Small Cap

Wealth today is more complex than ever. Investments, taxes, estate planning, insurance, and even family dynamics are deeply interconnected, and decisions in one area can have meaningful consequences in another.

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.

Get ready for a magnificent month, and then some. Mega-cap tech stocks dominate the corporate event calendar in June, already highlighted by NVIDIA (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address at Computex 2026 in Taiwan earlier this week, one of many major conferences.

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.

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.

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.

Would I be better off waiting for the Fed to make its move on rates before investing?” “Should I wait to increase duration because a blocked Strait of Hormuz could push oil prices higher and push rates even higher?” “Should I invest in bonds gradually to reduce the risk of missing the rate peak?

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.

Every family has a money story. It gets passed down quietly, invisibly, in the way families talk around the dinner table or on long walks together.

May’s 5.3% S&P 500 gain masked a deeply uneven market: technology surged 16% on AI spending momentum while most sectors declined, and a surprise inflation rebound flipped the Fed narrative from cuts to potential hikes.

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.

If you’re not familiar with the name Leopold Aschenbrenner, you should be. A 24-year-old wunderkind, Aschenbrenner was hired by OpenAI in 2023 to work on the company’s “superalignment” team, essentially trying to figure out how to keep AI systems safe once they become smarter than the people building them.

The ETF landscape includes a wide variety of innovative, intriguing funds that look to meet investor goals. From equities to fixed income, all kinds of strategies offer intriguing spins on areas like income and dividends.

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.

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.

What is unusual about today, and I mean genuinely unusual, historically unusual, is that the people building the equivalent of Newcomen's engine today know exactly (or think they do) what they are building. They are not just pumping water. They “know” the vast potential.

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.

The U.S. government’s decision to invest $2 billion directly into nine quantum-computing companies through minority equity stakes—not just grants—signals a major shift toward treating quantum as a strategic commercial industry, with potential implications for investors seeking targeted exposure through funds like the WisdomTree Quantum Computing Fund (WQTM).

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).

The ETF industry has exploded in popularity in recent years. Old mutual fund heavy firms have increasingly leaned into the space, while new shops have proliferated, adding all kinds of new ETFs for investors to consider. That has benefitted investors and advisors immensely.

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.

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.

Despite these higher costs, a projected 45 million Americans are expected to travel at least 50 miles from home this weekend, setting a new record. Close to 40 million will drive while some 3.7 million will fly.

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.

Last Friday closed with the 10-year Treasury yield at 4.60%, a one-year high, and the doom commentary about rising interest rates was waiting before the bell even rang. Hyperinflation. Bond market breakdown. Paradigm shift. A 1981 fair-value retest.

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.

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.

I have often written about one of the few indicators in economics that has earned its reputation over the years, and for good reason. It has preceded virtually every US recession since World War II. I’m talking about the inverted yield curve.

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.