Are you using the whole pension toolbox? See what large plan sponsors are up to in this latest blog post from Bob Collie.

Last week I suggested that the market might be ready for some real news—corporate earnings. That is still a key topic, but attention is focused on world events.

There is in interesting dichotomy currently occurring within the economy. While consumer confidence, as reported by the Census Bureau, soared to some of the highest levels seen since the turn of the century, the hard economic data continues to remain quite weak.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has lost its grip on global production, with the United States (among others) rising to become a significant source of output.

So should we sing or weep? Warren Buffett has a brilliant way of making the complicated simple. Let’s think about valuations like we think about the price of hamburgers and see if we are going to get more or less for our money. Today, I share with you my favorite valuation charts and story them in a way I hope your clients might better understand.

Are you ready for some real news? How about corporate earnings? While there is some economic data on tap, the Q1 earnings season starts in earnest this week. With questions about economic strength, the dollar and the Fed in mind, pundits will be looking for fresh data.

Yes, active management has had its collective head beaten bloody for the past few years; and the proclivity for passive investing may persist a lot longer than any of us imagine, driving markets higher than many of us believe possible; but I think the stampede into passive investment is going to end up painfully, at the bottom of a cliff, for many investors.

Fresh purchasing manager’s index (PMI) readings for the month of March were also released, showing continued manufacturing sector expansion in the world’s largest economies, including the U.S., China and the eurozone. All of Zurich was under construction, it seemed, with cranes filling the skyline in every direction. And when I flew back into San Antonio, sections of the international airport were also under heavy construction. This all reflects strong local and national economic growth in Switzerland and the U.S.

Over the last decade, a combination of unprecedented global financial integration and unconventional monetary policy in global financial centers created new challenges for central banks in emerging markets (EM).

This time is different. Stocks will always go up. And pigs can fly. Given that pigs are highly intelligent, don’t bet against them. That said, investors might want to take at least the first two statements with a grain of salt.

I’m going to try to tie two related themes together today. The first, and I have to admit I was surprised when I saw the research, is the incredible shrinking universe of stocks. Think corporate share buybacks, mergers and acquisitions and fewer companies going public. The second is the popularity of index investment products...

Today we continue looking at angst in America, the financial worries that so afflict us here in the world’s largest economy and by extension in much of the developed world. We may be the envy of the world in some ways, but we also have no shortage of stress. Today we’ll look at some data on retirement savings – or lack thereof.

Flanked by coal workers, President Donald Trump signed the American Energy Independence Executive Order this week, directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature environmental policy. Unveiled in August 2015, the plan is intended to reduce carbon dioxide emitted from U.S. power plants 32 percent by 2030.

With markets reacting in part to geopolitical events, it’s hard not to be distracted by news headlines. To help sift through some of the noise, several of our senior investment leaders recently participated in a roundtable discussion of the events shaping the global markets today, the implications for investors and where they see potential opportunities ahead.

We touched down late last night in Salt Lake City. Susan, the boys, Brianna and me along with a dozen bags. It’s a long-standing family tradition and let’s just say everyone is really excited. A snowstorm just ended and my Snowbird app says 11” of fresh new snow.

Regardless of its failure to be repealed, tax reform is on its way. Just today, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reassured Americans that we could still expect “comprehensive” tax reform by August. It’s also worth recalling that, even though he failed to reform health care during his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton still managed to tackle tax reform with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

Macroeconomic volatility is a useful tool for contrarian investors who are seeking fair value in an equity market characterized by continually rising valuations.

I know that I am not the only one feeling it. You can see the increasing risk in the markets and uglier action on the tape. Credit is seeing selling even as recession fears are distant. Bank stocks are rolling over even with the Fed raising interest rates.

Households have 30% of their financial assets in equities, the same proportion as they held at bull market peaks in the 1960s and in 2007. Does this mean another bear market is imminent? No.

A common lament during the presidential campaign was over middle-class income stagnation and the wealth of the top 1%. But are most people getting poorer while the rich get richer? In a sparkling – and delightfully short – new contribution to the econo-optimist genre, Johan Norberg, author of Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, emphatically answers “no.”

One of the realities we will face is recession. The good news is that we are in the eighth year of a growth phase (the last recession was in 2009) and as you’ll see in my favorite indicator charts below, there are no current signs of recession.

Investor exuberance is being supported by proposed fiscal policy such as lower corporate taxes, deregulation and historically large budget cuts to help finance the rebuilding of the nation’s infrastructure and military.

How is your bracket doing? Before the ACA Repeal and Replace plan hit the court last week, it already looked like its odds of passage were longer than Mount St. Mary's chance to win the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament on April 3rd.

The Fed finds itself in a tricky place. Next week will likely be rate hike number three. “Three steps and a stumble?” We’ll see. My dad used to always say, “Stuck between a rock and a hard place.” I’ll try my best to explain what I see.

During the later part of the roaring 20’s, Irving Berlin wrote “Blue Skies,” which captured some of the optimism of the era that preceded the Great Depression. Unfortunately, untethered optimism is not the friend of investors, particularly when they have already committed their assets to that optimism, and have driven valuations to speculative extremes.

Today, patient reader, we hopefully reach the end of our tax reform saga, which has grown much longer than I expected. I seriously thought at the beginning that I could fit all this into one letter. Then it became a two-parter, then a trilogy, and then … well, here we are.

Great companies can come from anywhere, and emerging markets have more than their fair share. We’ve identified three megatrends we expect to give birth to tomorrow’s superstars—and that no globally inclined portfolio should be without.

It should have been the best week of the Presidency for New York’s favorite son. After staying on script at his address to a joint session of Congress, you could sense that the narrative was shifting from “he is trying to do too much” to “how great it would be if he can get just one half of his agenda done.”

This article takes a hard-nosed look at the pummeling being taken by active management and argues that improving can no longer be approached passively. It must become a core competency for every active manager.

At the beginning of each month I like to take a look at the most recent published equity market valuations. So let’s do that today. As you review the charts, keep in the back of your mind that valuation metrics are pretty much useless in identifying market peaks but they are outstanding at helping us zero in on what the forward 10-year returns are likely to be.

Russell Investments’ Chief Investment Strategist, Erik Ristuben explores global investing against 2017’s altered political backdrop.

40 percent of companies now in operation around the world will not exist “in a meaningful way” sometime within the next two decades. To survive, companies will need to reinvent themselves by integrating digitization into the fabric of their business strategy.

Citing an improving economy and the possibility of more spending and lower taxes from the Trump administration, Fed officials are signaling rising rates immediately ahead.

This week I was in beautiful Argentina with a diverse team of investors and mining executives. Together we toured various natural gas and crude oil mining projects in Tierra del Fuego, Mendoza and Santa Cruz, where we had the opportunity to speak with Governor Alicia Kirchner, elder sister to former Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner.

Today, it seems as if there is a mysterious voice speaking to politicians all over the world, urging them to build.

Given the unpredictability of today’s financial markets, many investors are looking to reduce the impact of market volatility on their portfolios. Hedge-fund strategies—a type of alternative investment strategy—may help by potentially offering additional diversification, new sources of return and reduced risk.

We sipped the QE juice and loved the taste. Now we’re full… the game has changed. The Fed had assets worth $858 billion on its books in the week ended August 1, 2007 just before the start of the financial crisis, and the same stood at $2.24 trillion at the end of 2009.

Ross Glotzbach is head of research and a principal at Southeastern Asset Management, one of the most respected value managers. In this interview, he discusses his investment outlook in an era of political and economic uncertainty.

In the prior installment on this series, I exposed the deceptive marketing used to sell fixed-index annuities. Today I will look at a firm that purchases annuities from investors – the Annuity Action Network. It is a way for clients to borrow money at a high interest rate, but it may be an appropriate solution under certain circumstances.

In a series of articles we published in 2016, we show that relative valuations predict subsequent returns for both factors and smart beta strategies in exactly the same way price matters in stock selection and asset allocation.

In the past year, S&P profits have grown 46% yoy. Sales are 4.5% higher. By some measures, profit margins are back at their prior highs. This is a remarkable turnaround from a year ago, when profits had declined by 15% and most investors interpreted this as a sure sign that a recession and a new bear market were underway.

We had a lot of great experiences in Russia – mainly from family and friends. But at the same time it was also full of injustice, powerlessness, discrimination, lack of choice, and Russian-like poverty. In America, our past was a great motivator and none of the problems we encountered felt insurmountable. We feel very blessed to be here.

Back in November, I wrote that domestic carriers are likely to see the new president—himself the former owner of the now-defunct Trump Airlines—as a strong partner in several key areas. Although a couple of airline CEOs have recently expressed strong opposition to some of Trump’s protectionist immigration policies, yesterday’s meeting appeared to be constructive, with the president telling the group he would soon be announcing something “phenomenal in terms of tax and developing our aviation infrastructure.”

Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) is much broader than the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) of the past.

Who would guess that the modern sciences of behavioral economics and the psychology of decision-making owe their origin to a love affair (no, not sexual) between two men born early in the last century and so different that one could barely imagine them speaking to each other? Yet that is the story chronicled by the extraordinary nonfiction writer Michael Lewis in The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed our Minds, which, despite some quirks, is a compelling and worthwhile read.

We have a rather light week for economic data. The biggest reports came last week. Earnings season continues. Everyone is keeping a close eye on President Trump, wondering what might happen next. Meanwhile, stocks are at all-time highs and interest rates have stabilized.

Last week I shared a chart with you that’s done a good job at signaling inflation. We tend to react slowly to news and, over time, we wake up. Then we herd in and out. In the “waking up” category, we better keep rising inflation on our radar.

After little more than two weeks, President Donald Trump’s honeymoon with Wall Street appears to have been put on hold—for the moment, at least—with major indices making only tepid moves since his January 20 inauguration. That includes the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, which surged in the days following Election Day on hopes that Trump’s pledge to roll back regulations and lower corporate taxes would benefit domestic small businesses the most.

President Donald J. Trump was elected on promises to “Make America Great Again,” and since January 20 he’s already signed a number of executive orders to tighten border security and ease regulations.