pace and magnitude of easing in 2026 is unclear. There are still some roadblocks to lower bond yields.
The failures aren’t isolated miscalculations but the predictable result of a flawed framework that policymakers have clung to for decades. Keynesian economics didn’t just “get it wrong” in 2025, but has repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises for over forty years. And the consequences are becoming impossible to ignore.
The U.S. labor market continued to show signs of cooling, with all major labor indicators pointing to a softening trend and a weak hiring environment.
The average household feels inflation as rising living costs, of which shelter is usually the largest. This will be today’s primary topic. What is going on with housing costs, and is there any hope for relief?
Discover how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) may impact the municipal bond market, and find out which institutions are better positioned to overcome the sweeping policy reforms.
Higher gold prices have put a damper on central bank gold buying, but the World Gold Council still categorized August purchases as “firm.”
Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity discusses recent developments in emerging markets, specifically examining the impact of tariffs on Indian exports, the resurgence of Chinese equities and potential US Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts that could benefit emerging markets.
Advisors and investors find themselves inundated with decisions and choices when investing in the crypto economy. Between deciding what cryptocurrency to invest in (bitcoin, ether, tether, solana, etc.) and how to gain exposure (direct exposure, indirect exposure, via an ETF), fitting crypto into a portfolio can be a complicated affair.
August brought with it a slowing in ETF launches from the summer spree, while inflows continued as investors increasingly bought into bonds.
With an interest rate cut looming this month, investors may be looking at their available options. For many, their passive bond funds have done well, but may not be well-positioned for one or potentially multiple cuts.
Packing for a child heading off to college? Don’t forget the legal documents.
Independent central banks are a relatively recent concept.
Much of the data we see today indicates the economy is fine. Stocks continue making new highs. Consumer spending is shattering records. Unemployment rates remain low. Yet a single anecdote can dispel the illusion that everything is truly fine for the average American.
Count stocks from China among this year’s international standouts. Widely observed gauges of equities in the world’s second-largest economy are outpacing both the S&P 500 and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by comfortable margins since the start of this year.
To paraphrase Churchill, financial markets are a “long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind.” But we hope you had a wonderful summer.
Advisors have looked to international markets for much of this year for a crucial source of diversification amid U.S. uncertainty.
The AI adoption case is gaining momentum across an array of industries. A trend that largely started in the financial services and healthcare sectors is spreading rapidly to other realms.
From a revenue perspective, we were also encouraged by sales coming in +2.1% higher than analysts expected, with all 11 sectors showing positive revenue surprises. This also allays our fears that tariff impact might be worse than the analyst community feared.
