Real Estate

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.

Asset owners want private-market exposure, but liquidity remains their biggest hurdle, an opening advisors can meet with public alternatives.

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.

I do not know whether quantum computing is in that kind of window right now. Nobody does, and I am suspicious of anyone who claims certainty in either direction. What I can say is that the pattern-matching is uncomfortably familiar.

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

Since ChatGPT was first released in 2022, the artificial intelligence (AI) trade has dominated US equity markets. Gains have been driven by three interrelated forces: enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, growing concentration in the largest technology companies and strong price momentum.

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.

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.

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.

Looking ahead, markets are priced for additional hikes. And our base case is that the FOMC will likely deliver one or two more 25-bp rate hikes through this year and into early next. However, looking further out, anticipating appropriate Fed policy through a financial-conditions-targeting framework has its own limitations. Hence, a neutral rate anchor is still useful.

The appeal of a portfolio of individual bonds for many investors are the known qualities that they can provide: a known stream of cash flow, a known redemption value, a known redemption date, and a known yield; all of which are locked in at the time of purchase.

LPL Research analyzes S&P 500 margin expansion, assessing how much is structural versus cyclical and what that means for future earnings forecasts.

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.

For many advisory firms, portfolio management creates a practical tension. Standardized models can simplify implementation and support scale, yet they may not reflect a firm's investment philosophy, tax realities, legacy holdings or preferred managers. Building every portfolio internally preserves control, but it also demands time, systems and ongoing investment oversight.

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.

Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Kevin Warsh has established his hawkish credentials. Franklin Templeton CIO, Sonal Desai sees scope for further yield curve steepening and a range of selective opportunities, based on capturing income and focusing on quality rather than counting on lower rates or tighter spreads.

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.

Chris Galipeau and Taylor Topousis discuss high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

A popular narrative for the rise in bond yields over the past few months is that the debt-funded AI capital expenditure cycle is crowding out the Treasury market. The crowding-out argument can appear compelling: AI companies are expected to continue to issue unprecedented amounts of debt at a time when Treasury supply remains elevated. Because both ultimately draw from the same pool of investor capital, yields must rise to clear the market.

GMO has posted a new 7-Year asset class forecast for August 31, 2026.

This week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision was largely in line with expectations. While many market participants and Federal Reserve (Fed) members anticipated another rate increase later this year, we remained in the camp that viewed the move as likely the last increase before the Fed adopted a wait-and-see approach, allowing geopolitical developments to stabilize and recent inflationary base effects related to the US-Iran war to fade.

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.

Advisors outsourcing at least 20% of assets reported saving 9.1 hours per week, or approximately 473 hours annually. WisdomTree research found 90% of investors welcomed third-party model portfolios, suggesting clients may be more comfortable with outside expertise than advisors expect.

We are never going to get rid of the FOMC for political and practical reasons. For those of us who would like to see the market set rates without an FOMC intervening, this is as good as it’s going to get.

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.

Open any market commentary today and the conversation is dominated by giants. Mega-cap technology companies command outsized shares of major indexes, and the private markets tell a similar story, as we watch companies increasingly staying private well past the point where they once would have gone public.

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a stunning, and perhaps uncontrolled speed. Last week, Evan Hubinger, the Alignment Science Lead at the AI company Anthropic estimated a greater than 10% chance that AI could eliminate humanity within a decade. Jakub Pachocki, Chief Scientist at OpenAI, recently observed 'The core problem in AI research is that of alignment - getting the AI to ‘try to do the right thing’ by human standards…

Stocks have recently hit new highs, supported by strong earnings growth, but the bond market is sending a more cautious signal.

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.

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.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to raise rates by a quarter-point, bringing the new fed funds trading range to 3.75%–4.00%. The money and bond markets had been pricing in a potential rate hike at this gathering, and Warsh & Co. ultimately determined that such a move was warranted. That said, the ‘rate hike’ story does not end here.

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.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for August was generally in line with expectations. However, a slightly hotter-than-expected core CPI reading buoyed expectations of a rate hike at the Federal Reserve meeting in September.

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.

AI-driven healthcare innovation is creating strong investment opportunities by improving efficiency, expanding access, and delivering better patient outcomes.

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.

Is the AI infrastructure buildout one big trade in credit? So far, the market seems to think so. Spread dispersion – differences in borrowing costs among issuers – across the financing chain remains limited despite sharp differences in underlying risk. This contrasts with equities, where performance has become increasingly differentiated.

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.

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.

Investors can’t get enough of ultrashort bonds. Driven by concerns over high equity valuations and rate volatility as the U.S. Federal Reserve mulls over the direction of interest rates, capital preservation strategies appear to be the elixir to help ease uncertainty. As such, ultrashort bonds have been seeing greater demand as traditional safe havens fall short on yield or carry unwanted duration risk.

There is so much going on, it is hard to know where to begin. The data is all over the place. I had a long and epic dinner in New York with David Bahnsen, Rene Aninao, and Brian Syztel which has my mind buzzing with ideas and new concepts.

History suggests slower Fed tightening tends to support stronger market returns and firmer economic growth, while faster hikes typically deepen drawdowns.

Portfolio Managers Jonathan Coleman and Aaron Schaechterle outline why they believe momentum in small-cap stocks relative to large caps can continue, highlighting favorable earnings growth prospects, appealing relative valuations, and other structural tailwinds.

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%.

With so much attention focused on what the Federal Reserve (Fed) might do at its policy meeting next week, it’s a good time to look back at history to get a sense of how stocks might respond should the Fed hike rates as the market (barely) expects.

Benchmark-Free has been a flagship strategy for half of GMO's history. As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2027, Ben Inker reflects on our first 25 years of Benchmark-Free investing.

For much of the past decade and a half, investors saw little reason to favor bonds over equities. Yields were low and returns were muted, especially in passive strategies. Equities seemed to offer a much clearer path to long-term capital appreciation. For many investors, bonds were, at best, ballast: a dull but generally stable component of a broader portfolio. Then the experience of 2022 had investors questioning even that view, as areas of high quality fixed income generated equity-like losses that eroded much of the prior decade’s real return.

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.

When markets become volatile, many investors gravitate toward assets they perceive as “safe.” Cash, certificates of deposit (CDs), money market funds, U.S. Treasury securities, and high-quality bonds can all play an important role in a diversified portfolio. But “safe” doesn’t necessarily mean “risk-free.”