Russ explains why investors should pay more attention to the stock-bond correlation coefficient and understand its impact on investment portfolios.

When PIMCO professionals gather for our annual Secular Forum to discuss the long-term global economic outlook, views on Europe invariably gravitate on two themes: anemic GDP growth and political risk.

All eight indexes on our world watch list have posted gains for 2017 through July 24. The top performer thus far is Hong Kong's Hang Seng with a gain of 22.03%, followed closely by India's BSE SENSEX at 21.10%. In third is our own S&P 500 with 10.32%.

I tell clients the process of converting a prospect is akin to a first date. Here’s what I mean.

Last week, the S&P 500 price/revenue ratio reached the highest level in history, outside of the single week of March 24, 2000 that represented the peak of the tech bubble.

Matt is a $1.5 million producer. He has a new Porsche 911, Maserati and a 5,000 square foot house overlooking a valley. He has two beautiful kids, a gorgeous wife and no debt. He has it made. Except for the happiness part.

We have created an adaptive regime-based investment framework that generates multi-asset and equity-sector-rotation model portfolios. The investment objective of these model portfolios is to combine downside protection with upside participation. Many firms say they do this – but our process integrates macroeconomic and financial cycle risk.

Investors who want to reduce risk and maintain a steady income might consider a barbell strategy that pairs interest rate–sensitive bonds with high-yielding credit assets. But first, it’s important to strike the right balance.

Can 529 funds be used for gap-year expenses? I recently had a parent ask me if their child’s 529 college savings account money could be used to help pay for gap-year expenses. Here’s the short answer: Maybe.

The financial sector has been getting a lot of attention recently with earnings announcements so we thought we’d weigh in on one aspect of financial stock relative performance that is making it difficult for financials to truly lead this market higher: the flattening yield curve.

Financial professionals provide a retirement update as they share perspectives on emerging trends and conditions affecting older individuals and their advisors.

At a conference in Chicago this week, following up on last week’s letter, Keep Dancing but with a Sharp Eye on the Tea Leaves, an advisor client asked me what my favorite “tea leaf” might be. When one of the greatest investors of our time, Ray Dalio, tells us to keep an eye on the exit door we should take note. But how? And when?

There’s an important—and potentially very disruptive—issue that has been largely ignored during coverage of the health care debate. The U.S. government hit its borrowing limit on March 16, 2017. Yes, that’s right—the U.S. borrowed as much as it legally can four months ago.

I am concerned that another major crisis will ensue by the end of 2018 – though it is possible that a salutary combination of events, aided by complacency, could let us muddle through for another few years. But there is another recession in our future (there is always another recession), and it’s going to be at least as bad as the last one was, in terms of the global pain it causes.

In this month’s Global Economic Perspective, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group dives into diverging central bank policy and weighs in on whether the European Central Bank is likely to be less accommodative—and what its timing might look like.

Today I want to discuss reports that global debt levels are at all-time highs, and what this means for your investment decisions going forward.

Let's take a closer look at recent activity in US Treasuries. The yield on the 10-year note ended the day at 2.24% and the 30-year bond closed at 2.81%. The 2-10 yield spread is now at 0.88%.

Today's release of the publicly available data from ECRI puts its Weekly Leading Index (WLI) at 144.8, up from the previous week. Year-over-year the four-week moving average of the indicator is now at 4.99%, down from 5.12% last week. The WLI Growth indicator is now at 2.6, up from the previous week.

This quarter, we look at two important structural changes that appear to be underway: a normalization in US and European monetary policy and a normalization in crude oil inventories.

The S&P opened near its daily high and oscillated around a 9 point range, closing in the middle just below yesterday's all-time high. The index saw a fractional daily loss of 0.02% and a YTD gain of 10.48%.

The Chinese economy delivered many surprises in the first half of the year, disappointing (yet again) the pundits who predicted a hard landing. Macroeconomic data published over the weekend is consistent with a healthy economy, driven by impressive wage growth and consumer spending, and supported by strong earnings growth.

The debate between active and passive management in fixed-income continues. We take a look at both sides of the coin for investors.

The Latest Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for June increased to 127.8 from 127.0 in May and is currently at an all-time high. The 0.6 percent month-over-month gain was better than the 0.4% increase forecast by Briefing.com.

Why is the U.S. housing sector diminishing when demand for housing remains robust?

What explains the fact that municipal bond yields are only slightly lower than equivalent Treasury bonds, giving muni investors a much higher taxable-equivalent yield? The answer lies in their liquidity, which is good news, especially for buy-and-hold investors of individual bonds.

American equities have been a good place to invest during the current bull market, now in its eighth year. Since the November election, the S&P 500 Index has surged close to 16 percent. 

Twenty years ago, the world was standing on the brink of the Asian Financial Crisis. Here, Templeton Global Macro CIO Michael Hasenstab looks at how the response of local policymakers in the subsequent two decades has impacted emerging markets in general.

“Kill the Umpire”, the fan cried to open the 1996 baseball season in Cincinnati, and 7 pitches later, the man behind the plate, John McSherry, was dead, all 320 pounds of him screaming for more oxygen to feed his struggling heart. He’d been killed by his poor health, by a billion molecules of sink-clogging cholesterol that fed on his coronary artery and sucked up his life’s blood like a vampire at midnight.

Valuations continue to reach new highs, and the market looks very expensive—by some measures, the third highest of all time after 1929 and 1999. Meanwhile, the economy is showing signs of slowing.