Artificial Intelligence

All told, global equities are near all-time highs, despite the sharp June-July semiconductor drawdown. Fundamentally, an eye-popping 50% Q2 SPX earnings growth rate fuels the rally. Of course, it has been a perfect storm of sorts for domestic large-cap profitability. ​

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.

Equities opened the week higher after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled on Monday morning that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached within a day or two.

Discover the top ETF launches of summer 2026, including new funds from iShares, Amplify, and Defiance targeting crypto, AI, and core equity.

The market was jolted by a much weaker-than-expected employment report, sending Treasury yields sharply lower as investors quickly reduced the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike. At first glance, the payroll number looked alarming, particularly when combined with sizable downward revisions to prior months and unexpectedly soft wage growth.

Stocks moved higher as stronger economic data, solid corporate earnings and easing geopolitical concerns helped support investor optimism.

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.

Earnings drive market corrections. That’s the finding, and the next serious decline won’t arrive with a headline about capital spending or the deficit but will begin exactly where all eight of the others began, in the profit cycle, surfacing in credit spreads and revision breadth well before it reaches any earnings report you can actually read.

Despite spending much of the past three months moving sideways, the S&P 500 broke out to the upside this week, notching its 25th record high of the year. While leadership has shifted beneath the surface, one constant has been the strength of corporate earnings.

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.

Today’s equity markets are arguably the most concentrated, interconnected and exposed to correlated risks in the modern era. In this fragile environment, we believe investors need more than just exposure to stocks that have driven recent market returns. Disciplined stock selection and clear risk objectives are essential—as well as conviction in what not to own.

US equity market leadership underwent a rotation in July, with previous leaders turning into laggards and vice versa.

We provide research and advice on asset allocation, the selection and weighting of various investment categories. Subject to internal review and governance, our recommendations guide the investment decisions in our family of mutual funds and institutional client portfolios.

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.

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

The AI capital expenditure cycle remains solidly on track to eclipse the telecom boom of the late 1990s and become the largest investment cycle since the railway buildout of the 19th century in inflation-adjusted terms. T

Fixed income markets continue to adjust to an evolving policy backdrop following last week’s Federal Reserve meeting.

While long-term interest rates have been trending higher driven by a combination of persistent inflation, Fed uncertainty and geopolitical conflict, earnings growth this year has been very strong. If the trend continues, earnings could continue to help equity markets outpace rising interest rate and inflation risks.

The AI trade has faced renewed volatility as investors question AI spending and current valuations. Semiconductor stocks and related areas — including memory, networking, photonics, and chip equipment—have all been caught in the pullback.

Most conversations about artificial intelligence in wealth management begin with efficiency. The larger opportunity is using AI to build a different kind of advisory business: one that provides “growth alpha”. Harnessed smartly, AI has the potential to create capacity for the activities that actually drive organic growth.

There is no one-size-fits-all individual investment strategy. We all have different needs. Once I decided I needed a portfolio that would work for today, I became convinced that a dividend growth portfolio should be the core of my long-term investment strategy. Not an addition, but the core.

Two things are worth considering that will dramatically impact the stats moving forward, and neither of them existed as a factor a generation ago. Alternatives to a four-year degree are getting more government support too. Workforce Pell Grants, once reserved for traditional colleges, now extend to short-term job-training programs.

US 10-year Treasury yields have climbed roughly 50-basis points since the start of 2026. This is not an inflation scare. Despite the sharp rise in energy prices following the outbreak of war with Iran, market-based measures of medium-term inflation expectations have drifted lower.

The S&P 500 was flat in July 2026 as semiconductors fell 29%, energy gained nearly 13% on higher oil, and long-term Treasury yields reached their highest levels since 2007.

Investors remain cautious despite bullish positioning, as rotations curb speculation while record margin debt and high equity allocations raise longer-term risks.

As many of you know, our team at Smead Capital Management has studied the thinking and investment careers of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. In today’s Go-Go artificial intelligence-dominated stock market, we’d like to walk you through the concept of the Circle of Competence.

In this article, Russ Koesterich explains how the recent market rotation has pressured tech stocks while creating an attractive long-term buying opportunity.

Investors are warming to systematic processes in bond markets. In this new approach, a dynamic multifactor process drives the investment decisions, using predictive factors with demonstrable links to outperformance.

Discover why higher Treasury yields, strong ETF demand, and active management are creating new opportunities in muni bonds for advisors.

Reflecting on the first half of 2026 provides a clear roadmap to strategize for the remainder of the year. Before that can occur, however, it’s imperative to check the pulse on the current state of the market and posit what may happen next.

In the span of a few weeks, a new college student takes on loan debt, gets their first credit card offer, and starts managing daily expenses on their own. They're buying groceries, splitting costs with roommates, saying yes to things they probably can't afford yet. No other period of life throws that many financial decisions at someone with that little experience.

On Wednesday afternoon the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for a fifth consecutive meeting, and stocks buckled: the Dow fell 1,153 points, its worst day since April of last year.

Only about 20–25% of financial Advisors have a formal, documented succession plan, despite the fact that more than a third, managing roughly 40% of industry assets, plan to retire within the next decade. That gap is more than a retirement problem.

By repeatedly describing standard inflation gauges as “imperfect measures of underlying inflation,” Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has pushed a long-running technical debate into the center of the policy conversation: What is the best way to measure underlying inflation?

This year has offered a vivid reminder of how quickly market conditions can shift—from policy uncertainty, to a sharp geopolitical shock, to a focus on an AI-driven rally. As the themes of the day changed, the case for an overlay persisted.

July 2026 was a flattish month for markets. The S&P 500 index was down slightly. Value did well, while momentum did poorly. Smallcaps, midcaps, and emerging markets, all of which have been the year’s best performers, had a bad month. Commodities, driven largely by oil prices, led the pack, as the fragile ceasefire in Iran failed to hold.

The greatest danger posed by AI is not the technology itself, but the race to deploy it before we know how to control it. The recent Hugging Face breach shows how seemingly minor human errors can be amplified by AI, underscoring the risks of treating safety as an afterthought.

The numbers are in, and the story of ETF adoption goes on undeterred. In July, ETFs saw their third month this year of asset inflows exceeding $190 billion. If 2025 was a record-breaking year for ETF asset creation, 2026 is promising to upstage it.

Many of the most critical components of AI infrastructure are produced by a small and increasingly consolidated group of highly specialized companies.

While the Fed left interest rates unchanged, Treasury yields moved notably higher throughout the week, with 30-year yields eclipsing their highest levels in nearly two decades as investors reassessed the outlook for inflation and monetary policy. The S&P 500 ended 1.06 percent higher to close a volatile week of trading, recovering from a mid-week sell-off.

LPL Research highlights strong corporate earnings, AI-driven growth, and a favorable equity outlook while monitoring inflation, oil prices, and risks.

July was an eventful month for both domestic and international markets, with US-Iran tensions flaring up, increasing energy prices and changing investor expectations for the Federal Reserve (Fed) cutting rates.

The financial markets expected the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates unchanged at its recent meeting, and it did just that. However, three members of the FOMC dissented, voting to raise rates by 25bps in an effort to combat stubbornly high inflation.

The Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price inflation is set for a methodological update, as the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is expected to implement revisions to its price index for Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) as early as September.

This summer has offered little opportunity for a lull. Investors have contended with Federal Reserve (Fed) policy uncertainty, renewed tariff-driven inflation concerns, escalating tensions in the Middle East, questions about the durability of AI-related investment spending and a packed earnings calendar.

The market spent much of this week trying to interpret what Fed Chair Kevin Warsh meant rather than what he actually said and that was entirely avoidable. The decision to leave rates unchanged was defensible. What wasn’t defensible was Warsh’s lack of explanation.

Just as important, the dollar and U.S. Treasuries have continued to behave like hedges in periods of broader market unrest (driven by geopolitics or other conditions). When risk assets come under pressure, Treasury yields have generally fallen, or the dollar has tended to find support.