The S&P 500 hit a new record high in 3Q as strong earnings offset headwinds from oil returning to $100/bbl, the Fed hiking rates, and the 10-year Treasury crossing 5%.

Emerging markets (EMs) have historically been associated with commodity exports and low-cost manufacturing. Those characteristics remain relevant in parts of the investable universe, but the sources of competitive advantage have broadened materially.

With markets around the globe rattled by the bond sell-off, it may be time to pivot towards safe havens that still generate strong yield.

Active ETF flows offer a window into where the ETF ecosystem is going, and what its shifts and changes might mean for broader ETF innovation.

September ETF launches highlighted active strategies and an AI hardware ETF as year-to-date inflows reached a record $1.54 trillion.

Advisors choosing between two similar ETFs often let the lower expense ratio decide, but that fee says little about a fund’s liquidity. It may not even point to the cheaper fund to own, according to State Street Investment Management research.

Headlines are popping up left and right about how high the 10-year Treasury yield has risen. While investors make decisions about what is the “right” longer-term cost of government debt, many journalists focus on single-factor ways of viewing it.

In 1954, golfer Tommy Bolt won the inaugural Rubber City Open at Firestone Country Club in Akron. Four years later, he returned to Akron as the reigning US Open champion, where in the third round he was paired with an 18-year-old amateur making his tour debut.

The U.S. economy is handing investors a muddled picture. Housing is stuck, hiring is lopsided, and households feel worse than the jobs data suggest. Add a string of geopolitical shocks and a Federal Reserve (Fed) under new leadership still establishing its reaction function, and the signals markets rely on are harder to read. Investors will have to adjust to this market, where clarity is scarce.

Investment performance is often measured by what a portfolio earns. But for investors with substantial assets across taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts, what they keep after taxes can be just as important.

ClearBridge Investments: With the economy still resilient, a gradual Federal Reserve hiking cycle could help broaden market leadership beyond the Magnificent Seven.

Sometimes, there’s safety in size. Semiconductor Goliath Nvidia (NVDA) is proving as much. Already one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization, Nvidia is up 29.5% year-to-date. That extends a five-year run in which the stock surged 1,066%.

Hand-picking individual securities from an enormous fixed-income universe can be inefficient. That’s why AB developed a dynamic credit scoring model known as core score, which ranks investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds by their attractiveness.

Broadly speaking, when advisors and investors consider adding focused industry exposure to a portfolio, there needs to be a strong justification for doing so. Take the AI industry, for example, where sustained buildout has driven many to target key tech players for exposure.

Is now the time for senior loans? Shifting yields and rising pressure make the floating rate yield vehicles an intriguing place to watch.

On the surface, the municipal bond market may not check the “dynamic” box. After all, individual muni bonds and ETFs such as the ALPS BBH Intermediate Municipal Bond ETF (MNBD) are positioned, rightly so, as conservative, income-bearing investments.

Stocks chopped this summer as high hopes for AI product and infrastructure development were offset by rising inflation and an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve.

For decades, investors have used growth and value allocations as a foundational block of equity portfolio construction. The distinction has been intuitive and practical. Investors expected growth to provide exposure to faster-growing companies, often with higher valuation multiples and greater sensitivity to earnings expectations.

There are many reasons to own bonds, but for many investors, one of the most important is principal preservation. Years of saving, investing, and market growth may help build wealth. Bonds can then play a different role, helping preserve that wealth while providing a predictable stream of income and cash flow.

Yet gold and silver have been falling as traders seek refuge in the dollar and demand higher interest rates on U.S. government debt.

The U.S. economy remained resilient in Q3, with 2.2% real GDP growth, 4.1% unemployment, and inflation easing to 3.4%. Rising interest rates reflect persistent inflation concerns. The AI boom continues despite growing skepticism, while tariff uncertainty persists. The Iran war remains unresolved, supporting higher oil-price risks. Muhlenkamp added oil, software, and animal-health investments at attractive valuations.

After a nine-month rally in equity markets and a recent spike in bond yields, some investors may see fit to reduce their exposure to stocks. On the surface at least, bonds appear to offer better value than equities. The gap between stocks' earnings yields, the inverse of the price-to-earnings ratio, and bond yields is narrower than it has been in two decades.

AI's labor-market impact remains limited but uneven, as productivity and profits outpace hiring and import-heavy investment dampens U.S. job growth.

Rising interest rates can affect more than investment portfolios. Explore how changing IRS interest rates may influence several estate, charitable and tax-planning strategies.

U.S. equities ended the week with mixed results. The S&P 500 declined less than one per cent to 7,722, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined more than one per cent to 51,177. The tech-heavy NASDAQ rose a half per cent, owing to the stability of the AI trade.

As globalization recedes, governments and businesses have stronger incentives to invest in building more resilient societies and supply chains. That imperative has coincided with the emergence of artificial intelligence, creating a powerful interaction between technological innovation and economic security.

Market participants have been conditioned to expect clear Forward Guidance from Fed Chairs and Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jay Powell provided it continuously, especially after the Financial Crisis. Chairman Warsh has made it clear that Forward Guidance will be less under his leadership, but he has offered a very important qualifier that many have yet to grasp.

The discipline of running a succession-ready firm makes every aspect of a business stronger, not just the eventual transaction. Advisors who operate this way attract better talent, serve clients more consistently, and create businesses that hold their value regardless of market conditions.

In a world defined by rampant energy demand and electrification, battery tech is one of the more intriguing places to invest. While attention has turned to the big AI narratives and debates in the market, tech categories like battery innovation have plenty of opportunities.

Inflation progress remains uneven: The latest Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index showed some improvement after revisions, but several measures suggest price pressures remain sticky and above the Federal Reserve’s target

Only one month ago the big story about the US economy was how strong it was. The August jobs report, which arrived in early September, showed that payrolls were up 162,000 for the month. Meanwhile, at one point the Atlanta Fed’s “GDP Now” model was estimating real GDP would grow more than 5% at an annual rate in the third quarter.

Bond yields still look attractive, but investors are earning little extra for taking on corporate credit risk, according to Thornburg Investment Management.

Seven months into the U.S.–Iran conflict, few historical analogues have held. The trajectory of oil prices has been consistent with previous geopolitical shocks, but the market response elsewhere has looked strikingly different. U.S. Treasury yields have moved notably higher, for example, while credit spreads have remained remarkably resilient.

This year has marked another remarkable chapter for the global economy and financial markets. Investors have navigated no shortage of challenges, from geopolitical conflicts and trade tensions to elevated energy prices and shifting interest rate expectations. Yet despite these headwinds, the economy continues to expand, corporate earnings remain resilient and markets have steadily climbed the proverbial wall of worry.

Long before modern scanners and monitors became common, doctors often checked a patient's health with something as simple as a finger on the wrist. A pulse could reveal a surprising amount about a person's condition. Economists have their own version of this practice. Rather than relying solely on complex statistical models, they often look for signals that offer a quick health check.

The latest employment report was softer on the headline numbers, but I thought the underlying details were quite constructive. Payroll growth came in below expectations and the prior two months were revised downward, yet labor-force participation increased and the workweek stabilized rather than declining as expected.

In this month’s issue, AI, energy and robotics are creating new opportunities in emerging markets, but selectivity remains key as policy, cost and execution risks evolve.

Industrials are supported by increased capital spending in electricity capacity, construction around the artificial intelligence-related (AI) infrastructure buildout, defense, and energy, although higher costs and possible delays in data center construction could temper growth.

We understand that you can’t forecast the sequence of returns, but we CAN build a plan that survives a bad one. As Howard Marks puts it, you can’t predict, but you can prepare. These are the rules of engagement once you’ve crossed from saving into spending.

If you only looked at the price of gold in September, you’d be forgiven for believing the bull market had run out of steam. The yellow metal fell 6.3% during the month, and some in the financial press were quick to say it had failed as a safe haven.

Today’s employment report reinforced a trend that has been evident across several labor market indicators: conditions in the goods-producing sector continue to improve after several difficult years, while hiring across the much larger service sector continues to soften.

Societal angst about AI continues to grow. Whether it’s concern about misalignment or potentially misdirected investment, the AI-may-be-bad narrative is gaining traction. In stark contrast, the AI trade in financial markets was alive and well in September of 2026.

Vigilante movies have always been popular with audiences. From Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry) to Halle Berry (Catwoman) to Denzel Washington (The Equalizer), characters that take justice into their own hands when systems fail are seen as heroes.

Our real gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for 2026 is 2.5% (based on our Global Investment Management Survey) versus the Federal Reserve’s (Fed's) forecast of 2.2% and the Wall Street consensus of around 2%.

Long viewed as an emergency brake for macroeconomic panic, gold is starting to prove itself as much more than a crisis asset.

Executives enter the earnings season with a bit of a swagger. They won't say it out loud, of course, but consider all the headwinds CEOs of companies big and small have faced in the last few years. First, it was imminent recession fears; then it was looming tariffs (followed by the shock of April 2025).

Global equities advanced in the third quarter as market returns broadened away from technology. But AI’s disruptive impact is spreading across sectors and industries—transforming the very nature of investment diversification.

September’s fixed income sell-off marked a watershed moment for muni bond markets, delivering the steepest drawdown since the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. As benchmark yields spiked, prices across muni ETFs fell in tandem, and the volatility has not let up. This week, both 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields climbed to their highest levels since 2002.

VettaFi has experienced strong growth as a differentiated index provider in 2026. This momentum continues with today’s acquisition of The SPADE® Defense Index. The deal adds a popular, high-conviction thematic sector strategy to a global platform. More than $260 billion in index-based assets is tied to VettaFi.

The bond market took center stage through September with inflation, oil supply chains and the Federal Reserve performing as an ensemble.