Energy

The S&P 500 has remained remarkably resilient in the face of mounting macro headwinds. Despite oil prices topping $100 per barrel, 10-year Treasury yields climbing above 5%, and a renewed shift toward tighter monetary policy, the index continues to hover near record levels.

Second-quarter earnings were strong, particularly in technology, but crowded ownership often determined whether good news was rewarded. The selloff in semiconductors arguably reflected crowded positioning and concerns surrounding the sustainability of the earnings boom. The net result: multiples compressed while earnings revisions held up.

The Treasury Department will buy back another $6 billion in long-term Treasuries today (Thursday, Sept. 24) as it continues efforts to tamp down rising yields.

In September 2024 and June 2025, I wrote memos that were critical of governments’ attempts to override the laws of economics, based on my conviction that trying to do so is likely to prove ineffective and potentially harmful.

This week, there are a few things that we need to pay attention to: the large move in interest rates and what it means (and more importantly, what it doesn’t mean!); and the constant barrage of doom and gloom on energy and AI. Let’s jump in.

Creating significant wealth requires concentration of capital, attention, risk, and decision-making.

Last week we looked at the Federal Reserve’s inflation problem. This week, let’s look at the other half of its mandate: maximum employment.

This year has presented no shortage of challenges for investors. Geopolitical conflict, trade tensions, rising energy prices, shifting interest rate expectations and an increasingly active political backdrop have each taken turns dominating the headlines. Yet despite these obstacles, the economy has continued to expand, corporate profits have marched higher and markets have climbed one wall of worry after another.

Doshi said gold holding $4,000 during the correction and later rallying to $4,700 before last week's Fed rate hike strengthened his conviction that the broader gold bull market remains intact despite continued headwinds from the Iran war oil shock.

The rise in Treasury yields has prompted a familiar set of explanations. Some investors have pointed to government borrowing and persistent inflation, while others have focused on the possibility that artificial intelligence will lift economic growth and interest rates.

It’s really starting to feel like autumn now. August PPI, CPI, and Retail Sales are in the books, the September FOMC meeting is out of the way, and we can now look forward to Jobs Week on Wall Street. Football is in full swing, and earnings season begins before you know it, with Pepsi (PEP) posting results on Thursday, October 8, followed the next morning by Delta (DAL).

Global growth remains resilient but uneven. In the United States, expansion is supported by private demand, a stable labor market and AI investment, while Europe and Japan continue to show surprising strength despite ongoing risks.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are developing faster than investors anticipated just a few years ago, fueling a popular narrative that AI will trigger widespread job cuts. Yet there’s little evidence to back this view. Instead, we find that AI is changing hiring patterns, altering skill requirements and shifting the mix of work performed within firms.

While the AI trade absorbs nearly all available investor attention, owning energy covers our absolute risk while creating the risk budget to cover the AI relative risk more effectively.

The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) is more than a regional milestone — it is a shift in competition among U.S. capital markets. After months of anticipation, the TXSE reached a major landmark last week as Texas Capital’s TXS and OILT ETFs became its first primary listings, followed a day later by PWRX as the first new ETF to launch on the exchange.

It wasn’t that long ago that Kevin Warsh’s leading critics were saying his biggest problem was that he wasn’t “independent” from President Trump, that if Trump told him to “jump” he’d ask “how high?” Or, in this particular situation, “how low should interest rates go?”

The week began with calls for a potential slowdown in AI spending amid growing safety concerns and included a midweek Fed rate hike for the first time since 2023. The S&P 500 finished slightly lower for the second week in a row despite continuing signs that economic growth is strong. Shorter-term bond yields pushed higher as investors priced in the potential for additional rate hikes, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Early this week, I was in Los Angeles at the All-In Summit along with about 4,000 others, including tech investors, money managers and entrepreneurs. The ticket wasn’t cheap, but it was well worth it.

As summer officially gives way to fall on September 22, it's not just the weather that's changing. The global monetary policy landscape is shifting as well. After spending much of the past two years focused on supporting growth, central banks have increasingly turned their attention back to inflation, especially with oil prices climbing back above $100 per barrel.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates this week, in part to reset consumer expectations on inflation. Their work is likely not done, as there is a negative surprise coming for many consumers, especially in rural America. Winter is coming, and that means the return of home heating bills. Depending on how you heat your home, your bills could be much higher this winter.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) made something clear this week that markets had been reluctant to accept. Apparently, the easing cycle isn't paused, it's over for now.

For decades, equity investors have relied on a foundational promise from Corporate America: the continuous return of surplus cash. Dividends and share repurchases represent the two primary ways by which companies deliver tangible value back to shareholders. Yet as we navigate the final stretch of the third quarter of 2026, both channels are signaling a distinct shift toward restraint.

The new investment case for global power, security and affordability. The phrase “energy transition” has served as a useful political and cultural shorthand, but it has become a misleading framework for capital allocation. Franklin Templeton Institute explodes new opportunities for investors—and where shifts in thinking may be needed.

One of my favorite movies was the Coen Brothers movie, No Country for Old Men. It is the story of a guy who makes off with $2 million stolen by someone else. The ‘someone else’ is a super mean guy with a powerful blow gun. They are both being chased by a policeman. It was the best picture of 2007 and won four Oscars.

The shortened Labor Day trading week brought little cheer for stock and bond investors. Coming off a long weekend that saw increased hostilities between the US and Iran, oil prices pushed higher, topping $100/barrel. Gas and diesel prices also spiked: diesel hit an all-time high of $6/gallon, while regular gas jumped to a Labor Day record of $4.15/gallon.

The Federal Reserve today unanimously decided to raise its short-term interest rate target by a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.75 – 4.00%, the first hike since mid-2023. The Fed made two key changes to the statement announcing its decision, declaring that “domestic spending has been resilient” and the rate hike “will support a timelier return” to the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

Last December we published Riding the Wave: The Anatomy of Booms & Bubbles. In it, we argued that the AI spending boom would continue through 2026 without tipping into ‘bubble’ mania, and that the right posture was to stay overweight stocks while favoring US assets. Nine months on, we think that call has aged well.

With so much attention focused on what the Fed might do at its policy meeting this week, it’s a good time to look back at history to get a sense of how stocks might respond should policymakers hike rates as the market now expects. LPL Research had been characterizing the rate decision as a coin flip until Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s hawkish comments at the Jackson Hole meeting and the strong August jobs report.

From the 2020 pandemic to today’s oil shocks, we’re often reminded in recent years that inflation can flare up unexpectedly. We’ve also likely entered an era in which higher inflation may linger for some time. As a result, bond-heavy and income-oriented investors may need to shore up their inflation defense, which we think should combine strategic positioning with tactical maneuvering.

The August employment report was much stronger than expected and reinforces my view that the U.S. economy remains remarkably resilient. Payrolls increased by 162,000, above every estimate, while revisions added another 55,000 jobs to the previous two months.

A week of rising oil prices and higher interest rates sent stocks lower across the board as investors increasingly priced in the likelihood that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will begin a rate-hiking cycle at its September 16 meeting. Following the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, futures markets implied an 88 percent probability that the Fed will, or at least should, raise rates at next week's meeting.

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

Last week, the refining margin on European gasoil, the benchmark that sets the price of diesel and heating oil across much of the world, closed at roughly $94 a barrel over Brent crude, according to Bloomberg data. That figure is normally somewhere between $12 and $18.

As policymakers adapt to new leadership, navigate a challenging geopolitical backdrop and contend with meaningful internal debate over the path of interest rates, the stakes remain high. Below, we discuss what to expect from next week’s Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting and provide perspective on the recent rise of Treasury yields to multi-year highs.

Every few months, a new essay declares that the US debt trap has finally sprung. The latest one making the rounds from The Economist is well written and genuinely unsettling. It argues that Washington has borrowed so recklessly that the Federal Reserve no longer dares to raise interest rates. Doing so, the piece warns, would detonate the whole structure and send financing costs spiraling out of control.

Equity markets generally moved lower as rising yields and energy prices created a more challenging backdrop. Higher yields can be particularly difficult for long-duration equities, where a greater share of expected cash flows sits further into the future.

Occasionally, we are confronted with decisions where there are no easy options. The prevailing circumstances bound our choices, and we may face criticism no matter what we do. Collectively, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) finds itself in just such a situation as it prepares for its upcoming meeting.

Don't let September's macro headline noise fool you. Today’s economic backdrop won’t likely trigger a broad market freeze like 2022, but there will be winners and losers. Cash-rich mega-caps, AI infrastructure plays, and scaled market leaders (the SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI tier) command their own gravity.

U.S. equities were little changed on the week – the S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent, the NASDAQ gained 0.4 per cent, and the Russell 2000 added 0.12 per cent – but those modest moves masked a far more turbulent week in the global rates markets.

2026 began with 10-year Treasuries right around 4%, which many viewed as a comfortable place. The comfort came from some simple math—2 plus 2 equals 4. The long-term real yield on the 10-year Treasury was around 2% and the Fed’s inflation target is 2%.

The August employment report was much stronger than expected and reinforces my view that the U.S. economy remains remarkably resilient. Payrolls increased by 162,000, above every estimate, while revisions added another 55,000 jobs to the previous two months. The workweek increased by one-tenth of an hour, the household survey was extremely strong, and the participation rate finally moved higher.

Brent crude oil rose above $100 a barrel for the first time since July, while the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crossed $95, with varying impacts on energy ETFs. The price surge followed escalation in the Middle East conflict, including U.S. military strikes on five Iranian oil tankers and Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities.