It’s true enough that history rhymes, even if it doesn’t necessarily repeat. But that creates danger when we pick up resonances from the wrong episode of history, particularly in the fraught task of identifying and avoiding speculative bubbles.
Private equity has become easier than ever for individual investors to buy. Founders, executives, physicians, and business owners now regularly see private funds offered through banks, wealth platforms, feeders, evergreen vehicles, or registered interval funds. However, just because these funds are more readily available, and at lower minimums, does not mean they should immediately be invested in.
The combination of succession planning — where the lead advisor wants to have a successful and well-funded retirement and the successors want to get paid for taking over — along with the riches of the market over the last few years are all adding up to significant unrest within many teams.
The market encountered its stiffest test in months last week as rising oil prices, higher bond yields, and renewed scrutiny of AI capital spending combined to pressure many of the year’s biggest winners. Easing tensions over the weekend have buoyed stocks. If the Strait of Hormuz was opened, I believe the market would be 5% to 10% higher.
Discover Aberdeen’s closed-end funds (CEFs) for high yields, illiquid assets, long-term investments, and resilient income for 2026.
The narrative presented in this article is uniquely suited only to the retirement scenario. (And it neglects such complications as tax-deferred accounts, etc.) Other investing narratives will be different — for example, those of pension funds or endowment funds.
June may have proven to be a difficult month for silver investors, but it’s likely far too soon to give up on the precious metal. To better understand this, it’s important to contextualize why silver’s price is struggling and why the metal’s long-term opportunities are still there.
Health care stocks came alive in the second quarter, benefiting from relatively low valuations and a late rotation away from some high-flying tech names. The sector returned 9.5% for the period, good enough to tie for fourth among the S&P 500® Index's 11 sectors.
In the Warsh Fed's new era of two-way risk, bonds offer something rare: potential downside risk mitigation that investors get paid to hold.
The shine has come off silver since it skyrocketed to over $100 an ounce in January. The price has dropped by over 50 percent from the record high. However, there are still reasons to be bullish on silver moving forward, including persistent supply deficits and growing industrial demand.
US stocks advanced on Monday, paring last week’s slump, as chipmakers rebounded amid a deluge of earnings reports that will test whether Big Tech’s profits can match high expectations.
The rules governing global commodity markets are starting to witness a profound shift, which is putting critical minerals at the forefront of policy. On a recent episode of ETF Guide’s Metals in Motion, Justin Tolman, Senior Portfolio Manager and Economic Geologist at Sprott Asset Management, discussed this dynamic.
Fixed income investors continue to grapple with an uncertain macro environment, dominated by higher-for-longer interest rates and a new-look U.S. Federal Reserve, in which rate hikes may be forthcoming. Rather than make a directional bet on interest rates to combat duration risk, consider floating-rate ETFs, a compelling option.
South Korea’s AI-fueled stock rally came under renewed pressure Monday as SK Hynix Inc. tumbled by a record 15%, underscoring growing investor concerns that the boom has become overstretched.
Markets enter the second half of 2026 facing a familiar wall of worry—geopolitical conflict, oil prices, inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and questions around the durability of an AI-led equity rally. Yet the economic backdrop still looks resilient: growth remains solid, inflation has moderated, unemployment is reasonable, and market leadership appears to be broadening.
Fixed income experts James Donahue, John Lloyd and Mike Talaga revisit the levels of supply related to the AI buildout and explain why they remain cautious towards investment grade tech issuance.
The US equity market, with the S&P 500 hovering near all-time highs, is expensive. This isn’t controversial. Depending on which measure you use, US stocks have arguably been overpriced for several years.
Model portfolios are seeing billions in inflows, and part of that success may be from how these strategies implement ETFs and private assets.
Bypass the headaches of individual closed-end funds. Discover how Invesco's PCEF bundles over 100 CEFs to capture June's debt rallies.
US stock futures climbed early Monday as investors gauged whether the artificial-intelligence trade can regain its footing after one of its sharpest pullbacks in more than two years.
The most interesting shift in market price action in June was the strong outperformance of value stocks compared to the broad market and tech
In our view, this divergence continues to reflect how the buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing both the economy and markets as it progresses across the value chain, even as the associated costs continue to climb.
A widening confidence gap in non-traded investment vehicles is testing private credit valuations, sharpening the case for manager selection and diversification beyond direct lending.
Discover why DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach is urging a structural defensive rotation into emerging markets and international assets.
Exposure to critical minerals, specifically rare earths, provides an opportunity for investors to capitalize on growth and diversify their portfolios simultaneously. However, there are also geopolitical implications that investors should know about as well. In particular, more nations are reducing their reliance on China.
The U.S. economy faced intensifying headwinds in May as both consumer and wholesale inflation metrics surged to multi-year highs.
As shareholders rush to pull money from private credit funds over troubling questions about software exposure, opaque loan values and non-payments, some bond investors are doing the opposite: buying their debt.
2026 is heading toward a four-peat of double-digit returns on U.S. stocks, but it will require P/Es to remain high — investors need to remain optimistic. In the past, when P/Es were high, investor fear kicked in and P/Es declined, causing stock market losses. Time will tell, but diversification is a reasonable strategy no matter the outcome.
The closed-end fund landscape may be seeing a big change as regulations may be shifting at the SEC, per recent announcements.
A private credit fund jointly managed by Future Standard and KKR & Co. sold $900 million of junk bonds on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, in a rare high-yield offering by a publicly traded credit fund.
As advisors, our role is not to solve fiscal policy; it is to ensure our clients are positioned to weather the uncertainty that comes from that gap, stay committed to their long-term plans, and not let macroeconomic anxiety drive short-term decisions they will regret.
Closed-end funds may not be a hot topic right now, but they offer a highly compelling means to solve today's macroeconomic woes.
As globalization gives way to reshoring and resurgent resource nationalism, emerging markets may offer fresh alpha opportunities through their ability to supply the raw materials required to fuel the AI boom.
An abundance of cash in US funding markets appears to be driven by deeper structural shifts that are unlocking billions of dollars in balance-sheet capacity at the biggest banks, Wall Street strategists say.
Private markets (private equity, private credit and real estate) have historically delivered an “illiquidity premium”. Institutions and family offices have recognized this illiquidity premium and have historically allocated significant capital to capture it.
Private credit managers are increasingly turning to the once-unthinkable: Trading in and out of loans to dump troubled assets and hunt for bargains amid the industry’s first stress test after years of breakneck growth.
Although a lot has changed since our last quarterly, its central theme – dispersion – feels like it’s only become more pronounced. We wrote last time that ‘‘we believe we’re entering a new era of dispersion in the performance of financial assets.’’
The sooner the mass of retail private credit managers realize they are zombies and give up the ghost, the sooner we can burn the whole thing to the ground and conjure a better model from the ashes. But there is no time like a crisis to have conversations about how to make the structure work better for everyone in the future!
Today, 529 plans offer flexible, tax-advantaged savings beyond traditional college. Recent updates expand their use to K-12 tuition, vocational training and the option to transfer unused funds to a Roth IRA. Our Bill Cass explains the ways to optimize the benefits of 529 savings plans.
Within private credit, attempts to increase liquidity – the ability to buy or sell an asset quickly, in size, and at prices reflecting fundamental values – are welcome developments, in our view. Yet until these efforts address the market’s inherent structural constraints, including a lack of true price discovery, they will only increase the perception of liquidity without truly improving liquidity.
The Artemis II mission was a glorious moment for space exploration and a sign of a potential $1 trillion investment boom in the global space industry over the next decade.
The poor sentiment toward private credit funds has dragged down many high-quality BDCs, as well as weaker ones. The chaos and bad press surrounding private credit funds are not reasons to avoid BDCs. In fact, we think it’s a reason to consider them.
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, can help buffer a portfolio against inflation. However, it's important to understand their unique characteristics and complex nature.
Sentiment toward BDCs – funds that invest in small and midsize private U.S. businesses – has improved since early March. BDC bond spreads have stabilized and outperformed the broader investment grade (IG) index, suggesting credit investors are increasingly comfortable with downside risk.
As always, I hope you’re having a good 2026 and that all is well with you, my readers, and your family and friends. Here’s my latest.
Geopolitical conflict is forcing the markets to think critically about critical minerals. More specifically, the importance of critical materials has shifted from industrial use to a vital component in national defense and energy security.
Despite compositional differences – public equities generally represent larger companies with more scale, liquidity, and financial flexibility than the typically smaller, private-equity-owned issuers that dominate the software loan market – the outcome is the same: Neither market has been able to fully retrace the year-to-date sell-off in a meaningful way.
Amplify’s path is unique in the ETF space and has carved out a small but powerful stronghold for itself. Its focus on thematic and income strategies lends Amplify resilience across different market types, and its commitment to innovation means it doesn’t tend to issue many “me too” products.
On Wednesday, April 15, Sprott Asset Management expanded its lineup of exchange-traded funds with the debut of the Sprott Rare Earths Ex-China ETF (REXC). According to Sprott, REXC is the only ETF on the market that is offering a focus on rare earth companies outside China.
Rising oil prices and the historically inflationary aspects of war have changed expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate policy and have pulled Treasury yields higher.
Despite a confluence of economic shocks in the first quarter, markets have held up remarkably well, but cracks appear to be forming beneath the surface.
The escalating conflict in the Middle East — especially the closure of the Strait of the Hormuz — had an adverse effect on many investment strategies in March, and gold was no exception. The spot gold price closed out March at $4,668.06.
Pacific Investment Management Co. bought all $400 million of bonds issued Monday by a Blue Owl Capital Inc. private credit fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink sees increased demand for private credit from big institutional investors like insurers, even as retail clients grow skittish over the asset class and seek to redeem more of their shares.
While artificial intelligence is unlikely to replace financial advisors, it can certainly enhance both the quality and the productivity of advisors who embrace it. I agree that AI will boost productivity, but I wanted to put it through the test now to see how accurate and insightful it was. To do so, I gave Anthropic’s Claude a spin.
Benefit Street Partners believes private credit has faced scrutiny recently and there are four horsemen of the apocalypse charging toward private credit investors, but three are phantoms. One, however, is real.
The debate over ETFs versus mutual funds has never been particularly useful for advisors who actually build portfolios. In practice, the question was never which vehicle is better — it was always which vehicle is better for this objective, in this sleeve, for this client. In 2026, that discipline matters more than ever.
March 2026 was a rough month for financial markets. Broad indexes experienced large selloffs, led by international stocks, though many of these still remain up in 2026. The dollar rallied strongly, breaking its year-plus downtrend.
Rising demand for critical microelectronics, bolstered by AI capex and defense spending, is driving semiconductor prices higher and posing upside risks to global goods inflation.
Amid geopolitical uncertainty, dispersion across credit markets – rather than a broad risk-off move – has become the dominant investment signal.
For investors, understanding the full anatomy of fixed income is critical, not only to capture attractive risk-adjusted returns in today’s environment but also to appreciate its indispensable role in powering economic growth and financial stability.
What’s unusual today is the degree of divergence between individual stocks and the cap-weighted index. When a handful of stocks carry enough weight to paper over widespread internal damage, investors holding diversified portfolios feel the pain long before the headlines acknowledge it.
Private credit managers are feeling sheepish. Some of their investors can’t get their money out as quickly as they’d like — and some may be quite angry about that.
In today’s era of automation, some situations demand a more active approach. Municipal bond investing is one.
The U.S. middle market has hit $25 trillion. Discover why Cerulli says the advisor shortage and shifting demographics make early engagement a necessity.
Corporate credit markets have become unsettled about the potential for advanced agentic AI tools from firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI to automate functions across legal, analytical, marketing, and sales workflows, effectively targeting the software as a service (SaaS)/enterprise software space.
Jeffrey Sherman of DoubleLine provided a candid assessment of the Federal Reserve's current trajectory and fixed income at Exchange.
Last week, on March 19th, the S&P 500 closed below its 200-DMA for the first time since May 2025. The first instinct is to panic as media headlines talk about bear markets and financial crisis events. However, as we will explore today, the data says it depends entirely on the type of break: sustained or brief.
Private credit is a key pillar of debt capital formation alongside public credit markets and bank balance sheets. But an important part of its value proposition—to borrowers and end investors—is its illiquidity relative to public markets. That distinction is by design, and we think it should stay that way.
It’s human instinct to want to know what the future holds and to protect and grow our nest egg based on our perceived knowledge of the future. It takes courage to ignore those economic forecasts from brilliant, well-meaning experts with very impressive credentials. Their logic is always compelling, but investing based on that logic can be hazardous to your wealth.
Volatility spiked as investors questioned the Federal Reserve's next move, adding to existing concerns about private credit markets. Here's why investors shouldn't overreact.
Apollo Global Management Inc. is ramping up efforts to give investors more regular insight into the value of its opaque private credit holdings, just as a spate of redemption requests from such funds rattles the wider market.
Prior to the conflict in the Middle East, the U.S. financial markets were being confronted with headlines and attendant concerns surrounding the credit markets.
His time horizon is infinite. His capital is permanent. And the rewards, he argues, should be enormous.
Amazon.com Inc. has blown the primary market for new debt wide open just days after market volatility, sparked by soaring-then-plummeting oil prices, all but halted issuance. Its mega offering is priced cheaply, for a reason: Too much of a good thing is still too much.
Concerns about private credit have intensified in recent months. Investors are grappling with questions about weakening credit quality, stale valuations, looser underwriting, redemption risk in certain types of funds, and the impact of AI‑driven disruption.
Decades of “regulatory creep” and onerous disclosure requirements have discouraged companies from going public, say leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission. To revitalize American markets, they plan to pare back those demands, especially for smaller firms. “We need a reset,” Chairman Paul Atkins recently declared.
US equities rose Wednesday as a batch of reports confirming the strength of the American economy and a number of developments at the Big Tech giants reignited Wall Street’s excitement for the group.
AI has evolved from concentrated innovation to increased adoption across industries, which has led to a considerable (and somewhat swift) shift in stock market leadership.
When uncertainty rises, volatility usually follows as the market has a tendency of pricing in worst-case scenarios quickly. AI’s evolution has accelerated rapidly, shifting from novelty use cases to broad, productivity‑enhancing applications across industries.
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.
And so it goes in the world of private credit. Time and again, companies widely regarded as software firms are frequently labeled otherwise by lenders, a practice that raises fresh questions over the full extent of their exposure as the threat from artificial intelligence upends markets and rattles investors.
Market pros increasingly think the punishment of software stocks over the past few weeks went too far, creating new bargains in shares that were beaten down in an indiscriminate selloff.
Interval funds can be a powerful addition to the advisor toolkit. They can broaden access to institutional-style strategies and help build more diversified portfolios for clients who would otherwise be shut out of private markets.
After several years dominated by macro shocks, markets are transitioning into a phase where dispersion, selectivity, and disciplined portfolio construction matter more than broad directional bets.
For nearly two years, markets were driven by the same speculative narrative that “this time is different.” Speculative narratives are not only seductive but also contribute to investment behaviors that obscure reality. Speculation disguised as investing is a losing proposition.
Private credit has grown from a small niche market to a major slice of the financial asset pie. Not many people outside of institutional finance talked about it twenty years ago.
Private markets were historically for institutional and ultra-high-net-worth investors. Today, that exclusivity is breaking down, as many retail investors realize the value behind private markets and advisors look for additional diversification tools.
What appeared just months ago to be a stable and predictable transatlantic trade environment now looks conditional. The ground underneath transatlantic trade relations is once again shifting…even though critical portions of it are covered by permafrost.
Last week in our latest Cyclical Outlook, “Compounding Opportunity,” we argued that beneath the economy’s broad resilience lies a stark divergence. U.S. policy pivots combined with the surge in adoption of AI technology have created winners and losers.
Closed End Funds
A Tale of Two Bubbles Defining a Third
It’s true enough that history rhymes, even if it doesn’t necessarily repeat. But that creates danger when we pick up resonances from the wrong episode of history, particularly in the fraught task of identifying and avoiding speculative bubbles.
Private Equity for Individual Investors: What the Minimums Really Mean
Private equity has become easier than ever for individual investors to buy. Founders, executives, physicians, and business owners now regularly see private funds offered through banks, wealth platforms, feeders, evergreen vehicles, or registered interval funds. However, just because these funds are more readily available, and at lower minimums, does not mean they should immediately be invested in.
Finding Solutions When Leaders & Teams Diverge on Priorities
The combination of succession planning — where the lead advisor wants to have a successful and well-funded retirement and the successors want to get paid for taking over — along with the riches of the market over the last few years are all adding up to significant unrest within many teams.
Rising Oil and Real Yields Test Equity Leadership
The market encountered its stiffest test in months last week as rising oil prices, higher bond yields, and renewed scrutiny of AI capital spending combined to pressure many of the year’s biggest winners. Easing tensions over the weekend have buoyed stocks. If the Strait of Hormuz was opened, I believe the market would be 5% to 10% higher.
As Uncertainty Persists, Consider Closed-End Fund Exposure
Discover Aberdeen’s closed-end funds (CEFs) for high yields, illiquid assets, long-term investments, and resilient income for 2026.
How to Properly Measure Risk
The narrative presented in this article is uniquely suited only to the retirement scenario. (And it neglects such complications as tax-deferred accounts, etc.) Other investing narratives will be different — for example, those of pension funds or endowment funds.
How an Industrial Surge Can Drive Silver Price Comeback
June may have proven to be a difficult month for silver investors, but it’s likely far too soon to give up on the precious metal. To better understand this, it’s important to contextualize why silver’s price is struggling and why the metal’s long-term opportunities are still there.
Q2 Health Care Earnings: Policy Pain, Pharma Gains
Health care stocks came alive in the second quarter, benefiting from relatively low valuations and a late rotation away from some high-flying tech names. The sector returned 9.5% for the period, good enough to tie for fourth among the S&P 500® Index's 11 sectors.
Old-Fashioned Bond Math for a New-Fashioned Fed
In the Warsh Fed's new era of two-way risk, bonds offer something rare: potential downside risk mitigation that investors get paid to hold.
The Bullish Case for Silver
The shine has come off silver since it skyrocketed to over $100 an ounce in January. The price has dropped by over 50 percent from the record high. However, there are still reasons to be bullish on silver moving forward, including persistent supply deficits and growing industrial demand.
US Stocks Rebound From Selloff as Nvidia, Other Chipmakers Rise
US stocks advanced on Monday, paring last week’s slump, as chipmakers rebounded amid a deluge of earnings reports that will test whether Big Tech’s profits can match high expectations.
Metals in Motion: Sprott Outlines New Era of Critical Minerals
The rules governing global commodity markets are starting to witness a profound shift, which is putting critical minerals at the forefront of policy. On a recent episode of ETF Guide’s Metals in Motion, Justin Tolman, Senior Portfolio Manager and Economic Geologist at Sprott Asset Management, discussed this dynamic.
4 Floating-Rate ETFs That Should Top Your List
Fixed income investors continue to grapple with an uncertain macro environment, dominated by higher-for-longer interest rates and a new-look U.S. Federal Reserve, in which rate hikes may be forthcoming. Rather than make a directional bet on interest rates to combat duration risk, consider floating-rate ETFs, a compelling option.
SK Hynix Shares Plunge Most on Record in Deepening Korea Selloff
South Korea’s AI-fueled stock rally came under renewed pressure Monday as SK Hynix Inc. tumbled by a record 15%, underscoring growing investor concerns that the boom has become overstretched.
2026 Mid-Year Outlook: A Soft Landing Meets a Broader Market
Markets enter the second half of 2026 facing a familiar wall of worry—geopolitical conflict, oil prices, inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and questions around the durability of an AI-led equity rally. Yet the economic backdrop still looks resilient: growth remains solid, inflation has moderated, unemployment is reasonable, and market leadership appears to be broadening.
Is the Credit Market Unprepared for the Level of Tech Supply?
Fixed income experts James Donahue, John Lloyd and Mike Talaga revisit the levels of supply related to the AI buildout and explain why they remain cautious towards investment grade tech issuance.
Where to Invest Now as US Stock Markets Get Bubbly
The US equity market, with the S&P 500 hovering near all-time highs, is expensive. This isn’t controversial. Depending on which measure you use, US stocks have arguably been overpriced for several years.
Model Portfolios Gain Momentum in 2026: How ETFs Fit In
Model portfolios are seeing billions in inflows, and part of that success may be from how these strategies implement ETFs and private assets.
What Drove This Closed-End Fund ETF's Performance In June?
Bypass the headaches of individual closed-end funds. Discover how Invesco's PCEF bundles over 100 CEFs to capture June's debt rallies.
Tech Set to Rebound as AI Leadership Faces Fresh Tests
US stock futures climbed early Monday as investors gauged whether the artificial-intelligence trade can regain its footing after one of its sharpest pullbacks in more than two years.
QuantStreet July 2026 Letter: Sector Rotation
The most interesting shift in market price action in June was the strong outperformance of value stocks compared to the broad market and tech
Markets Broaden as AI Costs Rise and Inflation Pressures Linger
In our view, this divergence continues to reflect how the buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing both the economy and markets as it progresses across the value chain, even as the associated costs continue to climb.
The Credit Market Lens: What BDC Redemptions and NAV Pressures Mean for Investors
A widening confidence gap in non-traded investment vehicles is testing private credit valuations, sharpening the case for manager selection and diversification beyond direct lending.
Why the Bond King is Betting on Hikes, Hype & Global Rotation
Discover why DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach is urging a structural defensive rotation into emerging markets and international assets.
U.S.-Australia Agreement Underscores Importance of Rare Earths
Exposure to critical minerals, specifically rare earths, provides an opportunity for investors to capitalize on growth and diversify their portfolios simultaneously. However, there are also geopolitical implications that investors should know about as well. In particular, more nations are reducing their reliance on China.
Weekly Economic Snapshot: Inflation Spikes While Consumer Sentiment Breaks Its Decline
The U.S. economy faced intensifying headwinds in May as both consumer and wholesale inflation metrics surged to multi-year highs.
Private Credit Is Still a Hot Asset for Bond Investors Buying Debt
As shareholders rush to pull money from private credit funds over troubling questions about software exposure, opaque loan values and non-payments, some bond investors are doing the opposite: buying their debt.
Will the U.S. Stock Market 4-Peat in 2026?
2026 is heading toward a four-peat of double-digit returns on U.S. stocks, but it will require P/Es to remain high — investors need to remain optimistic. In the past, when P/Es were high, investor fear kicked in and P/Es declined, causing stock market losses. Time will tell, but diversification is a reasonable strategy no matter the outcome.
SEC’s Proposed Closed-End Fund Changes: What to Know
The closed-end fund landscape may be seeing a big change as regulations may be shifting at the SEC, per recent announcements.
FS KKR Sells $900 Million Bonds in Rare Junk-Rated BDC Deal
A private credit fund jointly managed by Future Standard and KKR & Co. sold $900 million of junk bonds on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, in a rare high-yield offering by a publicly traded credit fund.
America's Tab: What 100% Debt-to-GDP Means for Advisors
As advisors, our role is not to solve fiscal policy; it is to ensure our clients are positioned to weather the uncertainty that comes from that gap, stay committed to their long-term plans, and not let macroeconomic anxiety drive short-term decisions they will regret.
3 Reasons To Invest In Closed-End Funds This Summer
Closed-end funds may not be a hot topic right now, but they offer a highly compelling means to solve today's macroeconomic woes.
Guided by Fundamentals: Navigating Emerging Markets with Value
As globalization gives way to reshoring and resurgent resource nationalism, emerging markets may offer fresh alpha opportunities through their ability to supply the raw materials required to fuel the AI boom.
US Funding Markets Are Flooded With Cash That’s Here to Stay
An abundance of cash in US funding markets appears to be driven by deeper structural shifts that are unlocking billions of dollars in balance-sheet capacity at the biggest banks, Wall Street strategists say.
The Cost of Being Too Liquid
Private markets (private equity, private credit and real estate) have historically delivered an “illiquidity premium”. Institutions and family offices have recognized this illiquidity premium and have historically allocated significant capital to capture it.
Private Credit’s Unthinkable Becomes Reality as Trading Revs Up
Private credit managers are increasingly turning to the once-unthinkable: Trading in and out of loans to dump troubled assets and hunt for bargains amid the industry’s first stress test after years of breakneck growth.
Dispersion Revisited
Although a lot has changed since our last quarterly, its central theme – dispersion – feels like it’s only become more pronounced. We wrote last time that ‘‘we believe we’re entering a new era of dispersion in the performance of financial assets.’’
A Proposal to Save Private Credit (Sort Of)
The sooner the mass of retail private credit managers realize they are zombies and give up the ghost, the sooner we can burn the whole thing to the ground and conjure a better model from the ashes. But there is no time like a crisis to have conversations about how to make the structure work better for everyone in the future!
Most Families Don’t Know the Full Power of 529 Plans
Today, 529 plans offer flexible, tax-advantaged savings beyond traditional college. Recent updates expand their use to K-12 tuition, vocational training and the option to transfer unused funds to a Roth IRA. Our Bill Cass explains the ways to optimize the benefits of 529 savings plans.
Daily Pricing Is Not Daily Liquidity
Within private credit, attempts to increase liquidity – the ability to buy or sell an asset quickly, in size, and at prices reflecting fundamental values – are welcome developments, in our view. Yet until these efforts address the market’s inherent structural constraints, including a lack of true price discovery, they will only increase the perception of liquidity without truly improving liquidity.
Where to Invest Now That Moon Race 2.0 Is Here
The Artemis II mission was a glorious moment for space exploration and a sign of a potential $1 trillion investment boom in the global space industry over the next decade.
BDCs: Not All Yield Is Created Equal
The poor sentiment toward private credit funds has dragged down many high-quality BDCs, as well as weaker ones. The chaos and bad press surrounding private credit funds are not reasons to avoid BDCs. In fact, we think it’s a reason to consider them.
TIPS for Inflation Protection
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, can help buffer a portfolio against inflation. However, it's important to understand their unique characteristics and complex nature.
Differing Signals in BDCs, and Orderly Defaults in High Yield
Sentiment toward BDCs – funds that invest in small and midsize private U.S. businesses – has improved since early March. BDC bond spreads have stabilized and outperformed the broader investment grade (IG) index, suggesting credit investors are increasingly comfortable with downside risk.
Newsletter March 2026
As always, I hope you’re having a good 2026 and that all is well with you, my readers, and your family and friends. Here’s my latest.
Why Defense & Energy Needs Are Repricing Critical Minerals
Geopolitical conflict is forcing the markets to think critically about critical minerals. More specifically, the importance of critical materials has shifted from industrial use to a vital component in national defense and energy security.
Software Stuck in a Trough
Despite compositional differences – public equities generally represent larger companies with more scale, liquidity, and financial flexibility than the typically smaller, private-equity-owned issuers that dominate the software loan market – the outcome is the same: Neither market has been able to fully retrace the year-to-date sell-off in a meaningful way.
Amplify ETFs Offer Unique Angles on Income, Thematics
Amplify’s path is unique in the ETF space and has carved out a small but powerful stronghold for itself. Its focus on thematic and income strategies lends Amplify resilience across different market types, and its commitment to innovation means it doesn’t tend to issue many “me too” products.
Sprott Launches REXC: The First Ex-China Rare Earths ETF
On Wednesday, April 15, Sprott Asset Management expanded its lineup of exchange-traded funds with the debut of the Sprott Rare Earths Ex-China ETF (REXC). According to Sprott, REXC is the only ETF on the market that is offering a focus on rare earth companies outside China.
Iran, Inflation & Interest Rates
Rising oil prices and the historically inflationary aspects of war have changed expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate policy and have pulled Treasury yields higher.
Q2 Strategic Income Outlook: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Despite a confluence of economic shocks in the first quarter, markets have held up remarkably well, but cracks appear to be forming beneath the surface.
Why Geopolitical Disruptions May Work in Gold’s Favor
The escalating conflict in the Middle East — especially the closure of the Strait of the Hormuz — had an adverse effect on many investment strategies in March, and gold was no exception. The spot gold price closed out March at $4,668.06.
Pimco Buys All $400 Million of Bonds Sold by Blue Owl BDC
Pacific Investment Management Co. bought all $400 million of bonds issued Monday by a Blue Owl Capital Inc. private credit fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
BlackRock Sees Private Credit Tumult as Way to Take Market Share
BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink sees increased demand for private credit from big institutional investors like insurers, even as retail clients grow skittish over the asset class and seek to redeem more of their shares.
Analyzing the Analysis: How Do AI Portfolio Recommendations Hold Up?
While artificial intelligence is unlikely to replace financial advisors, it can certainly enhance both the quality and the productivity of advisors who embrace it. I agree that AI will boost productivity, but I wanted to put it through the test now to see how accurate and insightful it was. To do so, I gave Anthropic’s Claude a spin.
Public Insights on Private Credit: Only One of Private Credit’s “Four Horsemen” Is Real
Benefit Street Partners believes private credit has faced scrutiny recently and there are four horsemen of the apocalypse charging toward private credit investors, but three are phantoms. One, however, is real.
Managing ETF and Mutual Fund Exposure Across Asset Classes
The debate over ETFs versus mutual funds has never been particularly useful for advisors who actually build portfolios. In practice, the question was never which vehicle is better — it was always which vehicle is better for this objective, in this sleeve, for this client. In 2026, that discipline matters more than ever.
QuantStreet April 2026 Letter: Iran War
March 2026 was a rough month for financial markets. Broad indexes experienced large selloffs, led by international stocks, though many of these still remain up in 2026. The dollar rallied strongly, breaking its year-plus downtrend.
The Macro Implications of Chipflation
Rising demand for critical microelectronics, bolstered by AI capex and defense spending, is driving semiconductor prices higher and posing upside risks to global goods inflation.
The Credit Market Lens: A Market Split, but for How Long?
Amid geopolitical uncertainty, dispersion across credit markets – rather than a broad risk-off move – has become the dominant investment signal.
An Anatomy of the U.S. Fixed Income Market
For investors, understanding the full anatomy of fixed income is critical, not only to capture attractive risk-adjusted returns in today’s environment but also to appreciate its indispensable role in powering economic growth and financial stability.
Stock Market Breadth: Warning Or Opportunity?
What’s unusual today is the degree of divergence between individual stocks and the cap-weighted index. When a handful of stocks carry enough weight to paper over widespread internal damage, investors holding diversified portfolios feel the pain long before the headlines acknowledge it.
Private Credit’s Angry Investors Are Showing Its Limits
Private credit managers are feeling sheepish. Some of their investors can’t get their money out as quickly as they’d like — and some may be quite angry about that.
Three Reasons Why It Pays to Be Active as a Muni Investor
In today’s era of automation, some situations demand a more active approach. Municipal bond investing is one.
Cerulli Cites Growth Opportunity in Mass-Affluent Middle Market
The U.S. middle market has hit $25 trillion. Discover why Cerulli says the advisor shortage and shifting demographics make early engagement a necessity.
Liquidity Mismatches in an AI-Disrupted Cycle
Corporate credit markets have become unsettled about the potential for advanced agentic AI tools from firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI to automate functions across legal, analytical, marketing, and sales workflows, effectively targeting the software as a service (SaaS)/enterprise software space.
DoubleLine’s Jeffrey Sherman on the Fed’s TACO Trade & Fixed Income Strategy
Jeffrey Sherman of DoubleLine provided a candid assessment of the Federal Reserve's current trajectory and fixed income at Exchange.
The 200-DMA Just Broke: What Every Investor Should Know
Last week, on March 19th, the S&P 500 closed below its 200-DMA for the first time since May 2025. The first instinct is to panic as media headlines talk about bear markets and financial crisis events. However, as we will explore today, the data says it depends entirely on the type of break: sustained or brief.
In Private Credit, Illiquidity Is a Feature, Not a Flaw
Private credit is a key pillar of debt capital formation alongside public credit markets and bank balance sheets. But an important part of its value proposition—to borrowers and end investors—is its illiquidity relative to public markets. That distinction is by design, and we think it should stay that way.
The Fallacy of Investing Based on Forecasts
It’s human instinct to want to know what the future holds and to protect and grow our nest egg based on our perceived knowledge of the future. It takes courage to ignore those economic forecasts from brilliant, well-meaning experts with very impressive credentials. Their logic is always compelling, but investing based on that logic can be hazardous to your wealth.
What Iran Conflict Could Mean for the Bond Market
Volatility spiked as investors questioned the Federal Reserve's next move, adding to existing concerns about private credit markets. Here's why investors shouldn't overreact.
Apollo Plans to Mark Private Credit Daily, Answering Critics
Apollo Global Management Inc. is ramping up efforts to give investors more regular insight into the value of its opaque private credit holdings, just as a spate of redemption requests from such funds rattles the wider market.
Don’t Take All the Credit
Prior to the conflict in the Middle East, the U.S. financial markets were being confronted with headlines and attendant concerns surrounding the credit markets.
Bill Ackman’s Bid to Be More Like Buffett Is Finally Unfolding
His time horizon is infinite. His capital is permanent. And the rewards, he argues, should be enormous.
Amazon’s Mega Bond Sale Is Cheap — For a Reason
Amazon.com Inc. has blown the primary market for new debt wide open just days after market volatility, sparked by soaring-then-plummeting oil prices, all but halted issuance. Its mega offering is priced cheaply, for a reason: Too much of a good thing is still too much.
Private Credit’s Other Lanes Still Offer Value
Concerns about private credit have intensified in recent months. Investors are grappling with questions about weakening credit quality, stale valuations, looser underwriting, redemption risk in certain types of funds, and the impact of AI‑driven disruption.
Markets Have Evolved. So Should the SEC's Disclosure Rules
Decades of “regulatory creep” and onerous disclosure requirements have discouraged companies from going public, say leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission. To revitalize American markets, they plan to pare back those demands, especially for smaller firms. “We need a reset,” Chairman Paul Atkins recently declared.
S&P 500 Advances As AI Jitters Ease, Data Shows Strong Economy
US equities rose Wednesday as a batch of reports confirming the strength of the American economy and a number of developments at the Big Tech giants reignited Wall Street’s excitement for the group.
Cascade: AI's Latest Phase
AI has evolved from concentrated innovation to increased adoption across industries, which has led to a considerable (and somewhat swift) shift in stock market leadership.
From Bubble Fears to Disruption Risk: The New AI Market Narrative
When uncertainty rises, volatility usually follows as the market has a tendency of pricing in worst-case scenarios quickly. AI’s evolution has accelerated rapidly, shifting from novelty use cases to broad, productivity‑enhancing applications across industries.
A Paradigm Shift in Employment
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.
Private Credit’s Software Bet Is Even Bigger Than It Appears
And so it goes in the world of private credit. Time and again, companies widely regarded as software firms are frequently labeled otherwise by lenders, a practice that raises fresh questions over the full extent of their exposure as the threat from artificial intelligence upends markets and rattles investors.
Software Stocks Trade at Bargain Bin Prices After AI-Fueled Drop
Market pros increasingly think the punishment of software stocks over the past few weeks went too far, creating new bargains in shares that were beaten down in an indiscriminate selloff.
Interval Funds: What Financial Advisors Need to Know
Interval funds can be a powerful addition to the advisor toolkit. They can broaden access to institutional-style strategies and help build more diversified portfolios for clients who would otherwise be shut out of private markets.
2026 Investment Outlook
After several years dominated by macro shocks, markets are transitioning into a phase where dispersion, selectivity, and disciplined portfolio construction matter more than broad directional bets.
Speculative Narrative Unwinds
For nearly two years, markets were driven by the same speculative narrative that “this time is different.” Speculative narratives are not only seductive but also contribute to investment behaviors that obscure reality. Speculation disguised as investing is a losing proposition.
The Private Credit Playbook: A Clear Look at the Fastest-Growing Corner of Fixed Income
Private credit has grown from a small niche market to a major slice of the financial asset pie. Not many people outside of institutional finance talked about it twenty years ago.
Private Market ETFs: Democratizing Access
Private markets were historically for institutional and ultra-high-net-worth investors. Today, that exclusivity is breaking down, as many retail investors realize the value behind private markets and advisors look for additional diversification tools.
Drama in Davos
What appeared just months ago to be a stable and predictable transatlantic trade environment now looks conditional. The ground underneath transatlantic trade relations is once again shifting…even though critical portions of it are covered by permafrost.
Why U.S. Productivity Gains No Longer Reach Workers
Last week in our latest Cyclical Outlook, “Compounding Opportunity,” we argued that beneath the economy’s broad resilience lies a stark divergence. U.S. policy pivots combined with the surge in adoption of AI technology have created winners and losers.