Small Cap

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for August was generally in line with expectations. However, a slightly hotter-than-expected core CPI reading buoyed expectations of a rate hike at the Federal Reserve meeting in September.

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.

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.

As policymakers adapt to new leadership, navigate a challenging geopolitical backdrop and contend with meaningful internal debate over the path of interest rates, the stakes remain high. Below, we discuss what to expect from next week’s Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting and provide perspective on the recent rise of Treasury yields to multi-year highs.

In Part III, the focus will center on practical applications of this discipline. In particular, how advisors can integrate the methodology into modern asset allocation, and why it offers an evolutionary leap for passive investing that’s available through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

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.

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%.

One or a few high-performing stocks can provide a big boost to portfolio values. But they’re hard to come by and often struggle to maintain their momentum over time. Because these stocks increase portfolio concentration, investors must balance the risk of overexposure against the tax cost of diversifying. A thoughtful, tax-aware plan may help bring portfolios back in line.

Don't let September's macro headline noise fool you. Today’s economic backdrop won’t likely trigger a broad market freeze like 2022, but there will be winners and losers. Cash-rich mega-caps, AI infrastructure plays, and scaled market leaders (the SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI tier) command their own gravity.

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.

With a handful of stocks attracting most of the recent headlines, it’s easy to forget that investors continue to find opportunities across a broad range of sectors.

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

Portfolio Managers Jonathan Coleman and Aaron Schaechterle outline why they believe momentum in small-cap stocks relative to large caps can continue, highlighting favorable earnings growth prospects, appealing relative valuations, and other structural tailwinds.

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.

As students get closer to making a final college decision, the last two years of high school are particularly important. Parents will want to review their financial strategy to meet the costs of college, including a review of current savings, financial and merit aid, scholarships and loan options.

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

Equity markets can be as difficult to forecast as the weather, yet investors often assume future return patterns will predictably follow recent trends. In today’s turbulent market climate, we think fundamental research can help investors build conviction in long-term company forecasts that may be obscured by the AI-driven cloud cover.

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.

The S&P 500 gained 2.7% in August 2026 and four indexes hit all-time highs, but only five of eleven sectors rose and the Fed’s speech at Jackson Hole put a rate hike back on the table.

The SEC wants to rescind a 15-year-old rule curbing political donations by investment advisers, aiming to ease compliance burdens for RIAs.

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.

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.

After several challenging years, important parts of the health care sector appear to be reaching an inflection point. Policy uncertainty has weighed on pharmaceutical companies, constrained biotech funding has pressured the drug-development ecosystem and the normalization of pandemic-era has challenged select tool and device companies. More recently, however, several of these headwinds have begun to moderate.

Emerging-market (EM) equities have benefited enormously from the global AI investment boom. But headline market gains show that EM leadership has become concentrated in a handful of mega-cap technology stocks. In our view, today’s EM benchmark is far less diversified than many investors assume, creating opportunities to seek differentiated sources of return.

Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech struck a decidedly hawkish tone and was arguably the clearest signal yet that the Federal Reserve is actively considering additional tightening. Markets responded by raising the probability of a September hike to roughly 60% and pricing approximately 60 basis points of cumulative tightening through the middle of next year.

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.

In this article, Russ Koesterich explains how strong fundamentals have supported stocks, but rising bond yields may soon begin to challenge market valuations.

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.

Highly concentrated US equity markets have been a consistent theme in recent years. Now, after the latest reconstitution of a major US equity benchmark, concentration is taking on a new form, with the Magnificent Seven’s grip loosening and semiconductor stocks gaining more influence. In essence, millions of passive investors received a new portfolio without making a single decision.

AI-driven scarcity is allowing companies perceived as lower quality to post the revenue growth, margin expansion and rising returns that investors associate with quality, lifting estimates, multiples and stock prices.

Should the recent value rotation be viewed as a regime shift-driven change in market preference, or a simple reversal trade? We think there is a compelling case to be made for the former. In a regime of higher interest rates and stubbornly above-target inflation, the market is increasingly focused on capex intensity, free cash flow conversion, and the cost of capital.

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a bigger part of financial advisors’ workflows, but the technology is still in the early stages of adoption. LPL Financial experts share how agentic AI can help advisors with workflows

Massive AUM may earn an RIA a buyer’s attention, but it does not automatically earn a premium valuation in the rapidly evolving M&A landscape.

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.

Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, growing questions about the scale of AI-related spending and steadily rising bond yields, market volatility remained remarkably subdued this summer.

A credit-allocation problem is complicating the Fed’s dual mandate, with current policy restrictive for many consumers and weaker borrowers, but less so for large corporates, higher-quality issuers, and borrowers with access to private credit.

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.

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.