In the coming Q4 Preview Symposium, investors will learn how they can best prepare for a host of possibilities and set up their portfolios to take advantage of opportunities and understand which areas of the market will face higher-than-normal risk.

Policymakers indicated that more interest rate cuts were likely in coming months.

An ETF that just last month was dubbed the most volatile to ever hit Wall Street has already been upstaged, after the debut of a competing product that adds even more leverage.

In the long-running popular series about what’s wrong with economics, there is a new entry: Our profession is too insular. “Economists generally agree that competition is good, and that markets with only a few dominant players are inefficient,” writes the economist David Deming in the Atlantic. “We may need to take a hard look in the mirror.”

In the frothy business of selling artificial intelligence service, Salesforce Inc. has been punching above its own weight. “Salesforce?” I hear you wonder. The folks in the dull business of selling customer relationship management software?

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday began its policy easing with a bang. Much of the focus was on its decision to cut interest rates by half a percentage point from a two-decade high. But the key question for the bond market is where rates will land once all is said and done. Nobody knows for sure, and Chair Jerome Powell injected enough uncertainty to ensure a choppy ride ahead.

Just as Wall Street traders come to grips with the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cut, Friday’s US options expiration threatens to whipsaw the market some more.

Jerome Powell delivered exactly what traders up and down Wall Street had long hoped for: A big interest-rate cut that would justify this year’s steep rally in stocks and bonds as the era of tight monetary policy finally began to reverse.

After much anticipation, the Fed finally delivered a rate cut at the September FOMC meeting. The amount had been the subject of a great deal of speculation of late, and the voting members decided on a half-point reduction to kick off this easing cycle, bringing the new Fed Funds trading range down to 4.75%–5%.

As the kiddos return to school, our fantasy football lineups are set, and the summer has ended, not only is the weather turning in the Northeast, but the inflation challenges are also cooling. The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) preferred inflation gauge, the PCE, was released at the end of August and came in at 2.5% month-over-month for July.

MSCI boosted India’s weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and reduced China’s in its latest quarterly rebalance, continuing long-term trends.

Doug Drabik discusses fixed income market conditions and offers insight for bond investors.

While the beach version of SoCal has had an epic, non-marine layer summer, it seems to have been enjoyed by few locals who instead violate the cardinal rule of adult life without children living at home and nevertheless travel to Europe in summer. We haven’t missed you.

Many investors understandably are wondering where Japan’s equity markets are heading. The market had a good year through June. After that it changed. The Bank of Japan's hawkishly delivered interest rate increase on July 31 preceded the release of weak U.S. economic data.

With the Fed nearing its first interest rate cut since 2020, enthusiasm for fixed income assets is increasing. Enter the ALPS Intermediate Municipal Bond ETF.

VettaFi provides an overview of the Marcellus and Utica shale.

It doesn’t take away from one’s success to share things that are troubling in order to deal with them differently and perhaps find another way. While you want to be careful, of course, about to whom you share your secrets or your inner feelings, you don’t want to bottle them up indefinitely.

Aligning a client’s values with their financial decisions is often touted as a best practice for financial advisors. It’s time to reexamine that premise.

Marketing is an ongoing evolution – a living conversation with your ideal clients – so the opportunity to level-up is omnipresent (and part of what I love in my work).

A client recently refused to complete my risk tolerance questionnaire. After looking through our instrument, with its fairly standard hypotheticals about market movements and portfolio returns, they said, “That’s not how I think about risk.”

The size of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut this week won’t be a game changer for global investors, though risks from China’s slowdown continue to weigh on their minds, according to participants at a regional forum.

The Federal Reserve’s looming rate cuts are fueling a rally in the riskiest corner of the US corporate bond market, but some investors are concerned the party may not last.

The price increments at which thousands of stocks and ETFs are quoted look set for an overhaul Wednesday, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission votes on final rules to reduce them to less than 1 cent.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to begin cutting interest rates this week as moderating inflation allows the central bank to roll back some of its previous rate increases. I expect that some investors will be tempted to chase stocks given the stubborn conventional wisdom that interest rates and stock prices move in opposite directions. They should reconsider.

Munis cemented their best “summer” since 2010 after another month of strong performance. Some near-term caution is warranted given that September has been historically challenging. Robust issuance ahead of the election should provide opportunities in the primary market.

It might just be the most audacious bid on Wall Street to exploit newfangled AI tools to mimic the legends of finance.

The $8 trillion mortgage market can trigger big swings across fixed income when the Federal Reserve shifts interest rates, but investors say this time is different.

Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest asset managers, is buying the dollar this week on the view that market bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts are overdone.

The last five years have bombarded investors with a seemingly never-ending array of challenges. Yet despite all these obstacles the S&P 500 is up almost 90% as of this writing.

Deal activity in private equity has slowed significantly from 2021 due to high interest rates and economic uncertainty.

With attractive valuations, emerging market equities look like a good opportunity. A factor investing strategy, designed well, may enhance performance and help manage some key risks.

History suggests Presidential elections are not nearly as important to the financial markets as the media plays them up to be, and a focus on fundamentals rather than political slogans has generally been beneficial. Historical asset class and sector performance shows virtually no consistent performance pattern under Democratic or Republican Presidents.

Panic is never a good investment strategy—nor is greed. Here's how disciplined investing helps navigate through volatile environments.

The August jobs report highlighted a critical reality: the labor market is cooling off. While the headline figures seemed decent, the underlying data reveals clear warning signs that worker demand is slowing.

The markets closed quite strong last week and were approaching all-time highs again for the S&P 500. The most recent Presidential debate shifted the odds markets, as Harris became a 55-45 favorite on the betting site PredictIt and a very slight favorite on Polymarket. It is positive for the risk markets which did not pull back with Harris gaining strength.

The yield curve measures the difference between short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term Treasury yields.

Active fixed income ETFs have taken a big leap this year per new research about active ETFs that may draw new investor eyes.

VettaFi’s Cinthia Murphy provides an in-depth look at the recent wave of private credit ETF filings and what may come next. ETF industry veteran Dave Nadig discusses the challenges of packaging private assets within the ETF structure and also offers perspective on the current state of product development overall.

The term “Complexity Curve” refers to the growing intricacies that come with managing the wealth of high-net-worth individuals. As their assets grow, so do the complexities of their financial portfolios. This includes everything from business ownership and large qualified plans to complex estate planning issues.

For most advisors, using persuasion to get prospects to see things their way is a deeply held belief. It was taught by the old guard “sales gurus” for many years.

Christine Benz is Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, but she’s written a book that evokes Viktor Frankl as much as Bill Sharpe, aiming to go well beyond the mathematics of saving for, and living in, retirement.

When buying or selling an RIA practice, one of the most important documents you'll encounter is the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA). This agreement is like the foundation of the deal, spelling out exactly what is being bought or sold, how much will be paid, and the responsibilities of both parties.

Alphabet Inc. shares have been struggling for the past two months amid mounting regulatory uncertainty. For some bulls, that’s a buying opportunity.

The new thing in electricity is datacenters. The new new thing is … coal?

Microsoft Corp. raised its quarterly dividend 10% and unveiled a new $60 billion stock-buyback program, matching the size of a repurchase plan three years ago.

Investors piled money into exchange-traded funds that buy emerging-market bonds on Friday amid optimism that developing-nation debt will get a boost from a highly anticipated Federal Reserve rate cut this week.

There’s a puzzle developing in the housing market — mortgage rates have fallen rapidly to their lowest level since early 2023, but would-be homebuyers don’t seem to care. It’s possible this is just a timing issue with rates falling during the slow season for transactions and election jitters giving buyers additional reason to hold off.

The Federal Reserve (Fed), and markets, overreacted to the slightly higher inflation seen during the first quarter of the year. After that scare, the Fed went from expecting three cuts in the federal funds rate in 2024 to just one cut during its June dot plot release.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to begin cutting interest rates at its September meeting. Market performance may depend on whether the pace of cuts is fast or slow.

The August consumer price index report showed that U.S. inflation slowed to 2.5%