For over two decades, US equities have been the global market leader, outperforming the Stoxx Europe 600 by an astonishing approximately 530%. While Europe’s recent comeback has narrowed the gap, the forces underpinning US leadership remain firmly intact. Below, we revisit the case for US versus European equities and reiterate why we maintain our preference for US equities.
The first step in recovery is recognizing a problem. For decades, some U.S. states have had problems with indebtedness. But as we take stock of state finances today, we see many examples of recovery.
This bargain-hunting environment sets up a stark divide for upcoming earnings. Walmart (WMT) remains uniquely positioned as its dominant grocery business continues to draw trade-down traffic from higher-income households, whereas Target (TGT) faces headwinds due to its heavier mix of discretionary home and apparel goods.
For savers, it drives them to seek bigger and bigger returns to keep up with the government’s monetary devaluation. At first, a simple savings account with a relatively low yield will do the trick. But as the dollar loses purchasing power, you need a better return to keep up. So, maybe you stick your money in a higher-interest-yielding CD.
Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
Today’s market does not represent today’s economy. The ratio of market value dependent on future economic activity versus present activity has never been higher. These companies have earnings now, but those earnings stem from investments in the future, not present consumption.
So let’s do the work the timeline skips, starting with separating what actually happened from what the narrative needs you to believe. Then we’ll ask the only question that pays: should any of it change how you’re positioned this morning?
We are in a debt trap. Our political process can’t reduce spending and/or raise taxes enough to balance the budget, so the debt grows and grows. This has to end, and I think it will do so in the event I’ve called The Great Reset.
Investors are remaining cautious about the markets, according to our U.S. stocks and economy report this month. Our report notes that while investors have continued to pile into the market via strong ETF flows and high margin debt balances, they've done so reluctantly with more subdued attitudes.
Recent trends are sending confusing signals about the health of the U.S. labor market. Since late 2025, the employment/population ratio has moved lower even as the unemployment rate has declined.
The softening inflation data for June and July was broadly supportive of our view that monetary policymakers should keep interest rates unchanged for the remainder of the year. Unfortunately, the picture is likely to become less favorable over the next several months, particularly if oil and gasoline prices continue to move higher. While lower gasoline prices contributed to the improvement in inflation during June and July, they do not tell the whole story.
Whether fixed income investors are focused on locking in yield, managing duration risk, or building resilient core portfolios, bond ETFs have been seeing elevated demand this year.
The arrival of the new academic year prompted me to revisit a piece that we wrote in 2023, which detailed the damage that the pandemic had done to young students. In the years immediately following COVID-19, achievement scores skidded, suggesting that online learning was a poor substitute for time in the classroom.
Many things in healthcare really have gotten dramatically better and cheaper. Sequencing a human genome, for instance, cost close to a billion dollars in 2003. Today, under $1,500, making CRISPR therapy available to treat a plethora of diseases that once had no cure.
In 3Q26, global fixed-income markets continue to navigate a complex backdrop as resilient growth, elevated inflation, hawkish central-bank pricing and the AI infrastructure buildout intersect. Growth remains supported by the US consumer, fiscal spending in Europe and AI-related capital investment, while inflation is expected to moderate through 2026 and into 2027.
Franklin Templeton Institute finds valuations across fixed income sectors becoming more attractive, with all-in yields approaching compelling levels—a signal to consider moving from a short-duration bias toward core bond portfolios.
For most high-net-worth investors, the bond sleeve of a portfolio isn't there to generate eye-popping returns or provide cocktail party fodder. Its job is much more mainstream: support a targeted lifestyle, cover tax bills, dampen equity market volatility, and provide "dry powder" when the world turns sideways.
The S&P 500 towed an anchor for much of the summer as a historic momentum and leverage unwind under the surface dragged on the equity benchmark before breaking out to fresh records last week.
The consumer remains resilient, but spending is becoming increasingly selective. Bank of America’s August Consumer Checkpoint showed total card spending per household increased 5.0% year-over-year in July, with spending excluding gasoline up 4.3%.
Royce Investment Partners: Co-CIO Francis Gannon examines the myth that rate hikes are bad news for US small-cap returns—and finds that history tells a different story.
In this video, Chuck Carnevale, co-founder of FAST Graphs, aka Mr. Valuation explores 14 growth stocks that he believes offer strong growth potential at reasonable valuations. While finding quality growth stocks has become more challenging, opportunities still exist for investors willing to focus on fundamentals, valuation, and future earnings growth.
While institutions have embraced private markets for decades, individuals have historically had limited access to these potentially valuable and versatile tools. Tony Davidow from Franklin Tempelton Institute demonstrates that private markets can be potentially valuable sources of growth and income during the accumulation and distribution phases of retirement.
The release of ChatGPT in 2022 ushered in the AI era. Since then, technology stocks have emerged as a key driver of market performance. The extraordinary gains have naturally sparked questions about whether the momentum can continue, particularly as technology companies invest heavily in AI infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence data centers are hitting a power problem that has little to do with computer chips, according to a new report from Thornburg Investment Management.
There are routes towards adding innovation exposure in portfolios without going overboard on the biggest names. The ETF ecosystem has provided for significant innovation in investment strategies in recent years.
Life rarely stands still, and for families caring for a loved one with special needs, change can introduce both emotional and financial complexity. Marriage, divorce, the loss of a parent, an unexpected inheritance, or shifts in public policy may all significantly impact eligibility for benefits, long-term financial security, and family dynamics.
The fixed income landscape continues to offer real opportunity this year as well as persistent, events-driven uncertainty. Still, cutting through the headlines, investors can find major opportunities inside the portfolios and in adding new funds.
The days of unfettered globalization, multilateral rule of law, commonly accepted limits on economic statecraft, and widely shared macroeconomic objectives are now long gone. A perpetual, directionless transition is our new reality, and corporate executives, investors, and policymakers must adapt accordingly.
The risks of a rate hike have increased lately, but we don't believe we're there just yet. If the data changes—specifically if inflation comes in hotter-than-expected over the next few months—we'll likely change our view.
All told, global equities are near all-time highs, despite the sharp June-July semiconductor drawdown. Fundamentally, an eye-popping 50% Q2 SPX earnings growth rate fuels the rally. Of course, it has been a perfect storm of sorts for domestic large-cap profitability.
Charitable donations aren’t the only way you can support missions close to your heart. Your investments can also advance goals and issues that matter to you. A growing number of companies, often called social enterprises, build a charitable mission into the business itself. Investing in them is a potential two-for-one deal.
Among the key benefits of the ETF wrapper is the wide range of tools it gives advisors and investors to build tailored fixed income portfolios. And given today’s complex rate and inflation environment, it certainly helps to have a wide range of options available.
There’s been no summer vacation for the bond market this year. It seems there’s a new headline every day that needs to be processed and responded to. In terms of Treasuries (UST), yields at the back-end of the curve have risen in notable fashion and have resulted in rates being at levels not seen in almost twenty years in some cases.
College planning begins long before college. Learn why welcoming a new child is the ideal time to build a strong financial foundation, explore education savings options and prepare for your family’s future.
Equities opened the week higher after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled on Monday morning that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached within a day or two.
Discover the top ETF launches of summer 2026, including new funds from iShares, Amplify, and Defiance targeting crypto, AI, and core equity.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is continuing its aggressive expansion into active, high-yielding options strategies with a definitive agreement to acquire NEOS Investments. Similar to Innovator Capital Management, another recent acquisition, NEOS has established a firm leadership position in the ETF space.
The market was jolted by a much weaker-than-expected employment report, sending Treasury yields sharply lower as investors quickly reduced the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike. At first glance, the payroll number looked alarming, particularly when combined with sizable downward revisions to prior months and unexpectedly soft wage growth.
Municipals posted their weakest July return in more than two decades. The Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index returned -1.85%, underperforming most investment-grade fixed-income sectors and marking just the fifth negative July return over the past 30 years.
Stocks moved higher as stronger economic data, solid corporate earnings and easing geopolitical concerns helped support investor optimism.
Demand continues to outpace record supply. Municipal bonds remain an attractive income opportunity in a market where the Federal Reserve (Fed) is likely to remain on hold and carry is driving returns. Despite record issuance of roughly $50 billion per month, demand has remained strong.
Tech and AI are driving a greater share of global equity market returns and earnings growth, raising concentration risks and the need for broader diversification.
The S&P 500 has closed at a new record high some 25 times this year, the most recent taking place just last week. The benchmark, which is now up about 13% — as measured by the performance of the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) in 2026 — has been boosted by momentum, solid earnings and ongoing economic growth.
Investors, strategists, and market professionals cannot know exactly when interest rates will change, in which direction, or by how much. That does not mean we should ignore economic data, geopolitical developments, policy decisions, or consumer behavior. Those factors matter. But the number of variables and the ways in which they interact make consistently predicting interest rate turning points extremely difficult.
The mantra carrying the markets higher for years has been to leave it to mega-cap tech titans and AI leaders to drive the bulk of market gains, leaving cap-weighted indexes historically top-heavy. But a new narrative has begun to take over.
Earnings drive market corrections. That’s the finding, and the next serious decline won’t arrive with a headline about capital spending or the deficit but will begin exactly where all eight of the others began, in the profit cycle, surfacing in credit spreads and revision breadth well before it reaches any earnings report you can actually read.
Good or bad, right or wrong, estimates suggest that in the past eighteen months the net flow of immigrants (including the number of illegal immigrants who were deported) may have been negative. By contrast, in the prior four years the US took in more than eight million immigrants, on net. All these numbers could be revised or argued with over time.
Despite spending much of the past three months moving sideways, the S&P 500 broke out to the upside this week, notching its 25th record high of the year. While leadership has shifted beneath the surface, one constant has been the strength of corporate earnings.
Fifty-eight billion dollars. That’s what the Department of War just awarded Lockheed Martin for PAC-3 interceptors, the missiles that have been knocking Iranian ballistic missiles out of the sky for the past five months. It’s one of the largest munitions awards in U.S. history.
Today’s equity markets are arguably the most concentrated, interconnected and exposed to correlated risks in the modern era. In this fragile environment, we believe investors need more than just exposure to stocks that have driven recent market returns. Disciplined stock selection and clear risk objectives are essential—as well as conviction in what not to own.
