Investment strategy is never easy, but we have started this year with a remarkable confluence of shifting factors: technological, economic and geopolitical. Understanding how they will play out and interact becomes crucial to asset allocation.
To love a bubble but hate a crash is to misunderstand the market. A bubble is a crash on its way to becoming. A crash is a bull market on its way to becoming. All we can do is to accept, and as difficult as it may be – embrace – whatever form we have in the present moment, so we can do our best with each of them.
Last week’s release of the Congressional Budget Office’s long-term budget projections prompted the merest murmur of concern. That’s America’s fiscal problem in a nutshell: It greets detailed and impeccably nonpartisan projections of looming financial catastrophe with a shrug. Tell us something we didn’t know. We’re busy right now.
Royce Investment Partners: Co-CIO Francis Gannon looks at how low interest rates, tax policy, reshoring, technology adoption, and deregulation can fuel US small-cap earnings growth.
Thematic ETFs have maintained their impressive momentum in early 2026, building on a resurgent 2025. After gathering $23 billion last year, the category added another $4 billion in January alone.
Four months ago, digital assets underwent what I believe was the most consequential liquidation event in their history. On October 10, 2025, over $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out within hours. Bitcoin plummeted from roughly $122,000 to $105,000. More than 1.6 million trader accounts were liquidated.
The performance of digital assets in recent months, especially bitcoin, has been testing investor conviction in both the category’s near-term growth potential as well as bitcoin’s standing as a gold-like store of value and a key character in the debasement trade story.
Nobody doubts the potential of machine learning. For portfolio managers, the question is not whether it works in theory; they know it does. The question is whether the expense fits their business size and goals.
Today we’re going to look at the recent employment data, and begin our exploration of what it will be like to be in the midst of a paradigm shift, on top of all of the other changes in society and finance. Without trying to be cliché, it is part and parcel of The Fourth Turning.
Emerging-market assets were little changed on Tuesday as traders weighed the recent optimism toward the asset class against a firmer US dollar and thinner trading volumes due to holidays in major markets.
Volatility was once again the theme in US markets last week as a profound alpha rotation reshapes Wall Street. Investors continued to flee mega-cap tech, software stocks, and anything considered an AI loser, in favor of more cyclical sectors such as energy, materials and industrials.
Capital markets have faced quite an array of moving pieces over the last couple of weeks, ranging from equity market rotation dynamics, volatile metals and commodity price action, geopolitical flare-ups, global central bank decisions, and high-profile earnings.
While occasional bouts of volatility are likely, we expect the fixed income markets to provide ballast for portfolios and are likely to deliver solid returns in 2026.
Despite headwinds, ESG ETFs saw a 6.62% growth in AUM in 2025, according to State Street Investment Management.
Gold’s stomach churning volatility – up some 30% in less than a month since the start of the year, only to subsequently lose 20% in a matter of days – has, unsurprisingly, left some investors doubting its role as a hedging asset.
Private assets are gaining traction in many portfolios, as investors seek new frontiers given a more challenging market landscape. Returns of traditional asset classes in the years ahead are likely to be lower on an inflation-adjusted basis, and public markets offer fewer options for diversification today, at a time when managing risk is becoming increasingly important.
The year is young, but already, a clear theme is emerging: investors are looking to add international equities exposure to their portfolios. ETFs already offer a wide variety of options for investors to get that exposure, but which fund or funds make th
The surge in active ETF launches aligns with broader market trends. For example, active ETF strategies accounted for roughly 60% of new ETF launches in the early months of 2025, underscoring the category’s growing momentum and advisor interest.
The year is young, but already, a clear theme is emerging: investors are looking to add international equities exposure to their portfolios. ETFs already offer a wide variety of options for investors to get that exposure, but which fund or funds make the most sense?
The AI spending scare that rattled investors during Microsoft’s earnings call nearly two weeks ago intensified last week as Alphabet and Amazon followed suit. On Wednesday, Google’s parent company reported record annual revenues exceeding $400 billion and a 48% surge in Google Cloud growth.
Is your portfolio too focused on U.S. large-cap stocks? In this episode of ETF of the Week, Chuck Jaffe and Todd Rosenbluth (Head of Research at VettaFi) dive deep into the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (VWO).
For the last year, any discussion of the obesity-drug market has come with an asterisk: Everything will change once pill versions of the popular GLP-1 drugs arrive. Those potentially cheaper alternative to injectables could mean a larger slice of the millions of Americans with obesity will try out the medicine.
New research connects intensifying natural perils to their future implications for asset classes.
Throughout most of 2025, silver has recently outperformed gold, proving (ironically) that it is not always second place. Strength in silver built gradually through last year, but the latest pullbacks are a reminder that near-term market reactions can outweigh fundamentals and long-term investor sentiment.
Oil smuggling has been so enormously profitable that no matter how many obstacles Washington and Brussels put up, the barrels kept flowing. With a daily turnover of $1 billion, the black market has been just too attractive.
We believe we’re entering a new era of dispersion in the performance of financial assets. Behind buoyant index averages are sharply bifurcated cohorts of winners and losers.
As the ETF universe continues to expand, a fundamental shift is underway with investors moving beyond simple market access toward outcome-driven construction. Dina Ting, Head of Global Index Portfolio Management, discusses how different index-based ETF strategies are being used to design portfolios aligned with specific goals rather than just reacting to market noise.
Despite an aging credit cycle, private credit still plays a starring role.
Precious metals, cryptocurrency, and currency speculation appeal to fear-driven parts of us that want certainty, protection, or a shortcut to wealth. Unfortunately, for most investors, that promise is never fulfilled.
Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from science-fiction to reality. For many, AI has become a necessity. The transformation has been swift. Nearly every company now wants to integrate generative AI into their business model, while governments are scrambling to develop sovereign AI infrastructure.
Headline whiplash returned to US equity markets last week, but this time the drama wasn't geopolitical. On Thursday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.3% as the market digested mixed results from some Magnificent Seven earnings reports.
The ETF industry has carried its record-breaking momentum from 2025, surpassing $100 billion in flows before the end of January.
Joel Mokyr has made a valiant and mostly convincing effort — deeply researched and extensively documented — at explaining the Great Enrichment. His Nobel Prize is not only richly deserved but long overdue.
In a move that underscores the relentless downward pressure on investment costs, Vanguard announced that it has slashed fees for 84 mutual fund and exchange-traded share classes. These reductions, spanning 53 different funds, represent nearly $250 million in estimated savings for investors in 2026 alone.
Today we’re going to explore this “affordability” issue, looking at economic facts, survey data and simple intuition. As you’ll see, it’s not as simple as some people think. I also make a quick comment about the appointment of Kevin Warsh as Fed chair at the end.
VettaFi recently sat down with Morten Paulsen, head of research for robotics & machinery at CLSA, to discuss the transition of physical AI into a tech-driven industrial up-cycle. Paulsen projects that persistent U.S. labor shortages will drive domestic robot shipments toward a historical high of 40,000 units in 2026.
At GMO, we have always defined a bubble as a two-standard deviation divergence of the price of any asset class above its long-term real price trend. The U.S. stock market has now been in bubble territory for a prolonged period. Sooner or later, the bubble will burst and the price will return to its historic level.
Stock market volatility has a way of triggering powerful emotions. Rising prices foster confidence. But when markets fall, fear can take over, leading investors to make decisions that may undermine long-term returns.
In this article, we look both back and forward, first at the 2025 capital markets to analyze not just what happened but also how it fits in the historical context and what we believe it means for 2026 and beyond. We then pivot to our return expectations for major asset classes in the next decade.
Over the past year, Tether has quietly become one of the biggest players in the global gold market — the embodiment of a meeting of the crypto and gold worlds whose shared distrust of government debt is a major factor behind the surge in prices to never-before-seen highs above $5,200 an ounce.
LPL Research examines how rising productivity, AI adoption, and structural shifts toward services are supporting U.S. economic growth in 2026.
According to Baiocchi, advisors are reevaluating portfolios and recognizing gaps in exposure to companies driving major market themes.
Each year on January 28, Data Privacy Day underscores the global imperative to protect personal information in an increasingly digital environment. For high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families, this responsibility carries exponential weight.
Equity markets have delivered strong returns in recent years, leaving many investors with substantial unrealized gains across their portfolios. Let’s consider how a tax-managed long-short strategy could be a powerful tool in the pursuit of tax efficiency—for the right investor.
Ultra-affluent families face risks that differ significantly from those of the general population. Complex structures, such as multiple entities, trusts, K-1s, and investment partnerships, create more opportunities for sensitive information to be shared across advisors and custodians. Large refunds and tax payments represent enticing entry points for criminals.
The real hero of the late-week recovery was the Information Technology sector. Despite a jarring 16% slide from Intel (INTC) following a tepid outlook shared on their Q4 2025 earnings call, the broader semiconductor space and "Magnificent Seven" megacaps provided the necessary ballast.
When investors think about risk in equity portfolios, the usual suspects come to mind: market risk, sector risk or maybe even macroeconomic risk. But lurking beneath the surface is a less obvious, often underestimated threat—style and factor risk.
Looking ahead to 2026, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Municipal Bond Director Ben Barber says there are a few key factors that will likely shape the municipal bond market.
Our view from the portfolio management desk is that there seems to be a concurrent affordability crisis in the public stock markets as well. The biggest names appear to be “priced for perfection” at this moment.
Several dynamics have converged to drive silver higher, including spillover effects from the gold bull market, steady industrial demand, surging investment demand, inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty. However, one factor is the key driver – there isn’t enough metal.
