Stocks started the week on an upbeat note as the administration delayed a deadline to strike Iranian energy plants by five days, also announcing that the U.S. and Iran were in negotiations to end the conflict.

I suggest looking both inward and outward to answer two central questions: “Can we afford to help without harming our own financial future?” and “Will this increase or decrease the child’s movement toward financial independence?”

Retirement savers have plenty of questions about a recent executive order that opens a path for alternative investments, such as private equity, real estate and digital assets, in 401(k) plans. One advisor shares why individuals have good reason to take pause.

Warren Buffett cautioned that he’s seeing signs of fragility emerging in the banking system as it has become more connected to non-bank players.

On paper, Super Micro Computer Inc. is the type of company that Wall Street can’t get enough of, with soaring sales, an enviable list of partners like Nvidia Corp. and its placement at the center of the artificial intelligence boom.

BlackRock Inc. plans to launch a fund next month focused on large Southeast Asian stocks, according to people familiar with the matter, a move supporting Singapore’s drive to boost liquidity in the local market.

Does artificial intelligence herald soaring prosperity or mass unemployment, political breakdown and Orwellian subjection? Nobody, not even AI, can honestly say. Forced to guess, I’d predict some of both.

The US economy grew a pedestrian 2.0% last year and the Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now is currently projecting real GDP growth at a 2.0% annual rate in the first quarter. If anything, we think there is more downside risk than up to the first quarter projection.

I just returned from the Investment U conference in Las Vegas, where I presented on gold and the great digital transformation. Sentiment among investors was upbeat, despite great uncertainty in the world right now.

Gold has fallen roughly 21 percent from its all-time high of nearly $5,595 reached in late January to approximately $4,430 as of this writing, and the prevailing narrative in markets is that this correction reflects a genuine shift in the metal’s outlook

Leveraging 529 plans and community support can significantly boost college savings. These plans offer potential tax benefits and flexibility. Our Bill Cass explains that involvement from family and friends can provide additional resources and motivation.

Get ready each week with high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

When someone says a retiree is “living off Social Security,” it’s not usually $100,000 a year.

Discover why Strait of Hormuz disruptions extend beyond oil, how supply shocks are transmitting into agriculture markets, and what third-order commodity effects may mean for portfolios.

To better understand how AI might affect the labor market and, ultimately, the economy, we’ve summarized Citrini’s bleak outlook alongside rebuttals from Citadel Securities and Bianco Research. These summaries provide a useful primer on how labor markets may adjust to the upcoming major technological changes.

For investors, understanding the full anatomy of fixed income is critical, not only to capture attractive risk-adjusted returns in today’s environment but also to appreciate its indispensable role in powering economic growth and financial stability.

A progressive rallying cry to tax the rich is being welcomed by traditionally Republican states, including Florida and Georgia, looking for a new pitch to draw migrants — especially wealthy migrants — from the coasts.

The wreckage in large technology stocks that sent the Nasdaq 100 Index into a correction is flashing signs that have marked turning points for the group in the past.

Some of Wall Street’s biggest bond-fund managers say financial markets are underestimating the risk that the US war in Iran will cause a sharp slowdown in an already sputtering economy.

Thanks to strong gains in markets over recent years, with many indices at or near record highs, the 60/40 default portfolio has quietly morphed into a bundle of expensive U.S. growth equities and credit exposures offering narrow spreads over Treasuries. In our view, such a portfolio is likely to disappoint investors by delivering low single-digit real returns.

Government statistics are invaluable in deciphering the state of the U.S. economy. But they don’t always tell the whole story.

The conflict in the Middle East has raised concerns about oil prices, global growth and market volatility. Chief Investment Officer Sean Taylor assesses the potential economic impacts of the crisis and its implications for growth and diversification in emerging markets and Asia.

Rationally, no one should feel happy about an income tax refund. The refund is a correction of a tax overpayment; the recipient effectively gave the government an interest-free loan over the course of the prior year.

Today, Vanguard decided to join the target-maturity party, launching a suite of corporate bond ETFs designed to assist investors with bond laddering. Vanguard’s entry is significant due to its massive distribution scale in tandem with its low-cost reputation.

As tax law changes from the OBBBA take effect, taxpayers may want to evaluate their financial plans. Our Bill Cass shares some essential strategies—including Roth conversions that may help taxpayers optimize savings.

The actively managed fund charges a 0.65% expense ratio and uses an options overlay designed to generate income while managing volatility. Energy makes up 45.87% of the fund’s sector allocation, followed by information technology at 25.83%, industrials at 16.43% and utilities at 11.87%, according to the factsheet.

As the ETF industry witnessed expansive growth during the past decade, providers have been engaging in a fee war as competition heats up. Industry giants like Vanguard and BlackRock have slashed expense ratios to near-zero, but that era of fee compression could be reaching an inflection point.

Next week’s releases should help clarify whether recent volatility remains contained or begins to translate into weaker fundamentals.

Franklin Templeton is partnering with Ondo Finance to offer tokenized versions of its ETFs that trade around the clock through crypto wallets, bypassing the brokerage accounts and limited trading hours that have defined fund investing for decades.

Eve oversees dozens of brainiac office hands; monitors countless earning calls; keeps tabs on CEOs; parses corporate filings; conducts due diligence; brainstorms stock picks.

Energy cycles have a way of rewarding investors who show up early, while punishing those who assume the next upturn will look exactly like the last one. Supply disruptions caused by the war in Iran that began just under a month ago have upended markets globally, with oil markets taking center stage.

In today’s era of automation, some situations demand a more active approach. Municipal bond investing is one.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, persistent geopolitical tensions – particularly the conflict in Iran – and ongoing trade uncertainty have kept headlines loud and emotions elevated, ultimately demanding investors remain adaptive and disciplined. In this kind of environment, the biggest mistakes come from reacting to noise rather than fundamentals.

Bitcoin is now less volatile than some Magnificent 7 stocks, but it's still capable of steep, prolonged declines.

Many people forget that gold was in a bull market in early 2008 but suffered a significant selloff at the onset of the financial crisis when the yellow metal fell 32 percent, giving up about 40 percent of its previous bull market gain. Gold then took off and soared by over 153 percent over the next few years.

A SEP IRA offers small businesses and sole proprietors a flexible, tax advantaged way to fund 2025 retirement savings. With high contribution limits, simplified administration and deadlines extending through tax filing, it can provide a practical solution for boosting long term financial security.

At the height of the meme stock craze, investors made and lost fortunes as their speculative trades made headlines. This trend was so dramatic and so widespread that reporting on it moved beyond financial publications into the mainstream press and even into a few movie scripts.

At the risk of leaving aside the flow-through of the crude oil price into expenses such as electricity, trucking, and so on, let’s just look at the pocketbook hit from filling up the family car specifically.

In a world of intensified uncertainty and dispersion, investing becomes less about forecasting and more about favoring more liquid, high quality assets that can be resilient across a variety of scenarios.

The Iran conflict has changed the paths for inflation and central bank actions.

The multi-asset playing field presents income investors with broad opportunities across asset classes. But investors that rely only on traditional stock dividends and bond interest may be missing out on other attractive income sources.

If you’re not sure what direct indexing means, you’re not alone. Even after the recent growth, direct indexing remains relatively unknown. As our risk review team never fails to remind us, you can’t invest directly in an index. So what exactly is direct indexing?

As portfolios limited to public equities capture a smaller slice of corporate growth, private investments are increasingly finding a place in long-term wealth-building strategies, including 401(k)s.

The conversation about automation is still stuck in 2016. “Robots are coming for your job.” But look at what’s actually happening in the countries that leaned into robotics.

The advisors who build systematic processes around employer dependence risk won't just retain these clients. They'll become the firm these clients refer their colleagues to.

Geopolitical headlines rarely arrive quietly. The recent escalation in the Middle East is a reminder of how quickly tensions can feel destabilizing.

How Do You Value Zero GrowthIn this video, Chuck Carnevale (“Mr. Valuation”) explains the fundamentals of stock valuation and addresses a common misconception: that all companies should be valued at the same price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.

Uncertainty persists in 2026, affecting the broader fixed income market. Collateralized loan obligations (or CLO) have emerged as a viable option with the advent of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have democratized access to retail investors.

Corporate credit markets have become unsettled about the potential for advanced agentic AI tools from firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI to automate functions across legal, analytical, marketing, and sales workflows, effectively targeting the software as a service (SaaS)/enterprise software space.

T. Rowe Price is leveraging three decades of private equity experience to give active ETF investors access to companies at the core of artificial intelligence, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks, according to Christopher Murphy, head of ETF specialists at the firm.