Artificial Intelligence

How many eyeball-grabbing headlines can we stuff into the next few weeks? For tech investors, AI concerns mount, with rising credit default swap prices among the hyperscalers and sagging neocloud equities.

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.

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.

The Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the mid-term elections, while setting the table for a likely rate move in December.

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.

There was very little macroeconomic news last week, but there was certainly no shortage of action in the markets. We saw an extraordinarily sharp rotation out of growth and into value, with both the Russell Value Index and the S&P Value Index reaching all-time highs even as the Nasdaq suffered one of its largest recent selloffs. That is a dramatic divergence, but historically it is not unprecedented.

Keynes’ influence is still very much alive. As one point of evidence, Robert Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, champions of what is now known as “The New Keynesian Theory,” were recognized with this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.

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.

We estimate the US economy grew at a 3.3% annual rate in the third quarter. Solid. Robust even, considering that net immigration is near zero and possibly negative, while Baby Boomers continue to gradually drift into retirement.

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

The Middle Eastern waters might be calm enough to allow for energy shipments to recover toward pre-war levels, but Asia-Pacific (APAC) economies are not yet in calm waters. Tight petroleum product supplies and higher shipping costs leave the region vulnerable to further shocks.

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%

The Fed is hiking to prove it can beat inflation. The danger is that it proves the point with the one economy that can’t afford to lose.

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?

Our Director and Head of Canadian Investment Strategy BeiChen Lin sees two main forces behind this week’s more cautious market tone: higher energy prices and renewed questions around artificial intelligence investment.

Manufacturing production began to recover in early 2026 after nearly three years in recession. Yet manufacturing employment has remained largely unchanged. In other words, a year and a half after tariffs were imposed with the goal of boosting manufacturing jobs, that objective remains elusive.

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.

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.

The number one question we tend to receive is: Where are long-term interest rates headed from here? Right behind it is: How do I invest in the bond market, not only for right now but also for the future? In our opinion, investors should be prepared for this elevated “normal” rate setting for the foreseeable future. We wanted to address both questions by examining how to prepare a bond portfolio for a 5% world.

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.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-setting group within the U.S. Federal Reserve, meets on 27–28 October to discuss the economic outlook and appropriate monetary policy. We expect the FOMC to hold the policy rate at 3.75%–4.0% while keeping a clear tightening bias.

US stocks have continued to climb, but the gains have been far from uniform. In most sectors, a majority of companies have trailed the index. For investors, we believe the divide between a resilient index and uneven stock-level outcomes makes selectivity and fundamental research more 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 new policy regime the Fed has lost touch with the economy. It has eradicated a lot of market feedback by eliminating banks from trading federal funds. It has separated interest rates from money supply growth.

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.

Earnings now have become the central market focus this week. Bank results have been somewhat mixed, and the market will need confirmation that profits outside the largest technology companies are strengthening. I still do not believe the overall equity market is excessively valued, but investors should expect continued volatility between growth and value as expectations for AI spending shift.

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.

Fed rate hikes could climb further than markets expect, according to T. Rowe Price Capital Markets Strategist Tim Murray.

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.