Leveraged and Inverse Funds

Financial markets have been experiencing some of their wildest trading days in history this year. Stock and bond prices have been moving in unison—an alarming scenario for investors and their advisors. With increased volatility, long-term investors might benefit from additional exposure to alternative strategies within their portfolio allocations.

The first half of 2025 has been driven by headlines that have caused volatility in both the stock and bond markets. While tariff negotiations have commanded the most attention, we are now pivoting to the federal budget deficit, which feels like a perpetual headline over the last 15 years.

A new culture of reform at Japanese companies offers exciting potential for equity investors.

With the world order in flux, investors can look to fortify portfolios by diversifying across global markets and capitalizing on attractive, high quality yields.

While the immediate path for tariffs may drift lower, the U.S. legislative branch is hammering out a tax and spending bill that seems to favor tax cuts over lower spending, reviving worries over the U.S. budget deficit and a growing debt burden that cannot be ignored.

Advisors looking to add or enhance existing gold exposures in their portfolio have a range of strategies to consider within the ETF vehicle.

If we lived in a world where mobile signals were visible, the sky would shimmer like a storm—layers of frequencies rolling over rooftops, crossing oceans and saturating valleys.

The U.S. economy and stock market face a confluence of challenges in the second half of the year, keeping the bar relatively (but not restrictively) high for outperformance.

The Fear Trade is what most Western investors are familiar with. It’s the flight to safety during times of uncertainty, driven by concerns over inflation, interest rates, geopolitical risk and more.

I spent the last two weeks of May catching up with partners and clients in Malaysia, Singapore, China, and Hong Kong. Following are some reflections on those conversations.

Increasing investor preference for actively managed strategies continues in this year’s tumultuous environment. With active ETFs taking increasing market share, advisors and investors have ever-expanding choices when looking to augment existing passive exposures.

In the last three months tariff news has whipped financial markets around remarkably in response to President Trump’s ever changing tariff policies. The most pronounced reactions were concentrated in the US stock market.

In our view, using quantitative methods in a transparent, repeatable way to extract alpha through diversified factor tilts offers a compelling alternative in this new IG environment.

The U.S. Dollar Index is at a critical inflection point, and how it behaves from here will have a major impact on the direction of gold, silver, and commodities.

Duration is an often confused term when it comes to financial fixed income investing. After all, in your everyday life, the definition of duration is the length of time it takes for something to occur.

U.S.-Europe negotiations involve more than just tariffs.

Today I’m going to highlight some speakers who added an equity market perspective to their big-picture views. Getting both right would be much easier if more investors behaved rationally. Alas, they don’t, which is why stock prices do incomprehensible things. Fortunately, you can succeed without catching every twist and turn.

Many investors have underweighted high yield bond ETF strategies in recent years, satisfied with the opportunities found in other segments of the fixed income market.

An "end-to-end" approach in process management means handling a task or product from its initial planning stages to the finishing point or delivery, without relying on intermediaries for specific steps. No nation does this better than China.

There’s a lot to like about the travel industry right now from an investment standpoint. You just have to know where to look.

In 2025, AI crossed a subtle but monumental threshold: it stopped just answering questions and started executing goals.

Though silver has been quiet lately, it’s important to be aware of the many bullish factors that are setting the stage for a strong move higher.

The Endowment Tax was introduced during the first Trump administration as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

Tariffs have long been part of U.S. economic policy, but big changes can disrupt markets and trade. Here's a quick overview of some questions investors may have.

Your financial requirements are multifaceted, necessitating strategies tailored to your specific needs. Tailored lending can be a valuable addition to a high-net-worth individual’s financial plan, helping you optimize cash flow, maximize tax efficiency and realize important estate planning goals.

For many of us, ETFs have been synonymous with passive management.

Shopping for bonds? The bonds you choose should align with your risk tolerance and goals. Discover what to consider before buying any bond.

The market narrative appears to change on a dime these days. Stocks may have staged a comeback to recoup almost all their post-“Liberation Day” losses. But the bottom line on the fixed income market hasn’t changed all that much.

One of the biggest stories in the ETF market in 2025 has been the nonstop impressive asset-gathering pace of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO).

Best-in-class OCIO providers understand the importance of a deep relationship and will invest considerable time cultivating one.

Common sense and economic theory often collide. Take the stubborn belief that government stimulus spending and debt issuance reliably boost economic growth. It is a simple and seductive idea—when the economy falters, the government can step in, inject capital, and jumpstart growth.

The April Consumer Price Index (‘CPI’) report was released last Wednesday and gave the Federal Reserve another positive data point in its inflation fight, as did Thursday’s negative Producer Price Index (‘PPI’).

Innovative ETFs are making waves as investors look for fresh ways to navigate a market marked by rapid growth and ongoing volatility.

As investors, we need to step back and examine the history of previous debt downgrades and their outcomes for the stock and bond markets. Let’s start with what Moody’s rating agency stated about its rating change.

So far in 2025, markets have had plenty to absorb: the Trump administration’s tariffs, Germany’s latest investment commitments, the implications of the DeepSeek moment, and escalating military conflicts (now including one on the India-Pakistan border).

We maintain a focus on resiliency as elevated yields within high quality fixed income continue to offer attractive opportunities.

By the end of April, the S&P 500 rallied its way back, recovering nearly all the declines notched in the opening days of the month when President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff plans tipped markets towards bear territory.

Assessing a bear market rally proves challenging when you experience it firsthand. It is only in hindsight that the complete picture reveals itself to investors. Of course, after a bear market rally, investors tend to review their investments and speculate on what they should have done differently.

For my entire decades-long career in capital markets, I’ve made the case that gold is not just a shiny relic of the past, but a serious, strategic asset for modern investors. After years of pounding the table, it feels pretty good to say that the world’s central banks—and now the U.S. banking system—are finally catching up.

Bonds and stocks falling together stirs painful memories of the 2022 inflation surge. This time, trade and tariff uncertainty is to blame, along with a dose of questioning the Fed’s independence.

Investors bearish on the dollar have generated attractive returns in the current environment with Invesco's UDN.

“Compounding” is a word often used among investors to describe what they hope to achieve for their capital. Compounding is invoked so frequently that one would think it was the standard aim and practice among investors.

After entering the year with a cautious outlook, managers have become more defensively postured as the U.S. tariff policy has increased uncertainty.

When I was much younger, I worked as a bond salesman for a small regional bank in the southwest. I sold some short-term T-bills to yield 17% and some ten-year T-bonds to yield 14%. Paul Volcker, the Fed chairman at the time, had reduced inflation dramatically but the bond market had not yet accepted that new reality and kept interest rates very high for a while after Volker achieved his lower level of inflation.