Insurance & Annuities

The Federal Reserve hiked rates, and we expect there are more to come. With a hawkish Fed and a resilient economy, long-term yields may stay elevated.

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).

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.

Creating an estate plan is an important step, but it is only one piece of your financial life. If your estate documents, investment strategy, retirement plan, tax strategy, and beneficiary designations are not working together, even a well-crafted estate plan may not achieve the outcome you intended. Coordinating these elements may help support your wealth is transferred efficiently, your wishes are honored, and unnecessary complications are reduced.

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.

I typically avoid business books when I am on vacation. But I made an exception during our sojourn last month for Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 1929. Nearly a century after the Great Crash, that era is still being studied for lessons that might be relevant in the current day. The potential for financial instability is ever-present.

The Federal Reserve increased rates by 25 basis points this week, a remarkable turnaround with major implications for portfolios of all kinds; one underexamined impacted area may be annuities.

The K-shaped economy is real, and it is old. What changed isn’t the shape of the economy; it’s just that the media found a narrative that gets lots of clicks and views, and we let headlines do our thinking for us.

The U.S. Federal Reserve delivered on consensus expectations by raising its policy rate by 25 basis points (bps) at its September meeting.

When it comes to personal finance, conventional wisdom says the best way to live is debt-free. There are many important reasons why this is tried and true, but for high-net-worth individuals, lending can be an optimal way to access cash in the near term without sacrificing long-term gains on your assets.

According to new data from J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s 2026 Defined Contribution Plan Participant Survey, 73% of savers said they wish they could hit an “easy button” and fully delegate their wealth management.

For many investors, a 401(k) is simply a retirement savings account. For high-net-worth families, however, it can become a sophisticated planning tool that supports tax efficiency, wealth accumulation, and long-term legacy objectives.

One or a few high-performing stocks can provide a big boost to portfolio values. But they’re hard to come by and often struggle to maintain their momentum over time. Because these stocks increase portfolio concentration, investors must balance the risk of overexposure against the tax cost of diversifying. A thoughtful, tax-aware plan may help bring portfolios back in line.

In this article, Russ Koesterich argues that momentum remains supported by strong earnings growth, making the factor attractive despite market risks.

LPL Research analyzes rising U.S. debt, Treasury yields, and fiscal trends, highlighting implications for markets and investors.

Target-date funds have become a staple qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) because they help participants invest appropriately without requiring them to act. But as retirement nears, income needs become more pressing and financial situations diverge—a situation dynamic defaults seek to address.

Chapter 3 of this series ended with a simple question. If the math so plainly says avoid big losses, respect valuations, and mind your timing, why does so much of the industry preach the opposite?

If you look deeply into a speculative bubble, you can already see the collapse. If you look deeply into a market collapse, you can already see the bull market. The road up and the road down are the very same road. Even so, aside from knowing that our investment position presently requires a safety net regardless of shorter-term conditions – we have utterly no opinions, preferences, or scenarios about the market outlook even a month or a quarter from now.

What if you could capture the potential gains of the S&P 500, but limit your losses if the market goes down? Or earn above-market income given the right stock market conditions? How about gaining some market exposure while protecting principal with FDIC insurance, up to applicable limits?

In this article, Russ Koesterich explains how strong fundamentals have supported stocks, but rising bond yields may soon begin to challenge market valuations.

Most people experience transportation through roads and airports. Traffic jams on highways and delays at major hubs are familiar frustrations. But the world's most important transportation network lies largely out of sight.

In a week that saw NVIDIA, the largest company in the world, report strong earnings that sent its stock sharply higher and reinvigorated optimism in the artificial intelligence (AI) trade, fiscal and monetary policymakers continued to provide the biggest headlines.

Equity markets stumbled this week despite an economic backdrop that continues to show signs of broadening. While concerns about consumer strain are mounting, those worries have so far been offset by ongoing strength in business investment, particularly spending tied to artificial intelligence (AI).

It’s been a busy year in the game of ETF landgrab. And a colorful one, too. From exciting M&A deals to some splashy building-from-scratch newcomers, we are seeing a little bit of everything as asset managers look to build scale and capture the impressive growth momentum of the ETF market.

In the first part of this series, I promised that the next enemy we would face is the one you cannot fire, mute, or unfollow, because it is “You.” You can learn every valuation metric ever invented, memorize the two questions that decide everything, and still hand most of your returns back to the market for one simple reason.

In the early weeks of Kevin Warsh’s start as chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, there has been renewed focus on how “underlying” inflation should be measured to guide decisions on interest rates.

The truth about the runaway costs of healthcare turns out to be a little more complex than any single source we've named. Hospitals, insurers, private equity, administrators, pharmaceutical companies… pull the thread on any one and we land in the same overextended, bloated, extractive system.

Equity markets continued to push higher this week, with nearly all major indices in the U.S. and abroad closing near or at record highs. While longer-term interest rates continued to drift higher, shorter-term interest rates moved lower as investors pushed out both the timing and magnitude of potential Federal Reserve rate hikes.

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.

So let’s do the work the timeline skips, starting with separating what actually happened from what the narrative needs you to believe. Then we’ll ask the only question that pays: should any of it change how you’re positioned this morning?

We are in a debt trap. Our political process can’t reduce spending and/or raise taxes enough to balance the budget, so the debt grows and grows. This has to end, and I think it will do so in the event I’ve called The Great Reset.

Many things in healthcare really have gotten dramatically better and cheaper. Sequencing a human genome, for instance, cost close to a billion dollars in 2003. Today, under $1,500, making CRISPR therapy available to treat a plethora of diseases that once had no cure.

While institutions have embraced private markets for decades, individuals have historically had limited access to these potentially valuable and versatile tools. Tony Davidow from Franklin Tempelton Institute demonstrates that private markets can be potentially valuable sources of growth and income during the accumulation and distribution phases of retirement.

Life rarely stands still, and for families caring for a loved one with special needs, change can introduce both emotional and financial complexity. Marriage, divorce, the loss of a parent, an unexpected inheritance, or shifts in public policy may all significantly impact eligibility for benefits, long-term financial security, and family dynamics.

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. ​

College planning begins long before college. Learn why welcoming a new child is the ideal time to build a strong financial foundation, explore education savings options and prepare for your family’s future.

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

Here are three tips for young investors setting out to build wealth but not sure where to start.

“Sound money,” in its purest form, is money whose supply a government cannot expand at will. Under a gold standard, every dollar is a claim on a fixed weight of gold. You can’t print gold. So the government can’t monetize its deficits, and the money supply grows only as fast as miners pull metal out of the ground, historically around 1.5% a year.

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.

A good financial plan may bring together every aspect of your financial life into a coordinated strategy, providing a clear view of where you are today and helping you prepare for where you want to go. By understanding your complete financial picture, you can make informed decisions that align with your goals, values, and long-term priorities.

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