Portfolio Building

Learn what's in store for the remainder of 2026 and the challenges that lie ahead in our mid-year outlook for U.S. stocks and the economy.

Given its focus, the launch presents a milestone for the asset management community. ASD blends a sophisticated index design with structural corporate philanthropy to create an ETF that resonates with those invested financially and emotionally.

Space ETFs have seen strong inflows coupled with standout performance, capturing significant market attention. For investors, the rapid pace of capital deployment into the space economy underscores a compelling investment opportunity. For this edition of Bull vs Bear, writers Zandile Chiwanza and Elle Caruso Fitzgerald debate the use cases for space ETFs in portfolios.

US equities continued to climb higher in May, with the S&P 500 Index rising 5.1%. Further de-escalation of geopolitical tension in the Middle East has paved the way for the market’s 19.5% advance from the late-March lows.

Private markets have become integral to modern portfolios, with many investors searching for higher returns and diversification, including from public markets. But recent fund redemptions have reinforced that illiquidity isn’t theoretical, raising questions about the benefits of giving up liquidity. We see several—but investors must understand the trade-offs.

For the dollar-denominated investor weighing how to position for the back half of 2026, last week tightened a thesis we have been building all year.

Reducing equity exposure during periods of elevated risk is not the same as market timing. The financial industry has spend decades blurring that distinction.

Rising office delinquencies within commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) reflect genuine pressures from shifting work patterns, higher interest rates, and greater refinancing risk.

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

LPL Research analyzes stock valuations, finding them fair given growth, rates, inflation, and AI-driven earnings outlook despite risks.

Geopolitical risks are still lingering in the background, but the story lately has been all about earnings. A strong 1Q26 season, paired with a steady drumbeat of upbeat management commentary, has helped push the S&P 500 to 21 record highs this year.

Businesses are racing to build the physical infrastructure that makes AI usable at scale – data centers, the graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware stack, power, and cooling.

The global defense industry continues to move rapidly from legacy, heavy-hardware platforms to agile, unmanned systems. Today, the Trump Administration announced that it’s pursuing funding deals for drone companies in an effort to increase domestic production in today’s defensive landscape.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has expanded its alternative lineup with the launch of the JPMorgan Managed Futures Plus ETF (JPFP) on the Nasdaq. The actively managed fund combines a core U.S. equity allocation with a systematic managed futures strategy spanning equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities.

Closed-end funds may not be a hot topic right now, but they offer a highly compelling means to solve today's macroeconomic woes.

New York City is facing one of the most significant fiscal challenges in recent memory. The NYC Comptroller has projected a $2.2 billion budget shortfall for FY2026, growing to a $10.4 billion gap in FY2027 (Source: New York City Comptroller, January 2026). That is a two-year deficit of roughly $12.6 billion.

For the last eight years, GMO’s Asset Allocation team has held a differentiated view on Japanese equities. Long before Japan re‑entered the global investment narrative, we argued that the country was undergoing slow but durable structural changes aimed at improving corporate governance, growth, and capital efficiency. These reforms were never expected to deliver quick results. Instead, we expected them to compound quietly over time.

The essential feature of a useful alternative asset isn’t that it’s unusual or exotic, but that its returns aren’t tightly linked to the risks that already dominate the portfolio. The value of an alternative asset comes from the way it interacts with the other assets in the portfolio.

The dollar is supposed to be dying. We’ve heard that argument for the better part of a decade, and it’s getting louder, not quieter. Dollar dominance isn’t fading. In fact, the events of late April 2026 just delivered the loudest counter-signal in years.

Equities extend gains as earnings and semiconductors lead markets higher. Consumer confidence remains subdued despite economic resilience. Inflation is easing gradually but remains above the Fed’s targey.

Recent Federal Reserve communications have turned more hawkish, reflecting concern that persistent supply-driven price pressures could begin to feed into inflation expectations. But unlike in prior cycles, today’s environment is not defined by supply shocks alone.

Ahead of next week’s May employment report, the summer jobs market is coming into focus as teenagers and students finish the school year. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, teen hiring from May through July is expected to total just 790,000 jobs this summer, down slightly from 801,000 last summer.

In this video, Chuck Carnevale explains the true meaning of value investing and why valuation is one of the most important concepts investors can understand. - Why Value Investing is the Safest Way to Build Wealth. Chuck argues that value investing is not simply about buying “cheap stocks,” but about making prudent, rational investments that control risk while allowing investors to fully participate in a company’s long-term growth.

In the 24-hour financial news cycle, there’s much buzz surrounding the buildout of infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI). What about infrastructure beneficial to humans? There are plenty of ETF opportunities in the sector that’s gone from defensive hedge to dynamic capital appreciation engine.

Many debates in defined contribution (DC) circles focus on fees, new asset classes, and ever more complex solutions. But the biggest improvement available to plan participants may come from something far simpler: how their fixed income is managed.

Risk appetite remains firmly intact as optimism surrounding a potential resolution to the war with Iran continues to improve investor sentiment. The S&P 500 has now advanced for eight consecutive weeks, with price action remaining remarkably resilient throughout the recovery.

The next IPO wave may create a different kind of portfolio challenge for institutions already holding private stakes in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI.

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.

May is 529 Month. As college costs rise, learn five practical ways to maximize your plan’s tax benefits, flexibility and growth potential to prepare for the future.

Commodity market trends: Commodity markets have been on an impressive, and volatile, run so far this decade, with leadership oscillating between energy and precious metals. Not surprising, after commodities’ “Lost Decade” of the 2010s, given the asset class tends to move in long capital cycles.

Equity investors are facing monumental questions about their allocation strategies in a new market regime. Market concentration has risen sharply, valuations have climbed to record highs in parts of the market and factor volatility has dominated returns.

Recent market volatility and the conflict in Iran have understandably pushed many emerging market investors to the sidelines. But periods of uncertainty have historically offered attractive entry points into emerging market debt (EMD), particularly when underlying fundamentals are improving and asset flows are likely to increase.

Since early April, U.S. stocks have rallied sharply despite an ongoing war, rising inflation fueled by soaring oil prices (near $100/barrel), higher bond yields (up 0.6 to 0.7 percentage points), and frothy valuations (21 times projected earnings vs. a historical average of 17 times for the S&P 500 Index).

On the surface, last week looked engineered to embarrass our positioning. The dollar index climbed to a six-week high above 99.3 by Friday and finished the week roughly flat at those levels.

This persistent growth highlights how central low-cost core index products remain to advisor and retail portfolios alike. Even as asset managers roll out specialized strategies, capital continues to flow within broad-market beta.

In a relatively light week for traditional economic data, a mix of corporate earnings, business surveys, Federal Reserve minutes, and the latest read on the consumer from the University of Michigan helped paint an increasingly clear picture for investors.

The push for international equities diversification continues amid shifting global macroeconomic conditions. These days, investors have more options when it comes to international exposure. Given the current market uncertainty, they may want to put quality at the forefront of their decision-making process.

The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has transitioned from an equity market narrative to a defining force in fixed income. Hyperscalers (Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG/L), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL)) are shifting from internal cash flows to substantial bond issuance to fund massive data center, graphics processing unit (GPU), and power infrastructure buildouts.

Thanks to strong gains in markets over recent years, the 60/40 default portfolio has quietly morphed into a bundle of expensive U.S. growth equities and credit exposures offering narrow spreads over Treasuries.

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

After three decades of watching market cycles play out from both sides of the trade, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: Wall Street’s love of simple rules is one of the most dangerous aspects of investing.

Global equity markets moved modestly higher this week as first-quarter earnings season continued to deliver strong results.

Despite headwinds from rising oil prices, fundamentals have remained strong. The S&P 500 has notched 18 record highs year to date and, more importantly, surpassed our prior target of 7,250. Following a standout 1Q earnings season, we are raising our 2026 earnings per share (EPS) estimate to $326 from $300.

This piece examines the distinction between volatility and drawdown risk in portfolio construction, and why managing routine market fluctuations may not address the drivers of long-term wealth outcomes. The article is attached as a Word document, and the related chart is included as a separate image file.

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.

In this video, Chuck Carnevale explains why he believes a diversified dividend-growth stock portfolio can be a better long-term strategy for retirees than the traditional 60/40 stock-and-bond allocation. Using a real-world portfolio he created in August 2021, Chuck demonstrates how an all-equity income portfolio can provide both rising income and capital appreciation while helping investors stay ahead of inflation.

After a slowdown earlier in the year, stronger April and May data support the view that weakness in January and February, followed by a rebound in March, was largely weather-related rather than the start of a broader deterioration in housing demand.

Now, that prospect feels much farther off. Indeed, as government debt grows and macroeconomic pressures and inflation reemerge, investors face a complicated rate environment. Dividends can provide a solution.

In this second quarter update, Western Asset believes global fixed-income markets face a more complex backdrop as geopolitics, rapid AI adoption and private credit scrutiny intersect.

Chasing performance by deviating from a benchmark has long been the hallmark of active managers. But it may be time for a rethink. Our research suggests that investors allocating to core equities should consider refreshing the criteria they use to identify portfolio managers that can consistently beat their benchmarks.

For private equity firms, capital flexibility is prized today. Merger-and-acquisition (M&A) activity has cooled, while commodity prices and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven disruption have heated up, creating uncertainty for investors. This makes it more challenging to sell portfolio companies, so private equity firms are holding investments longer. As a result, many firms are turning to net asset value (NAV) loans for capital needs.

I still don’t think the Fed is close to a rate hike, but for the upcoming June FOMC meeting, a shift in the language of the policy statement from an easing bias to one of a ‘balanced’ outlook seems to be the most likely scenario. However, the fed funds futures market has now fully priced in a rate hike for March 2027, a remarkable shift from its pre-war status of discounting almost three rate cuts for the same timeframe.

Industry discussions on Janus Henderson’s ETF lineup are typically centered around its fixed income funds given the firm’s history in this asset class. However, the issuer also has equity ETFs that are garnering attention, which include a fund that’s close to crossing the $1 billion assets under management (AUM) threshold: the Janus Henderson Small-Mid Cap Growth Alpha ETF (JSMD).

Stephen Dover shares key insights from the Franklin Equity team about how artificial intelligence is changing the economics of the software industry.

Some institutional investors who had grown accustomed to outperforming the broader private equity composites are finding they have not done so consistently in recent years. Their diagnoses of the problem often center on specific decisions or biases they made in their recent manager selection, whereas a likely culprit is a falloff in the persistence of outperformance among private equity managers.

Recently, Matthew Bartolini, global head of research strategists at State Street Investment Management, sat down with VettaFi to discuss where inflation stands, opportunities within portfolio construction, and much more.

Concerned about overfunding your 529 plan? Discover the strategic flexibility of modern 529 accounts. From tax-free Roth IRA transfers to building a multi-generational educational legacy, learn how to maximize your unused education savings for long-term wealth building.

From the April payroll report released on May 8, we realize that not all industries are equally impacted by AI. Diagnostic imaging centers, an area where AI is thought to replace humans, have increased demand for workers, whereas bookkeeping demand has declined in recent years.

Global bond yields are reaching frightening levels due to the continued war in Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Continued high oil prices and the threat of reverberating inflation are causing investors to demand higher yields on government bonds.

Equities advanced in April, but hedges remain few and far between, as traditional risk mitigants like bonds and gold continue to show a correlation with stocks.

Watching your children step into financial independence is one of the most rewarding and complex milestones families experience. As young adults begin earning income, managing expenses, and making major life decisions, the habits and financial knowledge they develop can shape their long-term success.

Sustainable investing in fixed income has come of age. Against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions, persistent economic and trade uncertainty, sustainable fixed income continued to demonstrate its appeal in 2025.

Emerging markets (EM) are using low-cost renewables to cut fuel imports, stabilize power costs and improve energy security—positioning EM as the growth engine of the energy transition. Countries and companies that leverage their dominance in critical minerals and green technology could pull ahead, creating dispersion in potential outcomes for investors.