Going into the Fed meeting today it seemed like the consensus was toward a skip, pause, or possibly a full-on stop in raising interest rates going forward. Indeed, there are reasons to be optimistic about inflation coming down despite currently sticky “core numbers.”
State and local tax revenues sank in April, yet we believe most governments have strong fiscal positions, with ample reserves and budget flexibility to manage the decline.
Macroeconomic uncertainty has sparked questions over the durability of the traditional 60/40 portfolio—highlighting why investors may want to add alternative investments to the mix.
It’s been a challenging year for many managed futures strategies but they continue to offer long-term potential for portfolios. The benefits of trend-following strategies are numerous and worth consideration for inclusion in any alternative sleeve.
A diligent worker who invests for retirement will effectively lose the value of the dollars they’ve saved if they don’t also make an investment in their health.
Artificial intelligence tools have demonstrated the capability to shake up nearly any industry. That includes financial advising.
Chief Economist Eugenio J. Alemán discusses current economic conditions.
Interest-rate volatility on shorter-duration assets is running near historical highs, even as rate changes begin to level off.
Municipal bonds posted negative total returns in May amid continuing heightened volatility. Interest rates rose throughout most of the month as banking concerns abated, economic data exceeded expectations, comments from the Federal Reserve turned more hawkish, and the debt ceiling negotiations remained contentious to the very end.
Advisors parking cash in short-term T-Bills yielding are missing out on potential capital appreciation. The current fixed income market provides an opportunity not seen since the financial crisis to earn total return from longer-dated, high-duration bonds.
In 2022, both fixed income and equities stumbled, creating greater focus on alternatives. As market headwinds continue to remain strong, investors are increasingly turning to alternative strategies to increase diversification, address higher rates, and mitigate risk. Join the experts at Swan Global and VettaFi for a webcast that digs into where alternatives can fit in a portfolio.
Topics will include:
Interest rate volatility and inflationary pressures have continued to challenge income seeking investors. Rates may have topped out and where we’ll go from here remains to be seen. That’s why it’s important to understand where income opportunities may lie in our current markets while planning for the future. In this upcoming webcast you’ll hear from a fellow advisor who’s navigating these challenges for his clients, as well as from a fund manager that’ll outline factors to consider when evaluating income-focused investments.We invite you to join the experts at NEOS Investments and VettaFi as they highlight tax-efficient monthly income strategies across core portfolio exposures that may offer a compelling addition or alternative to current client allocations.
With interest rates elevated and the number of UK mortgage deals shrinking on a daily basis, many borrowers are seeking to shore up their finances by paying down their home loans early. However, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Ken Griffin, whose hedge fund churned out a record $16 billion for clients last year, is increasing his focus on credit trading as he braces for a potential US recession.
In this article, we will compare the three largest U.S. real estate ETFs by market capitalization: Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ), Schwab US REIT ETF (SCHH), and Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLRE).
With their ability to act as an inflation hedge, diversified, and return enhancer, commodities should be considered an important portfolio allocation over the long term.
Investor activism in Japanese companies has been the subject of a fair amount of recent conjecture. Specifically, foreign investors have been concerned about the relative prevalence of minority interest, the ghosts of fading Keiretsus on Japanese companies’ financial statements.
A perennial challenge faced by all big or small, developed or developing economies is achieving sustainable economic growth that boosts standards of living and financial stability. Globalization has been the road that brought economies to that destination.
According to the ICI, assets in money markets have ballooned to $5.3 trillion—the equivalent of the world’s 5th largest economy. And with so much cash sitting on the sidelines, a fundamental question persists. Are investors being compensated to wait? Find out why sitting in cash could be a risky proposition as inflation and economic growth show signs of slowing.
Don’t miss an in-depth conversation with fixed income experts from VettaFi and AllianceBernstein, who will share insights on how to position portfolios amid a challenging market environment.
In the upcoming webcast, Innovator ETFs and VettaFi will outline a new suite of Barrier ETF products and how they can protect and enhance portfolios.
Don't let geography hold you back from achieving success in a lucrative niche.
William Eigen isn’t about to apologize for his bond fund’s performance this year. Yes, his $8.7 billion JPMorgan Strategic Income Opportunities Fund is trailing about 60% of its peers after trouncing nearly every one of them last year.
There’s not much you can do about rising college costs, but there are a few tax breaks you can use to help offset the expenses.
We like both John Deere and Caterpillar. Both are A-rated companies with solid balance sheets, similar market caps, and similar long-term debt-to-capital ratios.
Franklin Equity Group Portfolio Managers Blair Schmicker and Daniel Scher reflect on the ever-evolving landscape of the commercial real estate, and the answer to that question might surprise you.
VettaFi’s Lara Crigger offers perspective on two of the year’s most noteworthy ETF stories. Northern Trust’s Michael Natale presents the firm’s base case on equities and fixed income. Teucrium’s Sal Gilbertie spotlights several ETFs including their recently launched AiLA Long/Short Base Metals Strategy ETF (OAIB), which leverages artificial intelligence.
A key question advisors will face from clients is whether a recession is likely and if so, what to do about it. The widespread pessimism among consumers and investors adds another layer of complexity to portfolio management.
While the 60/40 approach may rapidly become obsolete, the debate over its value has bolstered the teaching of MPT and stressed the benefit of extensive diversification as the most efficient portfolio construction methodology.
The risks for bond investors from next week’s Federal Reserve meeting go well beyond whether officials decide to raise interest rates again.
Emerging-market bulls are still upbeat on the asset class, even after China’s highly-touted reopening rally fizzled and proved Wall Street’s early 2023 optimism to be misplaced.
Asset managers looking to replicate the success of JPMorgan’s biggest actively-managed exchange-traded funds will likely have to do it without the same market tailwind the ETFs enjoyed.
Despite high volatility in the bond market during the first half of the year, what's surprising is how much didn't change.
Copper is currently trading around $8,300 a ton, down approximately 26% from its all-time high of nearly $11,300, set in October 2021. According to Citigroup, the metal could top out at $15,000 a ton by 2025, a jump that would “make oil’s 2008 bull run look like child’s play.”
In a difficult year such as 2023, rebalancing between asset classes that are declining may seem a futile exercise. But rebalancing, even in down markets, remains vital to keeping a portfolio within the right risk/reward ratio and is a key element of the value that an advisor can provide to their clients.
When it comes to their equity portfolios, US investors have historically exhibited a high degree of home-country bias. But in today’s fast-changing global market landscape, they may find that there are good reasons to rethink regional allocations to stocks.
Anne Walsh, Chief Investment Officer for Guggenheim Partners Investment Management, joins Bloomberg TV to discuss fixed-income market opportunities, managing climate change risk, and the Fed’s path forward.
As markets continue to respond to an uncertain macroeconomic environment, the current fundamentals in the municipal bond market are creating an investment opportunity to capture strong after-tax total returns according to Stephen Dover, Head of Franklin Templeton Institute.
I wrote this article in 2030 after I interviewed several retirees whose income plans were designed by ChatRET.
The UK has a complicated, punitive, badly constructed, and all-around dysfunctional tax system.
Spare a thought for the other AT1 crowd — not investors in Additional Tier 1 securities extinguished in Credit Suisse Group AG’s rescue, but shareholders in Aroundtown SA, the Frankfurt-listed property firm with the same stock-market ticker.
Having a reliable sales and marketing system that works automatically in the background, bringing in new, qualified leads every month instead of having to go on the hunt, allows you to prioritize your work in a meaningful way.
The debt ceiling crisis has been averted—but this short-term relief might come at the cost of greater future peril. Franklin Templeton Fixed Income CIO Sonal Desai analyzes the debt-ceiling resolution and delves into the potential longer-term risks that rising public debt poses to financial markets.
Value equities have faced years of tough sledding, outside a run of outperformance following “vaccine day” and the lift-off from zero rates. Broadly, this has left value stocks extraordinarily cheap relative to growth. However, looking closer, the cheapest 20% of stocks – what we call “deep value” – trades unusually cheap today despite offering surprisingly attractive fundamentals.
Andy Rothman provides a first-hand perspective from his first trip to Shanghai and Beijing since the start of COVID in 2019.
Transitioning into the post-COVID investment environment shifts the foundations of portfolio construction that investors relied on in recent decades. On full display in 2022, inflation and recession risk punished both bonds and stocks together to historic declines.
The first few years of the 2020s have seen a number of acute economic, financial, and geopolitical disruptions on a worldwide scale, and it will take time for the ultimate consequences of these shocks to be fully felt.
Despite market headwinds, investors remain bullish on real estate. As traditional sectors, like office and retail, continue to underperform, farmland presents an opportunity for investors seeking capital preservation and downside protection.
We have used the word “unprecedented” to talk about the economy during and after COVID. We have never before locked down economic activity, while printing trillions of new dollars to help finance trillions of extra government borrowing to pay people not to work.
Global bonds are slumping after two shock interest-rate hikes this week served traders a reality check that central banks are far from done fighting inflation.
Investors are piling cash into the largest junk bond exchange-traded fund at the quickest pace in nearly three years amid a broad rebound in risk assets.
