Diversity & Inclusion

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.

High-net-worth investors and institutional managers continue to allocate heavily to muni bond ETFs to lock in attractive yields.

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.

New clients frequently arrive with portfolios that have been built over many years, often across multiple market cycles and advisory relationships. While these portfolios may have generated strong returns, they can also contain concentrated positions, legacy holdings or allocations that no longer align with the client's objectives.

Kevin Warsh considers fewer Fed meetings, the Fed holds rates steady, the Senate moves to avert a shutdown, a new BLS chief is confirmed, and midterms near.

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.

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.

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.

Discover Aberdeen’s closed-end funds (CEFs) for high yields, illiquid assets, long-term investments, and resilient income for 2026.

Emerging markets are quietly having their best decade in a generation, and most global investors still don’t own enough. The case for investing in emerging markets today is not the tired characterisation of a high growth, low valuation opportunity.

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.

The U.S. energy sector has outperformed in 2026, driven primarily by geopolitical-related supply fears, elevated oil prices, and rising demand from the AI infrastructure buildout. While broad energy funds have also surged, investors can potentially enhance exposure by targeting specific segments of the energy market.

Electricity demand is surging all over the world. To meet this demand, vast investments in power generation need to be made, and grids need to be overhauled and expanded. Ramping up electricity generation and delivery is extremely expensive, and electricity prices have spiked up throughout much of the developed world.

Inflation remains above target, especially the Federal Reserve’s preferred core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation measure, as choppy data have challenged the view that disinflation will proceed smoothly.

Halfway through the year, the U.S. equity market performance is broadening. That said, market concentration remains incredibly high, while equity and bond correlations sit in positive territory — conditions that scream a call for diversification. Investors are heeding that call, many with alternatives ETFs.

As the forces shaping bond markets become more local, the opportunities become more global. From energy stress to fiscal policy to advances in AI, today’s defining market forces are likely to play out differently across regions, sectors and issuers.

Private debt is increasingly valued for its potential to help insurers operationally and strategically: support liability matching, improve portfolio design, diversify underlying exposures and, when underwritten well, add resilient excess return.

This paper presents the case for emerging market (EM) allocations within the broader context of global investment strategy. In a period of heightened geopolitical complexity—spanning the 2026 US-Iran conflict, challenges to globalization, political transformation and ongoing great power competition—we believe the case for engaged emerging markets exposure has never been stronger.

Historically, many in the pension industry viewed funding above the "plan termination level" as having little incremental value. Once a plan reached “plan termination level”, thought of as roughly 110% funding, conventional wisdom suggested additional surplus had little economic value because it is effectively "trapped capital."

After a wild last 12 months in a technology stock boom – and more recent volatility – the question du jour, in our view, is not whether AI is transformative.

Fixed income experts James Donahue, John Lloyd and Mike Talaga revisit the levels of supply related to the AI buildout and explain why they remain cautious towards investment grade tech issuance.

For investors who have been tracking this space, the signing is a continuation of a policy architecture that has been assembling with surprising speed.

Chief Investment Officer Sean Taylor reviews a strong second quarter for emerging markets, where AI and reindustrialization were key drivers of investor returns.

Investors are often drawn to healthcare for its innovation and long-term growth potential. Yet in practice, allocations are often concentrated in a few large pharmaceutical companies, whether through direct stock picking or index weightings.

As economies become increasingly electrified and power demand grows, the transmission, storage and infrastructure needed to support reliable electricity delivery are evolving. In our view, these trends are creating attractive opportunities across the technologies and infrastructure that underpin the energy transition.

For much of the last decade, investing felt relatively one dimensional. Falling inflation, near zero interest rates and abundant liquidity rewarded long duration growth assets, compressed dispersion and made passive exposure difficult to challenge.

On June 30, Defiance debuted the new Defiance KSM TipRanks Analyst ETF (RANK). With an expense ratio of 60 basis points, this fund aims to leverage Wall Street’s highest-rated analyst consensus data to capitalize on U.S. market momentum.

Royce Investment Partners: In this second quarter recap, Francis Gannon discusses how US small-and micro-cap stocks have continued to lead the US equity market in a robust period for equities.

ETF Database saw a massive surge in readers this past June. The most popular pieces focused on everything from breaking SpaceX IPO news to the technical mechanics behind top-performing ETFs.

The S&P 500’s recent advance is masking a more dynamic story for US equity investors. Market winners remain confined to a tight clique of AI-related technology stocks, yet more companies are showing attractive fundamentals. For active equity investors, we believe this points to a more diversified and differentiated opportunity set ahead.

Bypass the headaches of individual closed-end funds. Discover how Invesco's PCEF bundles over 100 CEFs to capture June's debt rallies.

The war in Iran has delivered an oil shock into a bond market that had not fully shaken inflation pressures. Higher energy prices have revived concerns about the path of inflation just as central banks were edging toward rate cuts, forcing a reassessment of what investors require to hold long-term bonds. That reassessment is now playing out in higher long-term yields and steeper yield curves globally.

At VettaFi, we’ve been talking a lot about bottlenecks as a concept. Some of the brightest equity market opportunities for capital growth are tied to bottlenecks in a supply chain-context.

Markets weathered turmoil in the first half, helped by solid earnings with signs of broadening beyond a few AI beneficiaries. If the war in Iran eases, oil prices could normalize, reducing inflation pressure. Still, growth, inflation and policy risks may be underestimated.

Insurance investors face a broader opportunity set than ever across public and private credit—from corporate lending to asset-based finance. But those investments come in many forms. In our view, a all-encompassing approach can better assess relative value, pivot to new avenues and align investments with portfolio, liability and regulatory considerations.

Ten years ago this week, the world watched the United Kingdom vote to walk away from the European Union. While the political class was clutching its pearls and every talking head on television was promising Armageddon by Christmas, I told you something different.

The dominant theme this week was a tug of war between improving macroeconomic conditions and weakness in parts of the technology sector.

Model portfolios have helped many advisors solve for scale. The next challenge is more nuanced: how do advisors keep that scale while delivering more personalization, tax awareness and differentiated value to clients?

As the market continues to broaden in 2026, a balanced approach matters more than ever.

On May 5, 2026, researchers from Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM successfully simulated a 12,635-atom protein complex using quantum-centric supercomputing, a problem relevant to drug discovery that classical computing could not match at comparable speed and accuracy.

The corporate world is awash in capex. Leaders in the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into tech projects, and uncertainty surrounds their profitability. For now, the market rewards this use of cash, but it’s not without pitfalls. Share buybacks, for instance, are seen as a net loser, while the S&P 500^® dividend yield has sunk toward all-time lows near 1%.

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. and Iran have reached a peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply normally flows.

The emergence of leveraged ETFs tied to Space Exploration Technologies (more familiarly known as SpaceX) points to strong investor demand for concentrated exposure.

Reserve managers' decisions on EM debt go beyond investment potential—they must also weigh considerations such as governance, resources and liquidity.

Green life, sustainable mutual funds, buying local, the “buy nothing” movement, plastic-free living, eco-fashion, electric vehicles. You’ve seen all the headlines about reducing your impact on the planet, but you may be wondering how you can best implement a greener workplace in a way that considers the needs of your business, employees and clients or customers.

The questions in our inbox have gotten louder lately. Are we reliving 1999? Has the tech rally reached the dangerous ‘Euphoria’ bubble stage we first discussed in our 2026 Outlook? And is the recent surge in initial public offerings (IPOs)— led by SpaceX on Friday— diluting existing holders just as valuations were already drawing scrutiny?

For insurers, fixed income remains the foundation of portfolio strategy. But while public markets have long provided unrivaled sourcing capacity and liquidity, the definition of “core” is widening.

Markets returned to positive territory for the week, with the turning point occurring Thursday after the announcement of a potential deal with Iran that would extend the ceasefire while reopening the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since February 27.