In this excerpt from our latest “Global Investment Outlook,” Franklin Equity Group Portfolio Manager Serena Perin Vinton discusses how her team thinks about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing and the opportunities in investment-driven innovations levered to a more sustainable environment.

Democratic lawmakers, with President Joe Biden’s support, are drawing up details of a plan to tax billionaires and other ultra-high earners after Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s opposition to raising the rate on corporations sank a key funding component for a multitrillion-dollar social-spending package.

It’s being called the Great Resignation. Quits are at their highest rate in 20 years and no one seems to understand why. One thing is for sure: the labor market has gone weird.

John Vail, Chief Global Strategist at Nikko Asset Management, takes a deep dive into the firm’s 12-month outlook for the global economic recovery, and explains where he is finding the greatest investment opportunities.

I explore how estimated portfolio loss potential changes with different estimates of asset volatilities. Specifically, I compare portfolio loss potential calculated using Research Affiliates’ outlook for asset class volatility and return versus option-implied and historical volatilities.

There are three primary reasons the 4% rule is misguided and should be done away with when it comes to retirement spending.

Next week we are taking a hiatus from regularly scheduled updates and will be publishing a series of articles based on the Census Bureau's 2020 Income and Poverty Report. Stay Tuned!

Rising inflation globally raises the question of whether inflation is persistent versus transitory, driving debate among our investment managers. Our Stephen Dover, Head of the Franklin Templeton Investment Institute, recently discussed economic growth, interest rates, and inflation during a roundtable,

Now nearly anyone will be able to convert their loose change into Bitcoin at their neighborhood Walmart. This week, it was being reported that Walmart quietly began installing special Coinstar machines at select locations that give customers the option to buy Bitcoin.

Today’s letter will be the first of at least two parts. Next week I’ll describe where I think this is heading, and how we still have a chance to save the recovery if certain people/institutions make the right choices. But first, I want to establish three important points. They are foundational to my outlook. Here they are, summarized in one sentence.

Policymakers should not have been caught off guard by surging prices and shortages of goods and labor. Practically the entire post-pandemic agenda is built around policies that stoke demand and discourage work, making supply-side constraints entirely predictable.

In addition to the robo-advisors discussed in Part I and Part II of our series, traditional investment companies, including Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Schwab, and Merrill have developed their own robo-advisory services.

Congressional Democrats are at odds over both the tax and spending sides of a bill to enact the bulk of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, putting in question the goal of party leaders to strike a deal by the end of the week.

Growing up on the southern edge of the Brazilian rainforest, José Pinheiro Borges learned to watch out for loggers eyeing the trees around his village. Now he’s paid to keep his little patch of forest in tact.

Is inflation truly transitory? Will central banks start to tighten the policy reins? Will earnings continue to boost equity valuations? Heading into year end, the K2 Advisors team ponders these and other questions in its fourth quarter (Q4) hedge-fund strategy outlook.

The investment grade market was relatively calm in the third quarter, but we are concerned about undercurrents lying beneath the surface. In particular, we feel the dual threats of persistent inflation and a less accommodative Fed have the potential to impact pricing over the near to medium term.

As price increases accelerate, policymakers at leading central banks are slowly starting to move away from the narrative of “transitory” inflation that has already cost them the policy initiative. But the needed pivot is far from complete and not nearly quick enough, particularly at the US Federal Reserve.

Interest rates are rising, and bond investors are worried about the potential impact on their portfolios. But they’re not entirely at the mercy of the markets. 

Expectations of the Fed’s liftoff in short-term interest rates have continued to inch forward and bond yields have moved moderately higher. However, investors remain optimistic, looking beyond recent concerns (the delta variant and supply chain and labor issues).

Despite multiple headwinds, including increasing inflation, rising rates, and tight labor markets, our view is that the U.S. economy is in good shape. Markets may experience higher volatility as the Fed begins to taper its bond buying program, but we expect that to be a short-term issue.

Reducing exposure to equities and bonds to accommodate non-correlated assets or alternative strategies may reduce risk, but at the expense of lower potential returns and painful tracking error. We introduce a novel investment concept, accessible to all investors, which is designed to seek higher returns with less risk and low tracking error by using new products which, in combination, can provide more than $1 of exposure for every dollar invested. The proposed solution harnesses the full potential of traditional portfolios plus the opportunity for higher returns and risk reduction from non-correlated investments. We show how to maximize “Return Stacking™” opportunities by choosing alternative fund managers already engaging in capital-efficient strategies.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s charitable foundation announced a $16.8 million grant to Howard University that would establish a center focused on furthering Black entrepreneurship.

Among the illusions encouraged by every speculative bubble is the idea that wealth is embodied in the prices of securities – that higher prices inherently represent greater “wealth.” The fact is that every security is, at base, a claim to some future stream of cash flows that will be delivered into the hands of investors over time.

Three transformative trends will lead the world into a radically different macro environment over the secular horizon. Read our long-term outlook and implications to consider when investing.

After beginning the quarter on a relatively upbeat note, familiar themes returned as fears of inflation, ambiguity over the end of the pandemic, and uncertainty about the future of Chinese capitalism raised concerns for investors.

Global bond investors face an old enemy -- inflation -- and the universe of fixed-income assets doesn’t look to offer much in the way of shelter.

BlackRock Inc. said active investors have an opportunity to beat the market by digging deeper into information about the sustainability of companies.

Older borrowers will be among the hardest hit when student-loan payments resume for more than 40 million Americans after a pandemic freeze, according to research by Fidelity Investments Inc.

We touch on several bases today as we often do. We begin with the Fed which decided to start reducing its monthly purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities in November. This was not a surprise.

With so many life-changing liquidity events on the horizon, charitably minded advisors would be well served to follow the same tax guidance they provide their clients and set up a DAF prior to the sale of their firm.

Excerpts from Cerulli Associates' report on asset owner and manager perspectives when it comes to promoting diversity & inclusion.

New projections of the labor force growth rate by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show the US labor force growth accelerating in the 2020s for the first time since the 1970s.

Demand is so strong for green bonds, or debt that funds environmentally friendly projects, that investors are accepting lower yields for securities that are harder to trade, according to Barclays Plc.

The pandemic accelerated a trend that college deans and finance chiefs throughout the U.S. Midwest have been dreading: There are fewer 18-year-olds to fill classrooms, dorms and dining halls.

In a society with a weak social safety net, homelessness is the inevitable result of exuberant real estate prices. Those living on the street are the indirect victims of loose monetary policy and low interest rates that foster high property and rental prices.

The Fed's more hawkish stance at September’s FOMC meeting, rising upside inflation pressures, and near-term volatility drove Treasury yields higher at the end of the month.

The media and the economics profession are treating inflation like it is a friendly puppy dog. They think you can take it out of its pen and play with it for a while. The popular theory is that you bring it out in a severe dip in economic activity and when the economy gets back on its feet, you kindly ask inflation to crawl back into its pen like any good puppy dog would do.

We’re all familiar with inflation. But did you know there’s another form of inflation that’s just as corrosive on our purchasing power and yet is nearly impossible to measure? Read on to learn more.

The ongoing, intensifying supply chain problems are raising costs in ways that add broad inflation pressure everyone will feel. And the zeitgeist in the workplace is literally changing before our eyes.

In part two of this series, I review three additional robos: Albert, Ellevest, and Stash.

Supply chains typically aren’t something the average person needs to think about too much. When they’re working, these high-tech, globalized networks of parts suppliers, assemblers, shippers, and distributors allow companies to make and move goods around the world so quickly and cheaply that it’s tempting to take them for granted.

Concerns about China’s slowing economy have focused on issues affecting property and manufacturing. But these are only part of the story. Investors seeking a fuller understanding of the risks and opportunities need to take a broader perspective.

Many mutual funds will distribute capital gains every year—no matter what the market does. As 2021 comes to a close, advisors can begin to prepare their clients for the impact of those distributions and take steps to minimize the tax bite going forward.

I was speaking with an industry friend and colleague the other day, and we got to riffing about music and retirement planning. A free and creative thinker, she said that when talking to clients about future retirement income, the sweet spot timing wise seems to be about five years before clients retire.

Saving for retirement is a decades-long endeavor with factors – both excepted and unexpected – that can affect confidence and preparedness. Even though much of the conversation has centered around amassing a nest egg, it’s also important to look at what else can be done to improve retirement readiness for all.

Asset managers are under increasing pressure to stop investing in companies that worsen the climate emergency through heavy carbon emissions.

As Mark Twain might have put it, the demise of debt’s value within the long-favored 60-40 stock-bond diversified portfolios is greatly exaggerated -- when you adjust for risk.

Inflation debates have been dominated by fallout from the pandemic and economic reopening, most of which has been viewed as transitory: lumber and used car prices in the first half of the year, the cost of ocean freight more recently.

Retirees are poised to benefit from the largest increase in Social Security benefits in the last 40 years.

The strong economic and market trends of the first half of 2021 wavered during the third quarter. The coronavirus delta variant caught up with the US at the height of the summer, just as vaccinations slowed and concerns grew that inflation might flare and persist.