Alternative Investments

The credit market had become more discerning. Companies with greater leverage, more uncertain cash flows, or business models requiring enormous amounts of capital appeared to be more scrutinized.

LPL Research examines three keys to earnings season: broader profit growth, margin pressures, and high expectations amid continued AI investment.

Gold has traditionally been one of the most popular ways for investors to gain commodity exposure, but its recent weakness highlights the differences across various commodities. While precious metals have struggled, energy and certain agricultural commodities have seen stronger returns. Existing diversified strategies are also giving investors more ways to access commodities beyond traditional gold funds.

Founded in 2019 with backing from Japanese investment holding company SoftBank, SB Energy began as a U.S.-based utility-scale renewable energy developer. Today, SB Energy has three lines of business—power, data centers, and solutions.

Reasonable minds can disagree about the ideal scope of government, but no one argues against nations providing for their defense. As conflicts emerge and tensions rise, defense spending will take a larger role in all nations’ budgets, with effects that will flow across the economy.

Economic data that continued to show a strong U.S. economy, housing aside, took a back seat this week as investors once again focused on potential risks to future growth: rising energy prices, sticky inflation, and most importantly, questions about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.

Higher yields do not automatically make longer-duration bonds attractive, as persistent inflation, resilient growth, and heavy debt issuance could maintain upward pressure on yields in the near term.

Geopolitical tensions are already driving demand for energy exposure through rising oil and gas prices. Combining this cyclical strength with long-term AI momentum creates a strong potential for noticeable returns.

Ken Griffin told a room full of investors recently that we are “almost certainly” in an AI bubble. He may well be correct in that assessment, and there are plenty of media narratives that support that view.

Rick Polsinello, Christian Galipeau Discuss high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

The next two weeks bring an unusually crowded lineup of potential market-moving catalysts, including a Federal Reserve (Fed) policy meeting, the busiest stretch of third-quarter 2026 earnings season, the Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding Announcement and the midterm elections.

We have been arguing that the reset higher in yields has restored the dual role of bonds in multi-asset portfolios: providing attractive income while once again offering the potential for meaningful risk mitigation. This month’s tech market turbulence has provided a clear example: As equities came under pressure, U.S. Treasury yields fell amid a flight to safety, allowing duration to behave like a diversifier again.

The bond market is flashing levels not seen in nearly two decades. The 10-year Treasury yield is hovering near 5%, while real yields — measured by Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) — are at their highest since before the 2008 financial crisis.

Last year, U.S. charitable giving hit a record $617.20 billion, according to Giving USA. That’s the first time it’s ever topped $600 billion. Individuals gave $394.2 billion of that, foundations gave $117.15 billion, bequests added $62.19 billion and corporations contributed $43.67 billion.

This marks the first peak week of Q3 earnings season, with 1,885 companies expected to report and overall S&P 500 EPS growth holding at a robust 29.5%

In a world that must fund trillions of dollars of sovereign debt not just in the US but all over the world. Plus, other “normal” business investments which will be even more hundreds of billions, if not trillions. And that brings us to the thrust of today’s letter: who will get access to this money and what are the returns going to be?

With the U.S. midterm elections mere weeks away, it can be easy to get swept up in the headlines and questions about what different outcomes might mean for markets.

There’s not a lot of bullishness in the silver market right now. After surging to just over $120 per ounce in January, silver corrected and has lost more than half its value.

VettaFi has been recognized as the Best U.S. Index Overall Provider at the ETF Express U.S. ETF Awards 2026, building on a standout year of index innovation, strategic acquisitions, and product milestone growth across the ETP landscape.

Emerging markets continued to deliver strong year-to-date returns in 2026, although the third quarter served as a reminder that the path higher is rarely linear. After a powerful first-half rally led by artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and other growth-oriented sectors, markets experienced a broad correction in July before stabilizing through the remainder of the quarter.

Stock prices reflect the decisions of buyers and sellers, whose expectations can shift quickly. Enthusiasm, fear, and uncertainty can push a stock above or below a reasonable valuation—and keep it there for an uncomfortable stretch of time.

A broad retreat in technology shares set the tone for the week. The S&P 500 fell 1.9 per cent and the NASDAQ dropped 4.5 per cent, while the Dow rose 0.7 per cent as investors rotated out of tech and into more defensive sectors.

The Magnificent Seven have dominated the technology trade, but investor attention is now shifting toward the MANGOS — a group of companies that place greater emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI) rather than traditional megacap technology.

Markets look calm on the surface, but AI-driven shifts in capital allocation, earnings quality, and funding needs are reshaping risks and opportunities beneath the index level.

Higher bond yields may offer retirees more income potential, but a diversified approach that balances income, risk, and spending needs remains important.

Last week saw a further deterioration in the inflation outlook, while the Federal Reserve (Fed) appears increasingly reluctant to tighten again immediately. The September headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6% month/month (m/m) and 3.7% year/year (y/y), while core inflation increased 0.3% m/m and accelerated to 2.6% y/y from 2.4%.

The ETF industry has officially shattered last year’s record for annual product launches. A total of 1,159 new exchange-traded products have debuted year-to-date, eclipsing the full-year record of 1,143 funds set in 2025. With more than two months remaining in the year, the rapid pace highlights issuers’ relentless push to bring innovative strategies to market.

A week filled with hotter inflation readings brought growing concerns about the sustainability of the pace of AI spending. Despite rising inflation, bond yields ended the week lower. While the S&P 500 Index of large-cap stocks fell 1.95 percent for the week, the decline was largely driven by its heavy weighting to technology stocks, which faltered by 6.37 percent.

While don’t think of myself as being old, I can’t call myself young anymore. When I go to the gym, it takes me longer to stretch than to work out. People my age debate the best vitamin supplements, not the best burger joints. When I am asked for identification at the market, it isn’t to confirm I am old enough to buy beer; it’s to see whether I am eligible for a senior discount.

The AI agent catalyst. Meta's September launch of Muse, a personal artificial intelligence (AI) agent designed to act on a user's behalf across digital workflows, crystallized the market's latest disruption narrative.

The US Treasury market is entering a new era. Financing government debt is becoming less about capital availability and more about the yield required to attract it.

Narratives are almost always wrong: clever stories that explain the past and say nothing about the future. One may be right. AI may become the dominant technology of the century and render much of the present economy obsolete.

This year, the software sector has been one of the worst-performing pockets of the leveraged loan market amid fears that AI would severely disrupt existing business models. The sector’s underperformance has also weighed on the leveraged loan asset class as a whole, given its more than 10% weight in the overall Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index.

Chris Galipeau and Taylor Topousis discuss high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

The Nasdaq-VettaFi Asset Allocation Summit this week included insights from leaders at key asset managers discussing the major decisions that advisors are facing. With costs rising and many investors at or near retirement, fixed income and income ETFs, specifically, took up a big part of the conversation. Leaders from BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Fidelity Investments all shared their views on both the fixed income outlook and the use cases for fixed income ETFs right now.

Plenty of story-stocks and recent alpha generators are outside AI glamor companies. Absolute and relative strength have ticked up in real-economy sectors that were beaten up as investor dollars flowed to tech. Macro conditions, such as ebbing Treasury rates and the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, are wildcards. Still, traders and portfolio managers should listen up for commentary in perhaps unusual places this earnings season.

Fall is officially underway, heralding a season of change — and what a difference three months makes. The past quarter brought a dramatic Federal Reserve policy pivot and notable shifts in market sentiment and ETF trends. But within equities, the most striking reversal occurred inside the AI trade itself.

We believe the combination of AI, robotics, space technology, and quantum computing will be primary drivers of future economic growth.

Discover how strong corporate earnings, AI capex cycles, and 5%–10% fixed income yields outweigh midterm election and Fed rate uncertainties.

There is a general framework to inflation, and it is older than any of us. Prices can rise because buyers are bidding for scarce goods with money they’ve actually earned. Or prices can rise because the cost of producing something has jumped for reasons unrelated to demand.

The third quarter of 2026 emphasized an increasingly divided macro regime for financial advisors and institutional allocators alike. On one end, broad market hopefulness drove steady capital deployment into broad-market beta, while on the other end, raised rate volatility and geopolitical tension forced strategic pivots across fixed income, real assets, and systematic strategies, according to BlackRock’s Q3 earnings call, released October 14.

Over the last decade, a series of policy decisions in DC support the reindustrialization of the United States. Key policy movers include investments in infrastructure, tax policy that allows significant tax benefits for corporate capital expenditures (capex) and domestic research and development, the CHIPS & Science Act and tariff policies, especially the sector-specific 232 tariffs.

In this commentary, we look at three themes shaping our thinking: a shift in who is leading the market, the return of income as a meaningful source of return, and an economy that, in our view, is growing steadily rather than heading toward either extreme.

Corporate bond yields are high, but spreads are low. Low spreads are supported by strong corporate fundamentals, and high yields might help offset potential price declines.

As we enter the final quarter of 2026, the investment backdrop remains constructive but increasingly differentiated. Economic growth and corporate earnings have remained resilient, while continued investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and other productivity-enhancing technologies has supported capital spending and market sentiment.