Recent developments may just offer advisors and investors fresh pathways with which to attain higher yield in 2025.

You’ve set your 2025 budgets, and now you’re working with them – but is your marketing budget supporting the firm’s growth goal?

Inflation heated up for a fourth straight month in January. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the headline figure for the Consumer Price Index rose to 3.0% year-over-year, higher than the expected 2.9% growth. Core CPI also came in higher than expected, rising to 3.3% year-over-year.

ETFs have always been a useful tool to play momentum and reversal in markets. However, the biggest question is always when to enter and exit such specific ETFs as the markets move through their cycles.

Our monthly workforce recovery analysis has been updated to include the latest employment report for January. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.0%. Additionally, the number of new non-farm jobs (a relatively volatile number subject to extensive revisions) came in at 143,000.

Tariff threats offer a glimpse of what is in store.

Integrating private assets may enhance target-date glide paths, but know your exposures.

Seven of the nine indexes on our world watch list have posted gains through February 10, 2025. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is in the top spot with a year to date gain of 9.68%. Germany's DAXK is in second with a year to date gain of 9.42% while France's CAC 40 is in third with a year to date gain of 8.28%.

Multiple jobholders account for 5.3% of civilian employment. The survey captures data for four subcategories of the multi-job workforce, the relative sizes of which we've illustrated in a pie chart.

What does the ratio of unemployment claims to the civilian labor force tell us about where we are in the business cycle and recession risk?

Looking for an investment idea that’s paid off handsomely in commodities markets over the past six months? Try betting on the tropics.

Tech results last week were more anticipated than usual due to the emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek in the prior week.

We hope you enjoy the latest newsletter from Harold Evensky.

In a first quarter 2025 asset allocation report, Confluence expects resilient economic growth in the short term.

Amazon.com Inc. shares have largely climbed on the back of two trends: strength in its cloud business and a focus on costs. Now both could be in question.

Factories across the world are growing increasingly idle. Global industrial capacity utilization (CAPU) has fallen significantly, and a rising unemployment rate has followed suit, signaling that the available factors of production globally are progressively more redundant.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its January Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), with the headline composite index at 52.8—below the forecast of 54.2. Despite the miss, the reading marks the seventh consecutive month of expansion.

The January U.S. Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) from S&P Global came in at 52.9, slightly above the 52.8 forecast. The reading marks the 24th consecutive month of expansion but is the weakest since April.

In this article, Russ Koesterich discusses why gold may continue to advance in 2025 despite a stronger dollar and elevated real rate environment.

The Magnificent 7 kicked off fourth quarter reporting in a similar fashion to the Q3 season. Tesla once again missed expectations when they reported on Wednesday, on both the top and bottom-line this time (vs. only missing on revenues in Q3), yet investors seemed unbothered.

A lot has changed since a new administration took charge on Jan. 20, so the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to maintain its policy rate might seem odd.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) came in at 50.9 in January, pushing the index into expansion territory for the first time since October 2022. The latest reading was better than the forecast of 49.3.

The manufacturing sector started the new year with renewed expansion, as the S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI™ rose to 51.2 in January from 49.4 in December.

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is moving at lightning speed, and one of the biggest stories this past week underscores just how critical the technology has become—not just for Silicon Valley, but for America’s national security and global competitiveness.

Karen Carpenter was one the greatest singers of my lifetime. One of her biggest hits was called, “Top of the World.” The key line of the song says, “I’m on top of the world looking down on creation and the only explanation I can find, is the love that I’ve found ever since you’ve been around, you most put me at the top of the world!”

Looking back to 2024, global equity markets remained resilient despite a challenging final few weeks. U.S. equities led both annually and quarterly, buoyed by robust corporate earnings, supportive fiscal policies and market optimism following the Republicans’ red sweep in November.

With the release of December's report on personal incomes and outlays, we can now take a closer look at "real" disposable personal income per capita. At two decimal places, the nominal 0.32% month-over-month change in disposable income comes to 0.06% when we adjust for inflation. The year-over-year metrics are 4.22% nominal and 1.63% real.

The National Association of Realtors® (NAR)unexpectedly fell 5.5% in December to 74.2, the first monthly decline since July. Pending home sales were expected to be unchanged from the previous month. The index is down 5.0% from one year ago.

In today’s post, we will examine the money supply represented by M2, the Federal budget deficit, the Fed’s previous adventures with QE, and the correlation to inflation.

Quality has become a popular buzzword in equity investing. But what does it really mean?

There is a lot that goes into getting someone to trust you with their entire life savings. You must honor that trust and know it has value.

During a rocky fourth quarter, strength in the financials sector was a unifying theme across global markets.

Home prices continued to trend upwards in November as the benchmark national index rose for the 22nd consecutive month to a new all-time high. The seasonally adjusted home prices for the national index saw a 0.4% increase MoM, and a 3.8% increase YoY. After adjusting for inflation, the MoM fell to 0.2% and YoY fell to -1.1%.

We explore how evolving priorities under the new U.S. administration may influence markets and investor outlooks.

High expected fixed income returns imply many non-profit investors could de-risk while still expecting to achieve their stated return objective.

The Second Trump Era has begun. If you are confident about what it will bring (either good or bad), I would like to gently suggest you reconsider. None of us should be sure what is coming.

Four years after handling the first conversion of a hedge fund to an ETF, Wes Gray is gearing up to lead a surge of tax-busting deals aimed at investors big and small.

In mid-2023, the estimated costs to roll S&P 500 futures on a quarterly cycle was roughly 0.40%, or 40 basis points (bps) annualized—a fairly justifiable expense for most investors considering the benefits of the instrument.

For stocks, Christmas came with a 'Santa Clause' rally soon after the election. Since then, there's been a correction in US markets.

Investor appetite for growth really is something to behold.

This article provides the Beaumont Capital Management Q4 2024 Market and Strategy Commentary - Decathlon Strategies.

Existing home sales rose for the third month in a row to close out 2024. According to the data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), existing home sales were up 2.2% from November, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.24 million units in December. This figure came in just above the expected 4.19 million. Existing home sales are up 9.3% compared to one year ago.

Senior Investment Strategist Tracey Manzi notes that the Federal Reserve's ongoing easing cycle should benefit short to intermediate maturities.

The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey fell at a steady pace in January, with the composite index remaining at -5, unchanged from December. Despite this, future expectations stayed positive, though they dipped slightly from 17 in December to 15 in January.

Travel on all roads and streets increased in November. The 12-month moving average was up 0.03% month-over-month and was up 1.04% year-over-year. However, if we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) was down 0.04% MoM and up 0.43% YoY.

Outlooks for higher education and healthcare are the weakest while transportation and essential utilities are the strongest. Resiliency to withstand an economic downturn is strong for all sectors.

BlackRock Inc. is tapping into a fast-growing corner of the options-powered ETF world with an offering aimed at Wall Street investors bracing for the S&P 500 to tread water.

Canada’s stock market — where returns have lagged the US for two straight years — might offer investors protection against a downturn in US stocks, a Toronto-based asset manager says.

As we step into 2025, it’s time to revisit our expectations for the markets and provide an updated perspective for investors.