As private credit further cements its role as a primary source of corporate financing, it will be essential to balance opportunity with prudent risk management for long-term stability and sustainability.
VettaFi today officially completed its acquisition of RAFI Indices, LLC from Research Affiliates Global Holdings, LLC. The deal was originally announced in June 2026. The transaction unites RAFI’s decades of deep, academically grounded intellectual property with VettaFi’s agile, modern indexing infrastructure.
Small-cap equities are winning out against their large-cap counterparts in a classic David versus Goliath ETF battle. After years of mega-cap technology dominance, small-cap equities have delivered investors a historic first half of 2026.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Blackstone Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc. had been working tirelessly for months to draw up debt deals that would help developers of artificial intelligence systems pay for chips from Nvidia Corp.
If the bad news is that members of Generation Z can’t afford to buy a house until they are middle-aged — which isn’t really bad news, honestly, but anyway — then the good news is that at least they are investing their money in high-performing assets.
“Think Like An Investor” is chapter 1 of a 5-part series examining the narratives around “investing for the long run. Learning to think like an investor rather than a speculator is not a personality quirk or a matter of taste. It is the entire game, and the good news is that it is a skill you can actually build, starting today.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s not the political party that matters, but the policies. Investors, I believe, are better served when they focus not on the partisan noise and headlines but the policies that bring about change.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to choosing between individual bonds and bond funds. The choice depends on an investor’s goals, time horizon, risk tolerance, need for predictable income, and available assets.
This bargain-hunting environment sets up a stark divide for upcoming earnings. Walmart (WMT) remains uniquely positioned as its dominant grocery business continues to draw trade-down traffic from higher-income households, whereas Target (TGT) faces headwinds due to its heavier mix of discretionary home and apparel goods.
For savers, it drives them to seek bigger and bigger returns to keep up with the government’s monetary devaluation. At first, a simple savings account with a relatively low yield will do the trick. But as the dollar loses purchasing power, you need a better return to keep up. So, maybe you stick your money in a higher-interest-yielding CD.
Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
Hoisington Investment Management — managed by Hunt and Hoisington — sharply reduced its clients’ bond duration and put the proceeds in Treasury bills. That reversal of such long-held opinions deserves serious attention. I will summarize Hunt’s new views and some counterpoints to help you assess his new stance.
Today’s market does not represent today’s economy. The ratio of market value dependent on future economic activity versus present activity has never been higher. These companies have earnings now, but those earnings stem from investments in the future, not present consumption.
Consumer sentiment falls in August after two previous months of improvement. The preliminary August reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index came in at 51. This marks a 7.6% (4.2 points) decrease from July and below the forecast of 54.7.
Reasons to be wary about stocks are quickly disappearing and a Goldilocks scenario looks increasingly likely. That’s precisely why it’s a perfect time to hedge against a market priced for perfection.
Gold extended a two-week advance as pared back expectations for further Federal Reserve rate hikes put pressure on the dollar, making bullion cheaper for most buyers.
Investors are remaining cautious about the markets, according to our U.S. stocks and economy report this month. Our report notes that while investors have continued to pile into the market via strong ETF flows and high margin debt balances, they've done so reluctantly with more subdued attitudes.
Whether fixed income investors are focused on locking in yield, managing duration risk, or building resilient core portfolios, bond ETFs have been seeing elevated demand this year.
The yield on the 10-year note finished August 14, 2026 at 4.68% while the 2-year note ended at 4.17%.
Nominal retail sales were down 0.58% month-over-month and up 5.01% year-over-year in July. However, after adjusting for inflation, real retail sales were down 0.66% month-over-month and up 1.65% year-over-year.
U.S. headline retail sales fell unexpectedly in July, down 0.6% to $763.6B in July, while core retail sales fell unexpectedly by 0.3%.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s agreement to buy Neos Investments for as much as $2.25 billion marks a new front in Wall Street’s ETF battle: paying up for specialist firms that have found growth beyond the industry’s low-fee giants.
The consumer remains resilient, but spending is becoming increasingly selective. Bank of America’s August Consumer Checkpoint showed total card spending per household increased 5.0% year-over-year in July, with spending excluding gasoline up 4.3%.
Artificial intelligence data centers are hitting a power problem that has little to do with computer chips, according to a new report from Thornburg Investment Management.
SpaceX has completed a $60 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence coding startup Cursor, a key part of Elon Musk’s bid to gain ground on rivals Anthropic PBC and OpenAI.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) was essentially flat month-over-month in July, at its lowest level in four months.
There are routes towards adding innovation exposure in portfolios without going overboard on the biggest names. The ETF ecosystem has provided for significant innovation in investment strategies in recent years.
After years of tests with digital versions of securities, cash and trading networks, the focus has shifted to whether these technologies could work together. This time, nearly 40 firms were testing how tokenized assets could move through the institutions that keep modern markets moving.
The fixed income landscape continues to offer real opportunity this year as well as persistent, events-driven uncertainty. Still, cutting through the headlines, investors can find major opportunities inside the portfolios and in adding new funds.
Among the key benefits of the ETF wrapper is the wide range of tools it gives advisors and investors to build tailored fixed income portfolios. And given today’s complex rate and inflation environment, it certainly helps to have a wide range of options available.
There’s been no summer vacation for the bond market this year. It seems there’s a new headline every day that needs to be processed and responded to. In terms of Treasuries (UST), yields at the back-end of the curve have risen in notable fashion and have resulted in rates being at levels not seen in almost twenty years in some cases.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), providing forecasts for energy markets. This article presents the annual production outlooks for crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), comparing the August 2026 projections against the previous month's estimates.
Inflation affects everything from grocery bills to rent, making the Consumer Price Index (CPI) one of the most closely watched economic indicators. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks this by categorizing spending into eight categories, each weighted by its relative importance.
Inflation moderated for a second straight month, coming in at 3.4% year-over-year in July. The headline figure for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was in line with economist estimates.
Discover the top ETF launches of summer 2026, including new funds from iShares, Amplify, and Defiance targeting crypto, AI, and core equity.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is continuing its aggressive expansion into active, high-yielding options strategies with a definitive agreement to acquire NEOS Investments. Similar to Innovator Capital Management, another recent acquisition, NEOS has established a firm leadership position in the ETF space.
An in-line inflation reading spurred gains in both stocks and bonds, easing concern about imminent Federal Reserve rate increases despite elevated oil prices.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will pay as much as $2.25 billion to buy Neos Investments, expanding its asset manager’s reach in the actively managed exchange-traded fund market.
The outlook for Boeing Co. to earn copious cash flow is bright. It just turned free-cash-flow positive in the second quarter after years of losses, and the company already has its sights on cash earnings of $10 billion a year. This is driven almost entirely by a rebound of commercial aircraft production.
Demand continues to outpace record supply. Municipal bonds remain an attractive income opportunity in a market where the Federal Reserve (Fed) is likely to remain on hold and carry is driving returns. Despite record issuance of roughly $50 billion per month, demand has remained strong, supported by a reinvestment wave that is running approximately 40% above last year and favorable summer technicals.
Tech and AI are driving a greater share of global equity market returns and earnings growth, raising concentration risks and the need for broader diversification.
The S&P 500 has closed at a new record high some 25 times this year, the most recent taking place just last week. The benchmark, which is now up about 13% — as measured by the performance of the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) in 2026 — has been boosted by momentum, solid earnings and ongoing economic growth.
The mantra carrying the markets higher for years has been to leave it to mega-cap tech titans and AI leaders to drive the bulk of market gains, leaving cap-weighted indexes historically top-heavy. But a new narrative has begun to take over.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has made it easier for data center owners to sell asset-backed securities, potentially opening the door for more debt sales as tech firms scour Wall Street for ways to pay for artificial intelligence.
Good or bad, right or wrong, estimates suggest that in the past eighteen months the net flow of immigrants (including the number of illegal immigrants who were deported) may have been negative. By contrast, in the prior four years the US took in more than eight million immigrants, on net. All these numbers could be revised or argued with over time.
Fifty-eight billion dollars. That’s what the Department of War just awarded Lockheed Martin for PAC-3 interceptors, the missiles that have been knocking Iranian ballistic missiles out of the sky for the past five months. It’s one of the largest munitions awards in U.S. history.
US equity market leadership underwent a rotation in July, with previous leaders turning into laggards and vice versa.
With earnings season entering its final peak week, investors will be focused on results from restaurant names such as CAVA Group (CAVA), Jack in the Box (JACK), Red Robin Group (RRGB) and Brinker International (EAT).
For three years, clients have asked the same question: “How do I get into SpaceX or OpenAI before the IPO?” That question just changed tense.
Given how uncertain advisors and investors are over the Federal Reserve’s plans for handling interest rates, the July jobs report was perhaps watched even more closely than normal. That being said, the latest report may not have inspired much confidence.
