I will illustrate how a regime-based framework can protect capital when markets deteriorate, while adding value when conditions improve.

Ray Dalio, chairman of Bridgewater Associates, wrote last week that the global economy is heading toward a new stage where markets won’t get the same level of support from the global monetary policy makers. “The directions of policy are reversing,” he noted.

After three disappointing years in the middle of this decade, it's been a smoother course for hedge-fund strategies over the past 12 months. K2 Advisors' Senior Managing Director Brooks Ritchey offers his analysis to explain why he sees some tailwinds ahead.

After a long period of “riding the wave” of central bank liquidity, investors are now confronted with much more difficult decisions. Andrew Lo’s new book, Adapative Markets, provides an excellent framework from which to analyze the current situation, evaluate market risks and prepare for changes.

Should soft commodity prices portend slowing growth and concern investors?

One of the biggest challenges for bond investors today is keeping income flowing without taking too much risk. We think a balanced barbell approach can help.

K2 Advisors seeks to add value through active portfolio management, tactical allocation and diversification across four main hedge strategies: long short equity, relative value, global macro and event driven.

We first published this in 2014, but decided to republish it today given the cover story of Barron’s that reads “The Machine Driven Market,” which intuitively means the era of those machine driven models is nigh. I like this story.

It never fails that when you decide to slip out of the office for a break, the markets will act up. Last week was not an exception to the rule as investor anxiousness continued to cause activity on trading desks. Rising global yields continued to stress risk parity funds and leveraged hedge funds who were positioned for lower interest rates.

The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for June came in at 103.6, down 0.9 from the previous month. The index is at the 93rd percentile in this series. Today's number came in below the Investing.com forecast of 104.4.

Stocks turned in a strong performance in the front half of 2017 despite geopolitical and monetary policy risks. The question, of course, is whether this performance trend can continue in the second half. I believe these two risks will cast an even longer shadow over markets going forward — making concepts such as diversification and risk management even more important for investors’ portfolios.

To a large extent, the U.S. financial crisis was actually made by the Fed… It was ultra-low rates that fueled the search for higher yield that enabled creatively engineered mortgage products (CDOs, CDOs of CDOs, adjustable rate and no-doc mortgages and AAA-rated garbage).

Keeping portfolio construction simple improves performance no matter what type of investment process you use. Our industry is in love with complexity, but complexity is costly to clients.

During the 35 year secular bull market that began in October 1981, there were a number of sharp increases in yields in which bond prices fell. But investors who held on were bailed out by the secular bull market and eventually recovered all the losses and with gains to show for their patience.

An active approach to the complex, fragmented municipal bond market may help investors avoid several common drawbacks of passive strategies.

Russ discusses why momentum, which has thrashed value this year, could struggle in the second half.

Stocks are getting expensive by traditional measures. Russ takes a look at what history tells us about what could happen next.

Equity market peaks (and troughs) are impossible to identify in advance. But this doesn’t mean that equity investments should simply be “set it and forget it.”

In my many conversations with investors and industry peers about factor investing, one topic seems to always come up: factor investing timing. I’ve had recent discussions on this topic with a central bank whose managers need to think about preserving capital and with a more nimble RIA team which explicitly wants to use timing to pursue incremental returns.

Here's an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation? The purchasing power of your investment has increased to $19,240 for an annualized real return of 13.16%.

As growth/momentum begins to wilt under the weight of ever increasing expectations, value should once again attract investor attention.

As outflows hit U.S.-focused equity mutual funds, international and emerging market stock funds are seeing massive inflows, bolstering strong share price performance of overseas markets this year. Despite the investor rush abroad, plenty of upside could remain.

Do you have the stomach to deal with big swings in your holdings? If your investment allocation is stock-heavy, your portfolio will up and down over time. But higher risk can mean higher returns. The smartest investors understand risk and adjust their exposure to stocks accordingly.

I listened to Bob Farrell several times a week. Bob was the chief stock market analyst at Merrill Lynch. Do you remember those old “squawk boxes?” On my desk sat a small speaker box. It was the firm’s way of communicating to the thousands of brokers.

Valid until the market close on July 31, 2017.

The S&P 500 closed June with a monthly gain of 0.48% after a gain of 1.16% in May. All three S&P 500 MAs are signaling "invested" and four of the five Ivy Portfolio ETFs — Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU), iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasury (IEF), and Vanguard REIT Index ETF (VNQ) — are signaling "invested".

The first half of 2017 is shaping up to be unequivocally brutal for value-oriented rebalancing strategies. Wired to avoid pain, we humans know it’s very tempting to ask whether a model or philosophy is broken, especially the moment it dashes expectations.

With the euro up another 50bps today against the USD, we thought it timely to review some fundamental factors that should act to support the longer-term trend higher in the euro.

In August 2016, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) wrote a research note characterizing risk parity as one of the central causes of equity market losses in late 2015. The note had all the hallmarks of a compelling plot line, replete with weapons of mass destruction, billion-dollar bets, and evil villains.

Target Date Funds (TDFs) have transformed retirement investing, but the static approach to the glidepath leaves many investors at risk. A more dynamic strategy is needed, and Glenn Dial, Head of Retirement Strategy in the US with Allianz Global Investors, says it all begins with defining what dynamic investing actually is.