It can sometimes be hard to tell whether the US housing market is hot or cold. Currently, existing-home inventory is tight and prices are stable—indicators of a hot market—while sales volume is down and home price appreciation has slowed. So, what’s the temperature?
While the Court did not explicitly order refunds to be paid — instead sending that decision to the lower courts — by some estimates this decision opens the door to potentially as much as $175 billion in tariff reimbursements to U.S. importers.
As investor expectations evolve, and tax awareness becomes more central to portfolio construction, active tax management has emerged as a defining feature of sophisticated investment strategies. Across both equities and fixed income, disciplined processes may help investors retain more of what they earn.
The U.S. economy sent conflicting signals last week as a sharp deceleration in growth collided with unexpectedly stubborn inflation.
In a 6-3 decision, the highest court in the U.S. ruled that President Trump lacks the legal authority to impose sweeping tariffs. But the administration has a Plan B in place.
In a 6-3 decision on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of the tariffs implemented by the administration last year. Markets initially showed little reaction to the announcement, with U.S. equities rising by 0.3% while yields on the 10-year Treasury inched up by 2 basis points.
It’s been a busy start to the midterm election year in Washington, marked by a second government shutdown, rising geopolitical tensions - including Iran and Venezuela – and continued uncertainty around tariffs.
Today, the Supreme Court stripped away the Trump Administration's power to impose sweeping tariffs through emergency authority—but the battle over US trade policy is far from over.
Municipal bonds have posted strong performance so far this year, despite a news cycle that has many investors questioning the path forward.
Not long ago, CLO ETFs were niche vehicles only talked about at credit conferences and in sophisticated bond manager circles. But fast forward to 2026, and they’ve entered the mainstream – drawing meaningful interest from both institutions and retail investors.
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.
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.
Browsing real-estate listings is a popular hobby. Home data portals provide hours of free entertainment. Some listings feature bizarre or ostentatious decoration; some are time capsules, preserving a bygone era. Most entries share one shocking feature: the price.
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.
Since the beginning of the year, we have discussed the “reflation trade” and its impact on specific market sectors. This past weekend’s newsletter also showed some of these more extreme returns in various market sectors since the beginning of the yea
Fourth-quarter earnings results have been generally solid so far, albeit a bit weaker relative to prior quarters when it comes to beat rates and price reactions. On the international front, weakening global ties may lead to economic disruption and lasting investment implications. Meanwhile, bond market volatility has remained low despite economic and policy uncertainty.
Treasuries rose on Tuesday as investors bet on the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates at least twice this year and jitters over global technology shares boosted demand for safer assets.
A weaker dollar, renewed commodity strength, and rising sensitivity around AI valuations are reshaping market leadership. Paul Vella breaks down what’s fueling gold and emerging markets, why SaaS cracks matter, and how disciplined diversification is helping investors navigate policy and earnings uncertainty.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, better known as “the Dow,” closed above 50,000 points for the first time. It’s a historic milestone that comes less than two years after surpassing 40,000 in May 2024, but what does the milestone mean, and does it signal time for investors to reduce exposure?
The U.S. economy began 2026 with a display of unexpected resilience in the labor market and cooling inflation.
Small caps are back in the spotlight! In this episode of ETF of the Week, Chuck Jaffe sits down with Todd Rosenbluth, Head of Research at VettaFi, to revisit a "new-fangled" fund that has quickly gained traction: the NEOS Russell 2000 High Income ETF (IWMI).
Private credit has been in the news lately. That’s nothing new. For years, investors have read about the potential opportunities the asset class offers and how it works. Let’s dig a little deeper into what private credit is, what it isn’t and how it can fit into a diversified investment portfolio.
At their most recent meeting, the Federal Reserve and Chair Powell told us that the risks of weakening labor and higher inflation had declined. It painted a nice picture of a soft landing, but wasn’t a recipe for immediate rate cuts.
The historic election victory in Japan for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has granted Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi the strongest mandate in the country’s postwar era and raised hopes of a shift toward growth-oriented policy.
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.
Income investors face a promising landscape today. But we think income investing should be more than simply combining the highest yielders in each asset class, which could create unintended risks. In our view, an efficient multi-asset approach can help find the right balance between income, growth and diversification.
Push will come to shove in the weeks ahead as tech executives take questions at key investor conferences over the back half of the first quarter.
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.
The mid-term elections are still more than eight months away, but that hasn’t stopped stories and headlines being posted about possible outcomes and what are perhaps the main drivers come voting day. Without a doubt, the number one issue appears to be the notion of affordability, and of course, what plans do the Republicans and Democrats have in store to address this issue.
There’s no stopping the momentum in the ETF market. January 2026 brought a record $166 billion in net inflows, surpassing the last three Januarys combined.
At the start of my career, the Federal Reserve was content to operate in the shadows. Today, by contrast, the Fed is a much more public entity. And so the fact that the derby to become the next Chairman played out so vividly in the media was not surprising.
The market got off to a strong start in 2026, with investors chasing industrials, materials, and commodity-related stocks as the reflation narrative gained traction. The “reflation narrative” is the belief that a range of policies will boost the rate of economic growth in the U.S. without triggering inflation.
Alphabet Inc. has this week embarked on the next leg of its debt program to meet the voracious funding needs of its artificial intelligence program. Nothing quite signifies global domination like issuing bonds with ease across all of the world’s major bond markets and at a range of maturities, including the ultra-long arena that’s typically reserved for the most favored of borrowers.
2025 turned out to be a year for the ages for agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS), as the Bloomberg U.S. MBS Index registered its best calendar year of returns since 2002. The benchmark index’s 8.58% total return outperformed every major fixed income sector other than high yield (+8.62%) in 2025.
Dollar positives include relatively high U.S. interest rates and robust growth. But dollar negatives are building. The political will for a stronger dollar isn't there and valuations aren't helping.
Whether you follow Japan or not, its situation is incredibly important for investors because it is a major provider of global liquidity. Instead of being overly dramatic about the slim chance of a near-term Japanese crisis, we prefer to focus on how Japan normalizes policy after years of artificially suppressed interest rates and how that process will impact the yen carry trade.
Hedge funds are betting on more pound weakness as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s future hangs in the balance.
Markets are efficient after all. This does not mean that prices are always “correct,” just that they generally reflect the available information. When investors learn that software firms’ products may be displaced by AI, their prices fall, as they did last week.
Chuck Carnevale, co-founder of FAST Graphs, aka Mr. Valuation explains what he believes is the single biggest and most avoidable risk investors face: overvaluation.
The U.S. labor market showed further signs of cooling last week as private sector hiring slowed and job openings reached their lowest levels in over five years.
Barely a month into 2026, markets have already weathered multiple bouts of rolling, event‑driven volatility. Geopolitical surprises and policy pivots have triggered sharp price moves from the U.S. to Japan to Europe, from sovereign bonds to currencies to mortgages.
Corporate pension funding continues to improve. Market moves over the last five years, both in yields and equity returns, have corporate pension plans at funding levels not seen since before the Tech Bubble.
Monetary policy stayed front and center this week as major central banks kept rates unchanged. What stood out was not the decisions themselves, but how economic momentum is diverging across regions.
Emerging market assets are heading for their worst week in more than two months, after increasingly volatile markets from commodities to technology stocks roiled investor sentiment.
Kevin Warsh began his April 2025 lecture to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by comparing today’s economic environment in a period of extraordinary consequence, arguing that the greatest risks to prosperity originate not from external forces but from decisions made within leading economic institutions.
Our underlying theme for 2026 is that investors should focus on Process Over Predictions. The instinct of many investors is to chase the "winners" of the previous cycle or expect spectacular growth to continue indefinitely.
Investors seeking protection from geopolitical volatility and stubborn inflation in 2026 may find opportunity in short-term bonds, where active management has historically delivered returns 25% higher than passive strategies, according to Vontobel Asset Management.
The term private credit is often reduced to its most literal meaning – lending money privately. While accurate, Chris Getter, managing director and portfolio manager at Simplify Asset Management, believes that definition does a disservice to the asset class.
