Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
Something strange has been happening in America lately. The Wall Street Journal says this is the summer when the U.S. became “a nation of Luddites.” The Economist calls it “the Summer of Ludd.”
Amazon.com Inc.’s Andy Jassy has begun making an audacious boast during conference calls this year. Though his company remains a top Nvidia Corp. customer, it’s also one of the world’s largest makers of data center chips in its own right.
The debt problem is real. It just isn’t a bomb. As we’ve written before, the debt and deficit problem isn’t what you think. It’s a tax on future growth, collected slowly, and normal interest rates are simply the price of money doing its job, not the crisis the headlines keep selling.
Today, the backdrop for real assets has reset. Growth is returning, but in different parts of the market than many investors remember. While in the post-pandemic period performance was defined by scale, now it is the result of adaptability and having access to a broad array of organization sizes and business plans.
To some, the debate over inflation targeting is largely an academic exercise. But its outcome will have direct consequences for the paths of global interest rates and global markets. Some background on how we arrived at this juncture, and where we might go from here, follows.
The truth about the runaway costs of healthcare turns out to be a little more complex than any single source we've named. Hospitals, insurers, private equity, administrators, pharmaceutical companies… pull the thread on any one and we land in the same overextended, bloated, extractive system.
U.S. debt may not be at an immediate breaking point, but persistent deficits, higher rates, and rising interest costs are narrowing fiscal space and market tolerance.
The headline U.S. unemployment rate has been falling for several months, but a closer look at who is leaving the workforce – and who isn’t entering or returning to it – reveals why average wages are stagnating, and why labor markets aren’t a source of inflationary pressure.
Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. have been under pressure all year due to questions about its spending on artificial intelligence. But a trial accusing its social media platforms of targeting children goes beyond that, raising existential questions about the future of its core business.
Treat launch costs as initial investments, not expenses to minimize. Strategic firms often discover that the most valuable investments are the ones that protect their clients, preserve flexibility, and create enduring enterprise value.
With the US fiscal year 2027 (FY27) state budget season now largely complete, several important trends have emerged. Most states and local governments adopted their budgets without major delays or political impasses, an encouraging sign for two important credit considerations: governance and financial management.
Equity markets continued to push higher this week, with nearly all major indices in the U.S. and abroad closing near or at record highs. While longer-term interest rates continued to drift higher, shorter-term interest rates moved lower as investors pushed out both the timing and magnitude of potential Federal Reserve rate hikes.
As growth accelerates, the first question a leadership team has to answer is not how big the firm can get. It is where the frontier sits, the exact point at which scale stops generating lift and starts generating drag.
If the bad news is that members of Generation Z can’t afford to buy a house until they are middle-aged — which isn’t really bad news, honestly, but anyway — then the good news is that at least they are investing their money in high-performing assets.
“Think Like An Investor” is chapter 1 of a 5-part series examining the narratives around “investing for the long run. Learning to think like an investor rather than a speculator is not a personality quirk or a matter of taste. It is the entire game, and the good news is that it is a skill you can actually build, starting today.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s not the political party that matters, but the policies. Investors, I believe, are better served when they focus not on the partisan noise and headlines but the policies that bring about change.
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.
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.
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 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%.
European stock markets are booming. But that doesn’t mean Europe is. Traditionally, a bet on European equities is actually a bet on growth everywhere else. The companies that make up the Stoxx Europe 600 — which has risen by about 12% this year — get almost half their revenues outside the continent, according to the index’s owners.
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.
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.
After 10 years, we understand that not every conflict has a clean answer. Advisors value feeling heard and supported through difficult situations. Over time, we’ve learned that genuine engagement and thoughtful communication build more trust than rushing toward incomplete answers.
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.
GDP — for gross domestic product, the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a county’s borders — is in many ways the ideal economic statistic, both for what it measures and what it represents. It is a single number that captures so much information, with a scope and history unmatched by almost any other measure.
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.
Our thesis remains largely unchanged. Today's “exploding” CDS spreads and bond yields are pricing an Oracle problem. The question investors should be asking isn't whether Oracle is an outlier. It clearly is. The question is whether Oracle is a preview of what happens to credit markets more broadly if AI capital spending keeps outrunning AI revenue.
The AI capital expenditure cycle remains solidly on track to eclipse the telecom boom of the late 1990s and become the largest investment cycle since the railway buildout of the 19th century in inflation-adjusted terms. T
While long-term interest rates have been trending higher driven by a combination of persistent inflation, Fed uncertainty and geopolitical conflict, earnings growth this year has been very strong. If the trend continues, earnings could continue to help equity markets outpace rising interest rate and inflation risks.
Stronger gold prices are happening for a couple different reasons. First of all, optimism is rising that the Strait of Hormuz may finally reopen soon. The news in Iran is certainly welcome, but new jobs data from ADP is helping gold, too.
The AI trade has faced renewed volatility as investors question AI spending and current valuations. Semiconductor stocks and related areas — including memory, networking, photonics, and chip equipment—have all been caught in the pullback.
There is no one-size-fits-all individual investment strategy. We all have different needs. Once I decided I needed a portfolio that would work for today, I became convinced that a dividend growth portfolio should be the core of my long-term investment strategy. Not an addition, but the core.
Reducing or eliminating debt might feel like the ultimate financial milestone, but paying off debt early – or avoiding it entirely – can limit future opportunities for building or preserving wealth. During periods of volatility, it may be tempting to get rid of debt for short-term relief, but this could compromise your long-term plan. Staying the course may be crucial to your goals – no matter the market.
Alphabet Inc. is looking to raise as much as $25 billion from its latest US investment-grade bond offering, a deal that will test investor appetite for AI-related debt following a July selloff.
Richard Driehaus, the late Chicago money manager who helped popularize momentum investing, took exception to the mantra of buy low, sell high.
In the span of a few weeks, a new college student takes on loan debt, gets their first credit card offer, and starts managing daily expenses on their own. They're buying groceries, splitting costs with roommates, saying yes to things they probably can't afford yet. No other period of life throws that many financial decisions at someone with that little experience.
On Wednesday afternoon the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for a fifth consecutive meeting, and stocks buckled: the Dow fell 1,153 points, its worst day since April of last year.
Many of the most critical components of AI infrastructure are produced by a small and increasingly consolidated group of highly specialized companies.
LPL Research highlights strong corporate earnings, AI-driven growth, and a favorable equity outlook while monitoring inflation, oil prices, and risks.
July was an eventful month for both domestic and international markets, with US-Iran tensions flaring up, increasing energy prices and changing investor expectations for the Federal Reserve (Fed) cutting rates.
Lately, it seems like you can’t open a financial publication without stumbling across another article declaring the 60/40 portfolio dead. The pitch is everywhere: bonds are broken, the old rules no longer apply, and investors should modernize by swapping the bonds in their portfolio for Bitcoin, gold, or whatever alternative the asset management industry is currently selling.
