Over the weekend, Sam Fleming with the Financial Times interviewed Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren about why the Fed is likely to tighten monetary policy sooner rather than later.

Selling to prospects who are women requires a fundamentally different mindset than when working with men. Here’s what advisors need to know.

A range-bound U.S. dollar could contribute to a renewed focus on company and sector fundamentals.

Sometimes it is good to sit back, reflect, recharge and then, once again, drive forward.  I pulled open a drawer and found, tucked at the bottom of a pile, a few notes I wrote down many years ago.  Notes from Mom…  I wanted to remember her.

After gaining 16% from the February low, SPX has been trading in a 2% range during May. A minor 20% of the rally has been retraced, a sign of resilience and consolidation. Despite the recent rally, investors are positioned for weakness, not further gains. There might still be a capitulation low ahead but the set up is for higher prices in the next month(s). End of May and start of June seasonality is possible short-term tailwind for equities.

First it was Stan Druckenmiller, now it’s George Soros. Following billionaire former hedge fund manager Druckenmiller’s announcement that gold was his family office fund’s largest currency allocation, we learned this week that his old boss, billionaire investor George Soros, purchased a $264 million stake in Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold producer, after liquidating $3.5 billion in U.S.-listed stocks. Additionally, he disclosed owning call options on a gold ETF.

This is a slightly expanded version of a letter that I have already sent to those who will be attending next week’s Strategic Investment Conference in Dallas. It covers the agenda in detail and will give you an idea of how I go about putting a conference together and what I’m trying to learn from the speakers. If this is of no interest to you, just skip it and go to the end where I will share some brief impressions from my time in Abu Dhabi.

It takes great effort to build a fortune—and great effort to pass it on to your kids (or others) without the taxman taking a big bite. This case study shows our analysis of four potential wealth transfer strategies that a 40-year-old pair of entrepreneurs considered after selling their business for $34 million—and how they chose among them.

The past few years have witnessed a substantial shift in the way products are sold and purchased. Retail companies used to be the primary point of distribution for their apparel and footwear vendors. Today, most brands have dramatically increased their distribution channels, bringing product to market through owned retail stores, websites and—as indicated by the roughly 30% share of North American retail sales growth recently claimed by Amazon—third-party websites.

Something’s gotta give. The global growth environment remains subpar — stable but at a disappointingly sluggish pace. Central bankers, where possible, continue to ease policy, but the financial market reaction is increasingly unpredictable. In this environment, the predominant theme this year has been a bounce back in the most beaten-down assets — including commodities and emerging markets.

We think the Philippines appears to be in a demographic sweet spot, and the country should continue to grow as long as there’s no dramatic change in government policies and the path toward reform continues.

Job growth may be slowing, but when put in a broader context, it may also be at the height of its new potential. In last week’s Weekly Economic Commentary, “Yet Another Disconnect,” we wrote that according to several Federal Reserve (Fed) officials, monthly job gains as low as 125,000 per month in the U.S. would be enough to tighten the labor market, take up slack in the economy, and push up wages and ultimately inflation.

Since the beginning of the year, the greenback has shown it's not almighty after all; and gold - the barbarous relic as some have called it - may be en vogue again? Where are we going from here and what are the implications for investors?

April was far from the cruelest month for investors. Most will have felt sentiment improve behind equities, high-yield bonds, emerging markets and commodities. But did they also notice how well European assets performed?

Investors should expect growth to remain slow, low and fragile, and volatility to continue buffeting the markets, says Neil Dwane, Global Strategist for Allianz Global Investors. To make the most of this environment, take an active approach to stock selection and asset allocation.

A calmer tone prevailed across markets in April despite major central banks choosing to pause from adding substantial support. Mixed economic data underscored a tepid fundamental backdrop. The market rally continued in April, though underlying sentiment may have cooled more than the rally suggested.

“Invest in good companies, don’t use leverage, invest in liquid investments, don’t do private deals and light a candle and pray for a positive outcome.” -Leon Cooperman, Omega “Debt drains away vital resources from economic growth. Fighting a debt crisis with more debt is doomed to failure, yet that is not only what global central banks did during the crisis but long after markets stabilized (though the crisis never truly ended, just slowed). This was an epic policy failure that continues today.” -Michael Lewitt, The Credit Strategist

During a lengthy interview on CNBC the week before last, Donald Trump, fresh from becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, came as close as any major presidential contender ever has to saying that America is not capable of repaying her debts in full, and that our path to economic recovery might involve some pain for our creditors. This moment of candor earned Trump almost as much condemnation as his earlier suggestions to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The road toward the ECB’s target of 2% inflation will likely be long, but we maintain our belief that the central bank is currently pursuing all of the politically feasible policies at its disposal that can encourage a further revival of economic activity and help achieve that goal.

This year’s first quarter is one for the history books. Not only did gold appreciate at its fastest pace in 30 years, but demand for the yellow metal was the strongest it’s ever been on record. Let me repeat that: the strongest it has ever been. Demand surged 21 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the latest World Gold Council (WGC) report. Most of this demand was driven by investment, with net inflows into gold ETFs reaching 363.7 tonnes, a seven-year high.

Over the past year, earnings for the S&P have declined 12%. Earnings have declined 5 quarters in a row. Even excluding the troubled energy sector, valuations now are as high (or higher) than in 2007. It's no wonder that there has been little net gain in the S&P since late 2014. Does the dire state of corporate sales and profit growth signal an imminent recession? This post takes a sector-level view in order to address that question. In all likelihood, the answer is no.

When a stock price tumbles, investors often think that something is really wrong with the company. But that can be a mistaken assumption—especially as ETF-oriented investors are buying broad sectors rather than individual companies.

Since late 2014, we’ve held a positive view on core European and Japanese equity markets, while taking a selective approach in regard to emerging market equities. This served us well in 2015, as did our exposure in reflationary and weak currency beneficiaries. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we’re maintaining constructive view on core Europe and Japan and have become incrementally more positive on emerging markets.

In addition to the traditional things like working your client referral network, courting centers of influence and hitting the social media with tweets and blogs, a few nontraditional avenues of growth have opened up. If you aren’t exploring them, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

The past five years have been challenging for long-term value-based asset allocation. We do not believe this constitutes a paradigm shift, dooming such strategies in the future. The basic driver for long-term value working historically has been the excessive volatility of asset prices relative to their underlying fundamental cash flows, and recent history does not show any evidence of that changing. Outperforming the markets given that pattern requires either betting that the excessive swings will reverse over time or accurately predicting what those excessive swings will be. The former strategy amounts to long-term value-based investing, while the latter requires outpredicting others as to both what surprises will hit the markets and how the markets will react to them. Our strong preference is to focus on long-term value, despite the inevitable periods of tough performance that strategy will entail.

The erudite professor goes on to note that while the differences between 3.5% growth and 2% may seem small, the resultant consequences are large. For example, by 2008 Americans were three times better off than they were in 1952. He writes, “Real GDP per person rose from $16,000 [per year] to $49,000.” However, if growth in the 1950 to 2000 timeframe was only 2%, instead of 3.5%, the per capita income metrics for that same timeframe would have been just $23,000, not $49,000.

The prevailing market lore is that one should sell in May and go away, returning in October. And over the last 65 years, that axiom has on average held true. Unfortunately, we can’t live on averages in the short term, and so we have to decide what to do today. Thus – just like the Fed – we are data-dependent.

Unpredictable politics could weigh on market sentiment.

In mid-January we felt compelled to send out a blast-email to our clients based on the volume of calls and concerns related to the bouts of volatility which roiled stock markets the first few weeks of the year. We certainly empathize with our clients’ very real concerns. Our empathy stems from the fact that in today’s hyper-connected world with media outlets “screaming” headlines to attract eyeballs, it is nearly impossible to separate fact from narrative.

On a lengthy interview on CNBC this morning, Donald Trump, the now presumptive Republican nominee, looked back on his business history to lay the groundwork to what he would do as President. He came as close as any major presidential contender to saying that America's formula for economic recovery might involve repaying our creditors less than what we owe. This is a major development that should be rewriting the playbook on Wall Street and call into question the risk-free nature of U.S. Treasuries.

Thirty-one years ago, the finance ministers from Japan, France, West Germany, Britain and the United States met to synchronize economic policy in support of global objectives. The “Plaza Accord” set the stage for significant shifts in world markets.

This is the final installment in my series of articles on fairly valued mid-cap selections. My inspiration to produce these articles was at the request and suggestion from regular readers who were frustrated at the lack of coverage and/or articles on mid-caps. To accommodate those requests, I screened through the S&P 400 mid-cap index with the assumption that it represented a credible universe of high-quality mid-caps. The fact that I was only reviewing the S&P 400 index was missed based on many comments received on my previous articles in this series. In other words, I only included fairly valued research candidates that are members of the S&P 400 index in this series.

Donald Trump’s critics have heaped scorn on his calls for protective tariffs to deal with America’s widening trade imbalance and the resulting loss of higher–paying blue color jobs. Some have accused...

By this time there is not a business person in the western world who doesn’t know that the Chinese economy is not moving ahead at the torrid pace of five years ago. China has grown to become the second largest economy in the world and the law of large numbers is in its way. In the first quarter, it reported 4.5% real GDP growth, the lowest since 2010. In order to reach the annualized rate of 6.7%, growth in the next two quarters would need to be 7.4%, which seems hard to achieve. I have been projecting (guessing) overall Chinese real growth of 4.5% and arguing with clients and analysts about whether I am too low or too high. The real question is, how much does this matter?

This title was my favorite takeaway from a conference I attended in Cincinnati recently. I don’t know who to credit it to, but the cynical formula is quickly being absorbed into the investment world’s body of insider jokes.

In a year like 2016 — in which equity markets plunged and then bounced back to flat all in the first quarter — portfolio managers are often asked where opportunities lie in “up” or “down” markets. For the Invesco Diversified Dividend team, however, that’s simply not the way we look at the world. Performance for a manager may be great in either a bull or a bear market, but it’s the ability to add value over both that we believe is most important.

Understanding a central bank’s reaction function to volatile financial and commodity markets can help investors navigate an uncertain environment.

Certain investment dynamics are behaving very differently post the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Understanding these changes are important as they can provide opportunities for investors. In this month's Absolute Return Letter, we will look at the impact of some of these 'abnormalities' and how investors can profit from them. Enjoy the read.

In streetball parlance, active managers have thrown up enough bricks to host a masons’ convention. Marking the worst relative quarter since 1998, less than one-in-five large cap managers, and only 6% of large cap growth managers, outperformed the S&P 500® Index in the first quarter of 2016. We don’t put much weight on just three months of performance data but, despite what Mark Twain writes, statistics don’t lie: fewer than one-quarter of managers outperform their benchmarks over the long-term. With such disappointing outcomes, the economic value of our profession will remain in question and cheap beta will look relatively attractive.

Last Thursday was session 53 in the “buying stampede” and it was going along swimmingly. Well, I guess the surprise “no stimulus” announcement out of Japan caused an early morning stutter-step, but the equity markets seemed to stabilize after a somewhat weak opening. In fact it caused one market wizard to comment, “I love this market. Bad earnings can't take it down. Remember, the move most people least expect is the DJIA going right through all of that overhead supply and making all-time new highs. I'm in the minority camp, expecting major new highs. Buy in May and don't go away!”

He sure feels like he’s heavy.  From The Wall Street Journal this morning, “U.S. Growth Starts Year in Familiar Rut.”  “A sharp pullback in business investment and weak global demand dragged down an already-lackluster U.S. economy in the opening months of 2016, the latest setback in a bumpy expansion entering its seventh year.”  That marked the economy’s worst performance in two years.

It can be difficult to adjust to the end of a good run. For years following the financial crisis of 2008, investors benefited from a rally in financial markets facilitated in part by expansionary policies of the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the globe.

Today we are going to explore how demographic change impacts growth.

As the only pure silver mining company, Silver Wheaton couldn’t have been founded during a more opportune time. The commodities boom was still young. I remember that when the idea was shared with me, what I found most attractive was that it had virtually no competition. Franco-Nevada, which had been acquired by Newmont in 2001, wouldn’t be spun off for three more years. It was a no-brainer to put capital in this new endeavor.

Equities fell this week, led by an 11% drop in the US's largest stock, Apple. For the first time since the February low, the near-term trend in SPY is weak: the current set up normally leads SPY, through price and time, to its 50-dma and lower Bollinger Band, both currently about 3% lower. Overall, breadth, sentiment, macro, commodities and seasonality support higher equities prices in the week(s) ahead. The month of May typically starts strong and the NDX has been down 7 days in a row: combined, these suggest a positive start to the week is likely.

Thirty-one years ago, the finance ministers from Japan, France, West Germany, Britain and the United States met to synchronize economic policy in support of global objectives. The “Plaza Accord” set the stage for significant shifts in world markets.

Expectations and inflection points matter in investing, often more so than the overall level of any given data set. The besting of low expectations has helped stocks to move higher, but the bar has been raised so we continue to suggest a neutral allocation toward U.S. stocks. Globally, currency moves have played a large part in determining stock market action, and some calming in the currency markets could help stabilize global markets.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election. has drawn more potential candidates, more controversy and perhaps more media coverage than any election in modern U.S. history. It also has been said that this year’s presidential contest is the most important of our time.* The same argument could be made from an economic perspective.

A combination of a growing middle class and increased commercialization of the rural sector (and ultimately infrastructure) could potentially set the stage for increased urbanization in years to come.

There has been much concern over market turmoil recently, which begs the question: how do investors deal with volatility? Robert Horrocks, PhD, CIO and Portfolio Manager, discusses how volatility is managed at Matthews Asia.