There is no government report more meaningless and yet more relied upon by policymakers than the monthly non-farm payroll report released every month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In this video, Chuck Carnevale (“Mr. Valuation”), co-founder of FAST Graphs, explains a simple and effective way to find high-quality stocks, even in an overvalued bull market.
Despite West Texas Intermediate crude climbing to $111.54, U.S. stocks ended last week higher for the first time since February 20.
Fixed income markets have faced a challenging stretch following the escalation of conflict in the Middle East. Sharply rising oil prices and renewed inflation concerns have pushed US Treasury yields higher, and municipal bonds have moved in tandem.
Across corporate lending markets, some investments are easier to trade and exit than others – differences that deserve particular attention today.
As strikes on Iran continue and the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, it’s clearly too early for market watchers to stop thinking about geopolitical risk.
Fresh data on the US labor market and new research from the Federal Reserve suggest that the conventional wisdom around employment growth being sluggish is wrong.
529 Plans are a huge part of many families' investing lives, but up until recently rarely involved advisors. Could that change?
Developments in the Middle East continue to be, without a doubt, taking center stage for the financial markets. However, it’s important to keep tabs on the U.S. macro-outlook, especially the labor market and inflation aspects.
Join the experts at SS&C ALPS Advisors and MarketGrader Capital to learn how an equal-weighted approach can help address concentration risk without stepping away from U.S. equities.
At this point, we think the odds are very high that the Democrats win back the House in the mid-term election in November. Compared to how they did in 2024, the Democrats only have to gain three seats to take back the House.
Financial therapy can help men explore their internal parts to learn to recognize and begin to heal the emotional beliefs driving their economic behavior. The point of financial therapy is not to dampen ambition, but to heal beliefs that may be souring it.
In the competitive and client-centric world of wealth management advisory services, a strong business development strategy is more than a growth tool; it’s a necessity. While digital marketing, webinars and in-house events have their place, two of the most effective and scalable channels for high-quality lead generation remain referrals and centers of influence (COIs).
Cybersecurity stocks have sold off this year alongside the rest of the software sector, but with artificial intelligence increasing the potential threats from bad actors, investors risk missing out on the burgeoning demand for their services.
Finance has been moving fast. From crypto to prediction betting to exchange-traded funds to private credit, new markets—and risks—are proliferating.
Wall Street’s biggest ETF issuers are circling Invesco Ltd.’s Nasdaq 100 franchise, threatening to end its near-exclusive hold on the index.
The defining statistic of the so-called K-shaped economy is a little hard to define.
Call it the season of IPO prep. Recent launches and announcements from OpenAI and arch rival Anthropic are aimed at laying the groundwork to go public in late 2026 or early 2027, and for OpenAI, which just closed a $122 billion funding round that values it at $852 billion.
Last week, the stock market rally was one of the best performances in nearly a year. The S&P 500 surged 3.4%, the Nasdaq climbed 4.4%, and the bulls declared the correction over. As I have stated before, having watched markets for more than 35 years, I have come to recognize the difference between a relief rally and the end of a corrective cycle.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, jet fuel prices in the U.S. have more than doubled. According to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the year-to-date percent change in U.S. jet fuel prices stood above 120% as of the end of March.
The economy continues to show resilience, and the March jobs report reinforced that view. Payroll growth came in stronger than expected, prior months were not meaningfully revised away, and the unemployment rate edged lower. Wage growth eased, but the broader message was clear: the labor market remains too firm to support any near-term case for Fed easing.
The US-Iran conflict has altered Iran’s regional influence and, more broadly, has many other consequences. It pressures government relations as well as global and financial market trading.
With the conclusion of a volatile first quarter in 2026, the Amplify Energy & Natural Resources Covered Call ETF (NDIV) demonstrated the resilience of its underlying index (VettaFi Energy and Natural Resources Covered Call Index).
Gold’s recent drop from $5,600 to $4,400 is a classic liquidity story where investors are selling their most liquid winners to raise cash.
The middle is typically not where you want to be. In American sports, teams in the middle of the standings aren’t contenders for either a championship or a high draft choice. The middle seat on an airplane, subject to incursions from either side, is not very comfortable. The middle manager is accountable in every direction, empowered in none.
It was a rough first quarter for the Broadleaf Growth Equity Portfolio and the markets in general as investors tried to identify market leadership buffeted by AI spending concerns, talk of escalating private credit market risks, and ultimately, the emergence of War in Iran.
An Exchange conference panel explored bitcoin's evolving role, allocation tactics, and ETF structures for advisors building crypto portfolios.
Join the experts at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as they explore the current state of the fixed income market and discuss why a "set-it-and-forget-it" approach to fixed income may no longer be sufficient as investors consider actively managed fixed income ETFs to help navigate today’s environment.
With oil prices spiking and inflation concerns remaining elevated, many investors are looking for ways to diversify beyond the S&P 500. This week, Chuck Jaffe and Todd Rosenbluth, dive into the FlexShares Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources Index Fund (GUNR).
When investors want to reduce risk, one commonly used tool is beta. For instance, an investor may sell higher-beta stocks and replace them with lower-beta ones to cushion against an expected market decline. Such a strategy is intuitive and widely used; however, it can be greatly flawed.
Breakeven real rates can inform us how much of a total return portfolio’s realized risk premium would be required merely to catch up to the benefits of delayed claiming, arguably an inefficient use of the equity risk premium.
The debate over ETFs versus mutual funds has never been particularly useful for advisors who actually build portfolios. In practice, the question was never which vehicle is better — it was always which vehicle is better for this objective, in this sleeve, for this client. In 2026, that discipline matters more than ever.
I have written for years that oil prices act like a tax on the economy, both in the US and globally. It is actually simply the price paid, but the effect on the economy is similar to a tax. If the price goes up, it takes more money from individual consumers that would otherwise be saved or spent somewhere else. Just like taxes.
After more than three decades of watching oil markets upend economies, one pattern keeps repeating: investors learn the wrong lessons from the last shock. The 1973 OPEC embargo taught us that geopolitical disruptions are temporary.
March 2026 was a rough month for financial markets. Broad indexes experienced large selloffs, led by international stocks, though many of these still remain up in 2026. The dollar rallied strongly, breaking its year-plus downtrend.
Volatility is a trader's bread and butter: Without it, profits are harder to come by. However, when volatility remains elevated for an extended period, it could be the sign of a more deeply rooted market shift.
Generational wealth doesn’t disappear because families fail to invest well. It disappears because the knowledge, communication, and decision-making structures surrounding that wealth were never intentionally passed down.
The war in Iran has been costly, in a number of ways. First and foremost, the humanitarian consequences have been substantial: the price paid by those in harm’s way is immeasurable.
Cities such as New York and Chicago are in deep financial trouble. Broadly speaking, they have two options: Make the difficult but appropriate choice to raise taxes and reduce the scale of government, or continue to live in a state of denial, increasing their pension obligations while also promising their residents more services.
BlackRock Inc. is setting its sights on a corner of the $13.7 trillion US exchange-traded fund industry long controlled by Invesco Ltd: tracking the Nasdaq 100 Index.
The next 12 months are expected to bring a bumper crop of mega initial public offerings to market. Billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company SpaceX has reportedly filed for a potentially record-breaking offering.
For much of the past decade, U.S. investors didn’t need much convincing to stay close to home. But according to experts at a recent AllianceBernstein (AB) Product Due Diligence Session, the tide shifted dramatically in 2025, signaling a “new dawn” for non-US stocks.
Amid hopes that the conflict in Iran will soon de-escalate, stocks rallied in recent days. This provided some much needed relief for the growth-heavy Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX). However, advisors and experienced investors know that things can change in a heartbeat.
US equities and crude oil prices edged higher as investors focus on signs of a potential diplomatic push toward a ceasefire in the Iran war.
Bond traders kicked off the week betting that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates on hold for the coming year, with the Treasuries market holding steady ahead of President Donald Trump’s extended deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
As Q1 2026 comes to a close, we follow up on an article we published last week on buybacks by analyzing corporations' other favorite way to return value to shareholders. The percentage of companies increasing dividends in Q1 was the highest level since Q1 2019 (45%).
Markets often react sharply to geopolitical developments, but just as often, they overreact. Investors today are grappling with heightened global tensions, rising oil prices and uncertainty around central bank policy. The key question is whether these risks meaningfully alter the economic outlook or simply create short-term volatility.
Exchange-traded fund issuers are shutting new products at the fastest pace in years as competition for investor money intensifies.
March 2026 ETFs: Investors pivot to safety with $29B in short-term bonds and a record $5B in Energy as Tech faced a Q1 recalibration.
Finding the right strategy for long term growth means understanding how AI is reshaping the research process and curating a repeatable, integrated investment framework. Join the experts at Baron Capital as they unpack technology, innovation, and long term growth investing.
