In this second quarter update, Western Asset believes global fixed-income markets face a more complex backdrop as geopolitics, rapid AI adoption and private credit scrutiny intersect.

For private equity firms, capital flexibility is prized today. Merger-and-acquisition (M&A) activity has cooled, while commodity prices and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven disruption have heated up, creating uncertainty for investors. This makes it more challenging to sell portfolio companies, so private equity firms are holding investments longer. As a result, many firms are turning to net asset value (NAV) loans for capital needs.

While US financial markets brace for what could be the three biggest initial public offerings ever, most entrepreneurship in the US is headed in the opposite direction: New businesses are shrinking.

By moving beyond benchmark constraints, active portfolios can access off-the-run bonds, specific securitized tranches, and maturity buckets with superior risk-reward profiles. They also have the flexibility to adjust positioning throughout the market cycle — reallocating across sectors, ratings, and issuers as conditions evolve to capture opportunities and mitigate drawdowns.

I still don’t think the Fed is close to a rate hike, but for the upcoming June FOMC meeting, a shift in the language of the policy statement from an easing bias to one of a ‘balanced’ outlook seems to be the most likely scenario. However, the fed funds futures market has now fully priced in a rate hike for March 2027, a remarkable shift from its pre-war status of discounting almost three rate cuts for the same timeframe.

Industry discussions on Janus Henderson’s ETF lineup are typically centered around its fixed income funds given the firm’s history in this asset class. However, the issuer also has equity ETFs that are garnering attention, which include a fund that’s close to crossing the $1 billion assets under management (AUM) threshold: the Janus Henderson Small-Mid Cap Growth Alpha ETF (JSMD).

Stephen Dover shares key insights from the Franklin Equity team about how artificial intelligence is changing the economics of the software industry.

Some institutional investors who had grown accustomed to outperforming the broader private equity composites are finding they have not done so consistently in recent years. Their diagnoses of the problem often center on specific decisions or biases they made in their recent manager selection, whereas a likely culprit is a falloff in the persistence of outperformance among private equity managers.

The average size of a single-family house built in the 1960s was about 1,500 square feet, and homes within multifamily units were about 800 square feet. Now those figures are more than 2,000 square feet and more than 1,200 square feet, respectively.

Recently, Matthew Bartolini, global head of research strategists at State Street Investment Management, sat down with VettaFi to discuss where inflation stands, opportunities within portfolio construction, and much more.

Concerned about overfunding your 529 plan? Discover the strategic flexibility of modern 529 accounts. From tax-free Roth IRA transfers to building a multi-generational educational legacy, learn how to maximize your unused education savings for long-term wealth building.

We separate this article into two parts. Part one is the optimistic case: an AI-induced, productivity-led economic boom in which the benefits spread quickly to society. Part two will address a more bearish outlook: the possibility of a large gap in the distribution of AI's productivity benefits, accruing to corporations much more quickly than to employees.

Vanguard’s Total World Stock ETF (ticker VT) is an elegant product: a single fund that gives you cap-weighted exposure to the entire global equity market. For investors who want simplicity, it’s hard to beat. But is simplicity costing you money?

Put succinctly, the world today requires substantially more electricity than only a few years ago. AI, electrification, reshored manufacturing, and population growth in the developing world are converging into a demand curve that the existing global power system simply cannot meet.

US stocks advanced as investors struck an upbeat tone ahead of a long holiday weekend, with optimism fueled by hopes for resolution of hostilities in the Middle East, resilient economic data and relentless enthusiasm for artificial intelligence-linked trades.

From the April payroll report released on May 8, we realize that not all industries are equally impacted by AI. Diagnostic imaging centers, an area where AI is thought to replace humans, have increased demand for workers, whereas bookkeeping demand has declined in recent years.

Watching your children step into financial independence is one of the most rewarding and complex milestones families experience. As young adults begin earning income, managing expenses, and making major life decisions, the habits and financial knowledge they develop can shape their long-term success.

Sustainable investing in fixed income has come of age. Against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions, persistent economic and trade uncertainty, sustainable fixed income continued to demonstrate its appeal in 2025.

Stocks’ rally off the March 30 lows has been nothing short of wild, with internal market dynamics showing some performance divergences that we haven’t seen for decades. For example, in the first 6 weeks of the rally, the S&P 500 Growth index beat the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index by more than any other 6-week window on record.

While most institutional investors recognize that private equity and public equity share similar economic risks, they often seem to ignore how their aggregate equity portfolio is affected by their substantial allocation to private equity.

There’s a whiff of panic among investors these days. US Treasury yields have climbed to levels unseen in more than a year at the same time as a furious rally has left stocks near all-time highs. Surely, both moves can’t coexist for long, goes the narrative.

Nvidia Corp., facing more investor skepticism, used its latest quarterly report to tout progress in diversifying the company, which aims to rely less on the giant data center operators that have fueled its runaway growth.

In the past year, new models from industry leaders have continued to boost AI’s capabilities. According to various capabilities tests, Anthropic’s Mythos model has leapfrogged other AI models – including in the ability to thwart or support cyberattacks.

Right now, AAI’s two highest 10-year expected return forecasts are for large-cap value equity strategies outside the United States—Emerging Markets RAFI and Dev ex US Large RAFI. AAI’s expected return model anticipates valuations for equity strategies to mean revert and therefore tends to elevate out-of-favor regions and styles, predicting higher future returns for recently underperforming equity indices.

Enterprise software is undergoing its most significant reset in a generation. Artificial intelligence (AI) is reallocating value within software—creating clear winners and exposing vulnerabilities in business models that have worked well for the past two decades. We believe investors who treat software as a uniform asset class will make costly mistakes.

GMO has posted a new 7-Year asset class forecast as of April 30, 2026.

In fixed income investing, trade execution plays an important role in overall portfolio performance. The ability to source bonds efficiently, invest capital thoughtfully and execute trades at competitive prices can directly affect investor returns.

The consumer is still spending, but with a higher level of caution. Inflation remains a persistent pressure point, particularly for lower- and middle-income households. This has caused the U.S. personal saving rate to fall to 3.6% as of March 2026, leaving significantly less breathing room for discretionary purchases.

LPL Research examines rising inflation risks amid geopolitical tensions, while resilient growth and strong investment support continued expansion.

The exchange-traded fund marketplace continues to expand. Now with more than $20 trillion in assets under management ($14 trillion in the U.S., growing at an 18% five-year annualized clip), 2026’s volatility and emerging investment themes have taken the universe to new heights.

Alex Evangeli has traded ETF products since 2007. He founded and led the fixed income trading business at Virtu Financial in Europe before relocating to New York to trade and lead the development of fixed income trading technology for the ETF block business.

Exchange traded fund inflows have topped $750 billion in 2026. This puts the industry on pace to challenge the $1.5 trillion annual record set last year, Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, told host Nate Geraci on this week’s ETF Prime. Both suggested the industry could approach or surpass $2 trillion by year-end.

Reassessing legacy systems through a modern lens can help firms identify where closed, context-aware platforms may offer a stronger foundation for communication governance, operational efficiency and regulatory confidence. Open AI models helped kickstart automation in compliance. Closed platforms will likely make it sustainable.

Space has evolved from a niche corner of the stock market into an area that offers the potential for diversity and growth. The euphoria around SpaceX’s market entry is driving fresh investor flows into the sector. Since the news of the offering first became public in early December, smaller space and related stocks have soared.

For much of the year, chip stocks have been powering the market higher. Now, Nvidia Corp.’s earnings have a chance to confirm that the rally has more room to run — or add another brick to investors’ wall of worry.

Although a lot has changed since our last quarterly, its central theme – dispersion – feels like it’s only become more pronounced. We wrote last time that ‘‘we believe we’re entering a new era of dispersion in the performance of financial assets.’’

On Friday, May 15, the 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.59%, its highest level since February 2025. The 30-year Treasury yield closed near 5.12%, a level last seen in 2007. Those are significant moves because they reflect a repricing of the market’s inflation, growth, and Federal Reserve expectations.

Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

That Buffett cash hoard has also created a lot of speculation, innuendo, and assumptions, which is what I want to walk through in today’s discussion. Primarily, what that cash hoard actually represents, the popular theories explaining it, and what it really costs shareholders to hold.

One thing most people don’t know is that prior to the invention of the Fed, other than during wars, there was almost no inflation. Various sources including the Federal Reserve regional banks show the purchasing power of $1 in 1900 was the same as or higher than it was in 1800.

Emerging market debt is compelling as a medium‑term structural allocation, particularly for investors seeking to diversify away from concentrated U.S. exposures.

Tax-equivalent yields on high-quality munis are hitting 7% to 9%. Discover how WisdomTree ETFs, WTMU and WTMY, exploit the steep yield curve.

As inflation lingers and market dynamics shift, advisors are rethinking the 60/40 portfolio with managed futures and options income ETFs.

Investors need to understand what they own, how it may perform in different environments, and why it is structured the way it is. When advisors build this education into their work, it gives clients the discipline and expectations they need to stay the course when volatility rears its head.

Student loan debt is a legitimate concern, and the return on a college degree varies enormously by field, institution, and student. The key is to look realistically and specifically at each student’s needs and interests, each family’s finances, and all the sources of funding and support that might be available.

The percentage-of-assets fee is so embedded in advisory economics that most firms treat it as a fixed constant rather than a business decision. It shapes how you staff, how you plan, and how you define the relationship with clients. But the AUM model is neither as old nor as inevitable as it feels.

I’ve long been a student of game theory, the branch of mathematics that studies how rational actors make decisions when their outcomes depend on what everyone else does. It’s a helpful framework for understanding markets and geopolitics, and right now, there’s no better place to apply it than Taiwan.

A frequently asked question in recent weeks is whether the market is simply ignoring the risks stemming from the current geopolitical conflict, especially given the spike in oil prices that has pushed inflation pressures higher.

In this thought provoking presentation, Chuck Carnevale, co founder of FAST Graphs and widely known as “Mr. Valuation,” challenges one of Wall Street’s most accepted investing principles, the traditional 60/40 portfolio split between stocks and bonds. Drawing from decades of investment experience, Chuck explains why he believes blindly allocating large portions of retirement assets to fixed income may actually increase long term financial risk rather than reduce it.

The summit in Beijing between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered little in the way of diplomatic breakthroughs but bears important cross-asset implications.