Three new health care reform initiatives - from the political right, left, and center - are developing in the Senate. Earlier this week I joined CNBC's Nightly Business Report to discuss the proposal up first for consideration: the Graham-Cassidy bill, which would turn the ACA into a system of state grants.

My colleagues and I have been actively speaking about the evolution taking place in many emerging markets over the past few decades. We’ve seen dramatic shifts occurring, with the often one-dimensional economic models of the past giving way to new and diverse growth drivers.

History shows, and investment strategists tout, that small cap stocks are the best performing asset class. While small caps outperformed the runner-up, large cap stocks, over the last nearly 100 years, research has shown that the outperformance hasn’t persisted over all multi-year time periods and that the outperformance is concentrated in microcap stocks.

The latest Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for August increased to 128.8 from 128.3 in July and is currently at another all-time high.

We've updated this series to include Thursday's release of the Consumer Price Index as the deflator and the August monthly update. The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $37,272, down 12.6% from 44 years ago.

Value investing is very similar to farming. A farmer needs fertile ground, well-planted seeds, unshakable patience, loads of sunshine, watering and weeding, as well as a great deal of courage and faith to succeed in the long run. Today, we believe that investors need to reexamine the benefits of a value investing approach toward the end of an era which has rewarded growth stock investing.

Today’s low bond market volatility won’t last forever. But knowing whether a correction will come next week or next year isn’t so important. Having an efficient trading strategy that can execute in both tranquil and turbulent markets is.

As Germany prepares to go to the polls in its general election, David Zahn, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group’s head of European fixed income, considers what the result could mean for Europe, the European Union and the eurozone.

The upcoming IMF and World Bank annual meetings offer a critical opportunity to start a serious discussion on how to arrest the lose-lose dynamics that have been gaining traction in the global economy. The longer it takes for the seeds of reform to be sown, the less likely they will be to take root.

What might the German election mean for markets?

We touch on several bases in today’s letter that are not entirely related. We begin with the 800-pound gorilla in the room – the fact that the US national debt topped $20 trillion last week.

After a sustained period of return leadership by U.S. stocks, a number of diversifying assets now appear poised for outperformance.

It’s been challenging to limit this list to five surefire ways to fail to convert a prospect, but these will be a good start.

The Census Bureau has released its annual report on household income data for 2016. Last year the median (middle) household income rose to $59,149, a 4.1% increase over 2015 and a record high. The median income adjusted for inflation is also at a record high, above the peak of $58,882 set in 2000. The mean (average) household income set a new high of $83,143. More about that in another commentary. Meanwhile, let's take a closer look at the quintile averages, which dates from 1967, along with the statistics for the top 5%.

North Korea has become increasingly belligerent, launching ballistic missiles, testing a hydrogen device and claiming to have miniaturized a warhead; if true, this means it is a nuclear power. Although Trump says “all options are on the table,” a full-scale war would be catastrophic and may be impossible to contain.

Astute investors know that buying when others are fearful can be a good strategy. Despite remarkably low market volatility, investors continue to avoid risk. This month, we examine previous periods of risk and investor behavior, when investors discarded normal valuation measures, threw caution to the wind, and suffered the consequences.

Adding closed-end funds to your investment portfolio may be a way to help boost your retirement income, industry pros say.

Reflecting on the months of travel as we wing our way back to Tampa at 38,000 feet, one of the more interesting encounters in those travels was spending time with Steve Forbes (Forbes Magazine). Although Steve is a staunch Republican, he suggested that Republicans worship at the altar of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). 

Should tighter monetary policy on both sides of the Atlantic worry bond investors? We don’t think so. Bonds have historically delivered positive returns when interest rates rise—particularly when they rise gradually.

The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to begin the process of reducing the Fed’s balance sheet. Here’s what it may mean for investors.

We have a light calendar for economic data. The week’s focus will be the FOMC policy announcement on Wednesday. Given the resilience of the market rally in the face of various natural and human threats, the punditry will turn to a favored topic. Expect people to be asking: Will the Fed be the catalyst for a market correction?

All eight indexes on our world watch list have posted gains for 2017 through September 18. The top performer thus far is Hong Kong's Hang Seng with a gain of 28.0%, followed by India's BSE SENSEX at 21.77%. In third is our own S&P 500 with 11.84%.

Value stocks have underperformed most other styles of investing, as well as the broad market, by a wide margin since the beginning of 2015. We see several reasons why, which point to the catalysts for a potential recovery; we do not think Value is past its prime.

With the top two positions at the Federal Reserve soon to be open, Russ discusses how the easy money era goes back a long way.

This is the first of a four-part empirical research study into the fallacy of the “random walk” view on investment reward and risk.

Invesco Fixed Income shares its views on rates around the world.

Last week, investors were lamenting the lack of inflation. This week, they’re fixated on its rise. On Thursday, data showed consumer prices climbed 0.4% in August from a month earlier and 1.9% from a year earlier, a sign that inflation is once again on the upswing after months of soft readings.

Stock market performance has not been driven by the improving health of the global economy. Just as negative interest rates are not a positive for the continued health of the economy, current stock market performance does not augur rosy future returns for stocks. In fact, the opposite is true.

At the October 2002 market low, the S&P 500 stood -49.2% below its March 2000 peak (-48.0% including dividend income), with the Nasdaq 100 having lost more than -82.8% from its high, on the basis of both price and total return. The loss wiped out the entire total return of the S&P 500, in excess of Treasury bills, all the way back to May 1996.