Market Indicators

A rate hike on Wednesday is now very likely but would also be unusual, and perhaps dangerous, at least as far as the past generation of monetary policy goes.

A week of rising oil prices and higher interest rates sent stocks lower across the board as investors increasingly priced in the likelihood that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will begin a rate-hiking cycle at its September 16 meeting. Following the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, futures markets implied an 88 percent probability that the Fed will, or at least should, raise rates at next week's meeting.

Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

Most coverage of Trump Accounts treats them as a parenting question, or a discussion comparing them to 529s. For founders and business owners the analysis of them is slightly more nuanced.

Demand for fixed income ETFs hit a historic high-water mark in September. Investors and advisors turned to fixed income ETFs at a record-breaking pace, driving 2026 net inflows of $446 billion past all-time levels with months to spare. The massive tide of capital arrives at a critical juncture.

In our final chapter for this series, we will dig into that exact question. Unfortunately, there is good and bad news, and it can be summed up in a single sentence.

Last week, the refining margin on European gasoil, the benchmark that sets the price of diesel and heating oil across much of the world, closed at roughly $94 a barrel over Brent crude, according to Bloomberg data. That figure is normally somewhere between $12 and $18.

Every few months, a new essay declares that the US debt trap has finally sprung. The latest one making the rounds from The Economist is well written and genuinely unsettling. It argues that Washington has borrowed so recklessly that the Federal Reserve no longer dares to raise interest rates. Doing so, the piece warns, would detonate the whole structure and send financing costs spiraling out of control.

Equity markets generally moved lower as rising yields and energy prices created a more challenging backdrop. Higher yields can be particularly difficult for long-duration equities, where a greater share of expected cash flows sits further into the future.

Some investors are questioning how much further this year’s rally can run with the S&P 500 Index up 12.3% through the first eight months of the year. Encouragingly, history suggests that strong starts tend to persist; when the S&P 500 has gained more than 10% through August it has advanced from September through December in 25 of 28 instances, an 89% positive hit rate.

Occasionally, we are confronted with decisions where there are no easy options. The prevailing circumstances bound our choices, and we may face criticism no matter what we do. Collectively, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) finds itself in just such a situation as it prepares for its upcoming meeting.

The recent employment report provided reassurance that the US labor market remains resilient. The economy added 162,000 jobs in August; the previous two months’ gains were revised higher by a combined 55,000, and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%.

There is so much going on, it is hard to know where to begin. The data is all over the place. I had a long and epic dinner in New York with David Bahnsen, Rene Aninao, and Brian Syztel which has my mind buzzing with ideas and new concepts.

U.S. equities were little changed on the week – the S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent, the NASDAQ gained 0.4 per cent, and the Russell 2000 added 0.12 per cent – but those modest moves masked a far more turbulent week in the global rates markets.

History suggests slower Fed tightening tends to support stronger market returns and firmer economic growth, while faster hikes typically deepen drawdowns.

2026 began with 10-year Treasuries right around 4%, which many viewed as a comfortable place. The comfort came from some simple math—2 plus 2 equals 4. The long-term real yield on the 10-year Treasury was around 2% and the Fed’s inflation target is 2%.

Benchmark-Free has been a flagship strategy for half of GMO's history. As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2027, Ben Inker reflects on our first 25 years of Benchmark-Free investing.

For much of the past decade and a half, investors saw little reason to favor bonds over equities. Yields were low and returns were muted, especially in passive strategies. Equities seemed to offer a much clearer path to long-term capital appreciation. For many investors, bonds were, at best, ballast: a dull but generally stable component of a broader portfolio. Then the experience of 2022 had investors questioning even that view, as areas of high quality fixed income generated equity-like losses that eroded much of the prior decade’s real return.

The August employment report was much stronger than expected and reinforces my view that the U.S. economy remains remarkably resilient. Payrolls increased by 162,000, above every estimate, while revisions added another 55,000 jobs to the previous two months. The workweek increased by one-tenth of an hour, the household survey was extremely strong, and the participation rate finally moved higher.

On Friday, the August U.S. employment report surprised to the upside, with 162,000 jobs added during the month. Year to date, the labor market has shown impressive resilience, with hiring also becoming more balanced across sectors than in previous years.

LPL Research analyzes rising U.S. debt, Treasury yields, and fiscal trends, highlighting implications for markets and investors.

Labor Day signals more than summer’s end. It marks a return of focus to the economic and market forces that will shape the remainder of the year. From resilient earnings and record AI spending to rising bond yields and the midterm elections, there is no shortage of forces shaping the market outlook.

If you’re planning on driving anywhere this Labor Day weekend, be prepared to pay the highest gas prices ever for this time of year. The national average hit $4.14 per gallon on Thursday, an approximately 30% increase from last year, according to AAA.

To kick off our fourth season of the Alternative Allocations podcast series, I sat down with John Bowman, CEO of CAIA Association, to explore the massive changes underway across our industry. John and I discussed CAIA’s seminal paper “The World Rewired,” and the implications for private markets.

Are investors overlooking a “stealth bear market” hidden beneath the strength of the broader market?

Chris Galipeau discusses high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

If you look deeply into a speculative bubble, you can already see the collapse. If you look deeply into a market collapse, you can already see the bull market. The road up and the road down are the very same road. Even so, aside from knowing that our investment position presently requires a safety net regardless of shorter-term conditions – we have utterly no opinions, preferences, or scenarios about the market outlook even a month or a quarter from now.

It's been 40 years since I began my career on Wall Street and the lessons I learned along the way from some all-time investment greats always hold true.

After a week of traveling abroad to meet with clients and discuss our outlook for the US economy and financial markets, we returned feeling the need to address a growing misconception, both in the United States and overseas, regarding the differences between the US and Chinese economies.

My goal with this letter will be to not interrupt your long weekend too much. But there are some things that are happening that are important. My basic thesis for quite some time has been that we are in a Muddle Through Economy, which I’ve always meant that to me the GDP will grow slightly south of 2% over time.

The “K-shaped” divide endures even as it evolves. Higher-income households keep benefiting from equity gains, home price appreciation, and solid earnings, while lower-income households face mounting pressure from elevated costs and tighter credit. But recent data suggest the story is becoming more nuanced.

For the past six weeks, we’ve walked through the forces creating America’s K-shaped economy, housing, healthcare, education, wages, incentives, and the political consequences when enough people decide the system is not working for them. This week let’s look at the situation from a more optimistic angle.

With recent data weakening the case for an immediate increase in rates, markets have sharply pared expectations for near-term tightening, with a hike no longer fully priced before early 2027.³ This moderation in rate-hike fears has been supportive for gold.

House poised to pass bill to avoid government shutdown, two new members set to join the House, Fed chair speech boosts rate hike possibility, and national debt hits $40 trillion.

The month of August reminded many investors that the markets rarely move in a straight line. A combination of encouraging economic fundamentals, uncertainty in the bond market and renewed geopolitical turmoil led to increased volatility and shifting market leadership. But the underlying backdrop reinforced that the US economy continues to expand at a sustainable pace.

The topic d’jure is that Kevin Warsh just gave his first Presser (Oh yes, we love that word) as new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and it was fascinating, although in fairness, I have a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance streak in me that delights in what others might consider head-rolling minutiae.

Interim data takes center stage, with Costco, Ford, Robinhood and Charles Schwab offering fresh reads on consumers, autos and retail trading

It’s back-to-school season, and the ETF market is closing out a summer that proved anything but slow. August brought $180 billion in fresh net ETF asset inflows and saw the number of new ETFs coming to market cross 1,000 for the year. August also saw a barbell strategy against macro risks become a popular approach with ETF investors.

August was a good month in financial markets, with the S&P 500 up around 2.7%. The market leaders came from the commodity complex, with gold and bitcoin (not sure how this should be classified) being the two top performers.

This summer has delivered "blockbuster" returns, both positive and negative, while the possibility of quick and seemingly easy gains continues to draw investors toward speculative areas of the market. In his latest insight, Richard Bernstein, Global Head of Macro & Customized Investing, shares five charts that cut through the noise and highlight important shifts in credit creation, inflation, global growth, market leadership, and asset class performance.

The first two articles in this series were about behavior. This one is about arithmetic. There are three numbers that decide most of your investing life. Let’s do the math Wall Street skips, one number at a time.

In a week that saw NVIDIA, the largest company in the world, report strong earnings that sent its stock sharply higher and reinvigorated optimism in the artificial intelligence (AI) trade, fiscal and monetary policymakers continued to provide the biggest headlines.

San Antonio has been my adopted home for close to 40 years now. I’ve watched it grow through more than one boom cycle, but recent Redfin data suggests we could be looking at a bust.

The appeal of democratic socialism is real because the pain it speaks to is real. I won’t pretend otherwise. But intentions are not outcomes, and history has handed us the outcomes in ink, from Caracas to the old Soviet bloc to the Nordic countries that quietly kept their capitalism. The promise is a beautiful cake. The aftertaste is shortages, capital flight, inflation, and a new elite standing where the old one used to be.

Our real gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for 2026 is 2.5% (based on our Global Investment Management Survey) versus the Federal Reserve’s (Fed's) forecast of 2.2% and the Wall Street consensus of around 2%. The economy remains resilient and the consumer is strong.