Seven of the nine indexes on our world watch list have posted gains through February 10, 2025. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is in the top spot with a year to date gain of 9.68%. Germany's DAXK is in second with a year to date gain of 9.42% while France's CAC 40 is in third with a year to date gain of 8.28%.
Alex Mackey of MFS delved into the active bond strategies underpinning MFSB and MFSM in the recent Q1 2025 Fixed Income Symposium.
Multiple jobholders account for 5.3% of civilian employment. The survey captures data for four subcategories of the multi-job workforce, the relative sizes of which we've illustrated in a pie chart.
Let's take a close look at January's employment report numbers on Full and Part-Time Employment. The latest data shows that 83.0% of total employed workers are full-time (35+ hours) and 17.0% of total employed workers are part-time (<35 hours).
Adding cash-flow-matched bond strategies to a total return strategy appears to improve total return relative to risk by reducing the likelihood of poor outcomes.
What does the ratio of unemployment claims to the civilian labor force tell us about where we are in the business cycle and recession risk?
Whether its crypto last quarter or the Mag Seven-led S&P of the past two years, FOMO is natural when we see big gains. Hey, we’re all human.
The weekly leading economic index (WLEI) is a composite for the U.S economy that draws from over 20 time-series and groups them into the following six broad categories which are then used to construct an equally weighted average. As of January 31st, the index was at 22.070, down 1.180 from the previous week, with 4 of the 6 components in expansion territory.
While Merton is one of the most brilliant financial economists who ever lived, high-level quantitative chops do not guarantee financial success.
In this note, we'd like to share our analysis of one potential solution we've been hearing about a lot lately. It involves leveraged direct index tax-loss harvesting.
US inflation showed scant signs of downward momentum at the start of the year, while healthy job growth undergirded the economy, backing the Federal Reserve’s stance to hold the line on interest rates for now.
Looking for an investment idea that’s paid off handsomely in commodities markets over the past six months? Try betting on the tropics.
If you’re looking to a popular stock market tracker like the S&P 500 Index to gauge the effect of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, don’t. It’s likely to be insulated from much of the fallout and therefore fail to reflect the true impact on US businesses.
Everyone should have access to a quality retirement plan. That should not be a radical statement. People deserve to age with dignity and not worry about outliving their savings or paying for necessities like shelter and food.
At the start of this week, the question was whether the shock of China’s supercheap AI DeepSeek would compel Silicon Valley’s big artificial-intelligence companies to reduce their spending.
Some allocators may focus their search efforts on corporate credit segments or simply a portfolio that can opportunistically trade across fixed income sectors.
Today we’ll talk about side effects, and whether the cure is worse than the disease.
Tech results last week were more anticipated than usual due to the emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek in the prior week.
Markets, as many of you are aware, don’t like uncertainty. And right now, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy.
In today’s era of automation, some situations demand a more active approach. Municipal bond investing is one.
Tariffs seem to have become a staple of Americans’ dictionaries lately as the new administration uses this policy instrument to achieve objectives that are not directly tied to the reasons tariffs have been used in the past.
Since our last update of our ‘Three Tactical Rules’ on November 26, 2024, equity markets are up slightly.
Broadcom looks to build off last year's strength, which should give bullish traders another year of potential gains.
The S&P 500 finished the week in the red despite midweek gains, posting a 0.2% loss from last Friday. The index now sits 1.52% below its record close on January 23, 2025 and is up 2.68% year to date.
The yield on the 10-year note ended February 7, 2025 at 4.49%. Meanwhile, the 2-year note ended at 4.29% and the 30-year note ended at 4.69%.
Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process.
A look at our most widely read articles for January reveals a motley crew, ranging from thought pieces on best practices for managing your advisory firm to explorations of the potential for stock market disaster.
There is a general belief that there are four big indicators that the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process. This commentary focuses on one of these indicators: nonfarm employment. In January, total nonfarm payrolls increased by 143,000, while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.0%.
Some of America’s leading financial firms are hoping to sell the White House on what sounds like a compelling idea: Open employer-sponsored retirement plans to the private investments they manage, so regular folks can reap returns currently reserved for the wealthy.
Consumer sentiment declined for the second consecutive month, reaching its lowest level since July, according to the preliminary February report for the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. The index fell by 3.3 points (-4.6%), dropping to 67.8 from January's final reading of 71.1, and is down 11.8% from a year ago. The latest reading also came in below the forecasted 71.9.
The best performing US blue-chip bond funds of 2024 are sticking to their winning playbook: investing in debt from riskier blue-chip companies, as well as firms that can handle economic turbulence — and avoiding corporations sensitive to interest-rate risk.
US job growth moderated in January while annual revisions from the government also revealed less vigor in the labor market last year than previously thought.
The latest employment report showed that 143,000 jobs were added in January, falling short of the expected 169,000. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate edged down to 4.0%.
Investors are hungry for a piece of the US data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom, and a handful of initial public offerings expected in 2025 would feed that appetite.
US government bonds fell as mixed employment data left traders holding tight to expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates steady until later this year.
While domestic politics can certainly influence asset prices, it is just one of many variables, and our research has shown it to be an inaccurate indicator of future returns. We caution investors against making changes to their portfolios based on political developments.
There weren’t too many market observers who penciled in higher tariffs on Canada than on China, but that’s where things stood, at least for a few hours, before Trump struck a deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday.
We hope you enjoy the latest newsletter from Harold Evensky.
Raymond James CIO Larry Adam looks at how the proposed tariffs may impact the economy and financial markets.
The first month of 2025 is now in the rearview mirror, and investors recently experienced a fortnight (14 days) of headline-making activity, ranging from President Trump taking office, the January FOMC meeting, and of course, the developments surrounding the DeepSeek news.
Impact investors can help devastated communities recover and build resilience.
The recent dominance of the “Magnificent 7” technology names may help fuel the common belief that a single stock portfolio is the best way to deliver extraordinary returns.
In 2025, SECURE 2.0 introduces mandatory automatic enrollment in new retirement plans, increased catch-up limits for certain workers, and reduced participation requirements for long-term part-time workers. Our Mike Dullaghan highlights the details of the new provisions.
In a first quarter 2025 asset allocation report, Confluence expects resilient economic growth in the short term.
VettaFi discusses tariffs and transportation ETFs.
Here is a look at real (inflation-adjusted) charts of the S&P 500, Dow 30, and Nasdaq composite since their 2000 highs. We've updated this through the January 2025 close.
The S&P 500 real monthly averages of daily closes reached a new all-time high in December 2024 but fell slightly in January. Let's examine the past to broaden our understanding of the range of historical bull and bear market trends in market performance.
Here's an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation? The purchasing power of your investment has increased to $16,444 for an annualized real return of 9.99%.
2025's complex market environment lays the groundwork for active bond strategies to potentially shine, according to MFS and AllianceBernstein.
Our monthly market valuation updates have long had the same conclusion: US stock indexes are significantly overvalued, which suggests cautious expectations for investment returns. On August 4th, 2020, the 10-year Treasury yield hit its all-time low of 0.52%. As of January 31st, it was 4.54%.
