The second quarter was marked with market volatility from geopolitical tensions, the president’s tweets, and “America first” rhetoric.

For our third quarter webinar, we’re pleased to offer a discussion on ‘The Market Implications of Global Disarray’ with Vice Chairman Byron Wien and recently hired Investment Strategist Joe Zidle.

We've updated this series to include this morning's release of the Consumer Price Index as the deflator and the June monthly update. The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $38,228, down 12.4% from 45-plus years ago.

We are coming to the mid-year point for 2018, and the past six months have felt like six years. Markets have experienced a significant uptick in volatility, yet equity investors may not have much to show for all their troubles.

Over the next few years, financial markets could be set for a series of “Rude Awakenings,” as we forecasted in our latest Secular Outlook. The global economy is transitioning out of a post-crisis period characterized by remarkable stability, and the changes ahead could be jarring for investors.

Given that we are in the later stages of this economic cycle, with factors such as increased trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainty at play, we do expect greater volatility may be ahead. But it’s important to remember that experiencing these ups and downs is a normal aspect of our market environment.

Yesterday’s alpha has been unbundled into market capitalization index, factors and alpha-seeking investments. What does this mean for investors? Is active dead? Of course not! But factors can enhance traditional portfolios by considering a third dimension of return.

Let's do some analysis of the Consumer Price Index, the best-known measure of inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) divides all expenditures into eight categories and assigns a relative size to each. The pie chart illustrates the components of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, the CPI-U.

Actions by the U.S. will play an outsized role in the course of global growth. Today we are in the nascent stages of a trade war, with the Trump administration antagonizing important trading partners on three fronts: China, the E.U., and North America.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 2.87%, up from 2.80% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 2.26%, up from the previous month's 2.24% and above the Fed's 2% PCE target.

This morning's seasonally adjusted 214K new claims, up 18K from the previous week's revised figure, was below the Investing.com forecast of 226K

The 20th century Baby Boom was one of the most powerful demographic events in the history of the United States. We've created a series of charts to show seven age cohorts of the employed population from 1948 to the present. What we see is essentially the "Boomer Bulge" in employment across time. Those born between 1946 and 1964 continue to grow the employment of the two oldest cohorts. It will be interesting to see how long those two trends continue.

Halfway through 2018, the S&P 500^® Index, which represents the broad U.S. stock market, had gained 2.7%—a relatively modest return that belied the drama of the first six months of the year.

Millennials make up the largest percentage of our population today, yet have seen some of the lowest labor force participation growth and highest unemployment out of all age groups since the turn of the century. This has larger implications when coupled with slow wage growth, high home prices, and mounting student debt.

In July of 2015, CNN Money featured an article with the optimistic and intriguing title "More American teens are getting jobs. That's good for everyone." After reading the article, we revised one of our monthly charts on Labor Force Participation to include the age 16-19 cohort -- one we elsewhere combine with the 20-24 year-olds. We've updated this article to include the latest employment data.

The “yield curve” has been a popular topic of discussion this year. The yield curve is the spread between interest rates at various maturities, typically among Treasury securities.

The Northern Trust economics team shares its outlook for US economic growth, inflation, unemployment and interest rates.

Today's release of the June Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand came in at 0.3% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, down from last month's 0.3%. It is at 3.4% year-over-year, down from 3.1% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at 0.3% MoM, unchanged from the previous month and is up 2.8% YoY NSA. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for 0.2% headline and 0.2% core.

Note: This commentary has been updated with the latest numbers from last week's Employment Report.

This is not the scenario that would have been envisioned a generation ago for the "Golden Years" of retirement. Consider: Today nearly one in three of the 65-69 cohort and about one in five of the 70-74 cohort are in the labor force.

The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution). The result is the participation rate expressed as a percent.

The latest JOLTS report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary), with data through May, is now available. The time frame is quite limited compared to the main BLS data series in the monthly employment report, many of which go back to 1948, and the enormously popular Nonfarm Employment (PAYEMS) series goes back to 1939, while the BLS began tracking JOLTS in December 2000.

This article focuses on chapter 15 in Jeremy Siegel’s book, Stocks for the Long Run. I show the importance of implementing a recession-based strategy to avoid the most severe market declines.

Nonfarm payrolls rose more than expected in June, but the unemployment rate rose and average hourly earnings rose moderately. That’s a seemingly sweet combination for investors. The economy remains strong, but not so much that the Fed has to slam on the brakes.

As the global economic cycle moves into a more mature stage, monetary policy is becoming generally less accommodative and inflation risk is up. Meanwhile, geopolitical risk has become a fixture of the global landscape. What does all this mean for our outlook at the midway point of 2018?

In this issue, Research Affiliates discusses positioning for a potential inflation shock and offers insight into its collaboration with PIMCO to bring forth innovative solutions for investors.

The economic calendar is a light one, and many regular participants are on vacation. The most important data include PPI, CPI, and JOLTS, the best read on a tightening labor market.

The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for June came in at 107.2, down 0.6 from the previous month. The index is at the 99th percentile in this series. Today's number came in above the Investing.com forecast of 105.6.

It's time again for our weekly gasoline update based on data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The price of Regular and Premium were up one and two pennies each, respectively, from last week. According to GasBuddy.com, Hawaii has the highest average price for Regular at $3.71 and San Francisco, CA is the most expensive city, averaging $3.78. South Carolina has the cheapest at $2.51. The WTIC end of day spot price closed at 73.85, a 0.1% decrease from this time last week.

Alternative investments (alts) were first embraced by institutions, and some people still view them as a complex solution for complex needs. However, a growing number of alternative strategies are now available via mutual funds.

The US labor market is going from strength to strength. Like with corporate earnings, June jobs data beat consensus estimates - up 213,000 - pushing the average monthly gain for the past year to 198,000 per month.