You spent years building your retirement savings with one goal in mind: having enough to live comfortably when you stop working. The strategy that got you here probably leaned heavily on growth. But as retirement gets closer, that same approach may not be the right one to carry you through it.
In January 1790, the House of Representatives put a simple question to its new Treasury Secretary: what should America make for itself? Alexander Hamilton took almost two years to answer.
Electricity has become a major global focus. It essential to powering the modern economy: regions with capacity will generate growth, while those without adequate supplies may be vulnerable to shocks.
As companies race to capitalize on the AI boom, water security is emerging as a material risk across the value chain. While data centers attract headlines, semiconductor fabrication remains one of the value chain’s most water-intensive activities, requiring reliable supplies of high-purity water.
There are 38% fewer companies listed on U.S. exchanges today than at the peak in the mid-1990s. The forces behind that decline—regulatory burden, the abundance of private capital, and the quiet disappearance of mid-sized public companies—are structural, not cyclical.
Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
The AI bear case is worth taking seriously on price and financing. It is not worth taking seriously on demand. Anyone selling you the whole package as a single story, bull or bear, is selling you a mood, not an analysis. The revenue is real. The cash flow is the thing to watch. Price accordingly.
As concerns grow about the market’s biggest companies, investors are looking further down the market-cap scale. Mid-cap innovators are drawing more attention because they have more room to grow.
LPL Research explores whether hyperscalers can generate attractive returns on massive AI investments through a framework focused on ROIC, growth, and capex.
In part two of AB’s “Build a Better Path” Disruptor SeriesTM, we shifted from diagnosing the challenge of long-term investing to a potential approach for solving it. With practical, actionable steps, investors have the potential to translate the concept of improving up/down capture into strategies aimed at improving portfolio design.
Forecasting is always fraught, but geopolitical turmoil makes it especially hazardous. Economic projections are only as reliable as the assumptions behind them, and those inputs can change quickly when conflicts are involved.
Europe’s big banks have joined the global stock trading party. Danger lurks, however: When the market turns, it is often brutal.
Artificial intelligence is a transformative new technology, but we believe that it’s likely to follow a familiar pattern. From spreadsheets to the internet, innovations have historically given early adopters an edge—for a time. In our view, the ability to maintain that advantage depends much more on how effectively an asset manager integrates it throughout the organization.
The Federal Reserve concluded its fifth meeting of the year by holding the federal funds rate (FFR) steady in the 3.50%-3.75% range.
The combination of succession planning — where the lead advisor wants to have a successful and well-funded retirement and the successors want to get paid for taking over — along with the riches of the market over the last few years are all adding up to significant unrest within many teams.
The US economy grew 2.0% in 2025 and it looks like it is growing another 2.0% this year. Real GDP grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the first quarter and, as we set out below, it looks like it grew at a 2.0% rate in the second quarter.
If you own treasuries, you need to make two separate decisions rather than one blended bet. The liquidity sleeve holds the bill exposure and does the work people mistakenly ask the long end to do. The duration sleeve stays deliberately small, sized as recession insurance rather than as a conviction call on falling inflation.
US earnings are set to grow briskly in 2026, but much of the expected gains are being driven by expanding profit margins that may be hard to sustain. Equity investors should ask whether portfolios are exposed to businesses with durable demand and profitable reinvestment—or merely a favorable margin cycle.
The structural backdrop for U.S. inflation increasingly suggests that the long run equilibrium range is migrating from roughly 1.5–3.5% toward 3.5–4.5%, with a significant risk of episodes of inflation above 5%. An important core reason is the steady erosion of the disinflationary architecture that dominated the 1990–2020 period, even as various cyclical pressures also play a role.
On July 28, Morgan Stanley launched two new spot crypto ETFs on NYSE Arca. The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (MSOL) provide spot price exposure to underlying ethereum (ETH) and solana (SOL), alongside additional distributions from staking yields.
Brent crude crossed above $100 a barrel this week, all due to a 20-mile-wide stretch of water some 6,500 miles away from the U.S. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—the Persian Gulf bottleneck that carried roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil before the fighting started—has fallen to virtually zero.
Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. face renewed investor anxiety over their debt-fueled capital expenditure plans after Alphabet Inc. raised the upper end of its spending forecast this year by as much as $15 billion.
As advisors face outflows to client income and one-time distributions, organic growth via client pickups can prove a useful asset, according to a recent report.
To evaluate SpaceX from a fundamental perspective, investors need to quantify the implied growth in its valuation and compare it with both their own and market forecasts. In this article, we attempt to help by providing context for growth expectations, using Amazon’s history as a proxy. The question we pose is: What does the Amazon playbook require of SpaceX?
The second-quarter earnings season is in full swing. So far, the results are landing in line or better than the upwardly revised Wall Street estimates. That’s the opposite of how this usually works. Analysts normally trim their forecasts as a year wears on. In 2026, they’ve done the opposite.
The equity bull market is expected to continue through the second half of 2026, supported by resilient U.S. growth, AI investment and solid earnings.
In this midyear global outlook summary, the authors revisit Vanguard’s economic and market outlooks and assess how our views have evolved since the start of the year.
Semiconductor exchange-traded funds have gained more than 25% this year. Intel Corporation’s (INTC) second-quarter earnings report after today’s close could test whether that rally continues.
Electricity demand is surging all over the world. To meet this demand, vast investments in power generation need to be made, and grids need to be overhauled and expanded. Ramping up electricity generation and delivery is extremely expensive, and electricity prices have spiked up throughout much of the developed world.
From severe wildfires in northern Ontario to record heat across Europe, extreme weather is back in the headlines. Such events are becoming more frequent and intense, and the risks associated with them are testing the limits of insurability. With our research partners at Columbia Climate School, we examine how strains on the insurance system can transmit climate-related risks through the capital markets.
Intel Corp. is expected to report strong second-quarter earnings after the market close Thursday, but even blowout results likely won’t be enough to reverse the stock’s July slide.
Investors continue to benefit from two powerful tailwinds: strong stock-market performance and bond yields that remain attractive compared with much of the post-financial-crisis period. Higher yields have improved the income generated by fixed income portfolios and given investors more flexibility to balance income, liquidity, and interest rate risk.
Lock, stock and barrel, a British phrase, originally referred to the three essential components of a firearm. Over time, it evolved into shorthand for the whole package. When tensions flare in the Middle East, the global economy often feels the consequences lock, stock and barrel.
The US 30-year bond yield is trading above 5% for the longest stretch since the dawn of the financial crisis, echoing investor concerns about a growing debt pile and sticky inflation.
The first half of 2026 was shaped by market-moving headlines. The conflict in the Middle East was the most significant story, triggering a short-term market sell-off.
The relative cheapness of Treasuries versus interest rate swaps mechanically affects how corporate bond spreads are measured, but it appears to have limited influence on how corporate bond spreads actually behave.
LPL Research analyzes China’s declining crude imports, inflation risks, and the resilient U.S. economy driving above-trend growth.
When you measure home affordability today against the metric that actually governs the check you write each month, the picture flips. By that measure, buying a home may be easier now than it was for the Boomers and Gen Xers who get blamed for everything.
Whenever I speak at investment conferences, I like to point out that we invest in a number of publicly traded airports. I even list them: Spain’s Aena. Aeroports de Paris. Zurich Airport. Airports of Thailand. Two of the world’s largest operators, Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste and Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, trade in Mexico.
There are several market headwinds that warrant attention, as well as a tailwind that may be large enough to keep the boat moving forward. Fully understanding the headwinds and tailwinds will help you better monitor the market barometer, allowing you to assess and adjust risk levels with more awareness going forward.
Whether you admire him or cringe at the mention of his name, US President Donald Trump has long had a penchant for putting his name on things. Once it was condos, steaks and Bibles.
Decades of data across global markets reach the same verdict: the more frequently retail traders trade, the worse they perform. The infrastructure has never been more inviting. The losses have never been more documented. Here are some key statistics we will dive into further.
President Xi Jinping used the rise of China’s AI models to stake his claim on shaping the technology’s global rules, even as their growing power stirs security concerns in Washington and Beijing alike.
A country drowning in energy shouldn't also feel like it's running out of electricity. In other words: before we ask whether America can make more things again, we should probably ask whether America can power the production.
The bonds sold by hyperscalers to fuel their artificial intelligence ambitions have become a drag on investor portfolios from London to Tokyo.
Midyear is a useful moment in investing—not because it tells us where we are going, but because it offers a clearer view of how little we truly knew at the start. Six months is often enough time for confident forecasts to meet reality, for consensus narratives to fray, and for the distinction between what sounded plausible and what proved durable to come into focus.
A hawkish pivot by the Federal Reserve and resilient U.S. growth could keep the dollar strong, but its gains could be limited by any narrowing of the U.S. interest rate advantage.
What were the key takeaways from last month’s numbers? Our corporate bond specialists look back at the market’s performance and provide incisive commentary to help you make sense of what drove the market—and what may be on the horizon for fixed income investors.
