Commodities

A soft landing for the U.S. economy still appears to be the most likely outcome.

As more Chinese companies get comfortable paying dividends, investors may find new sources of equity return potential.

After a bit of an early-August swoon, the stock market came roaring back in the last few weeks of the month. The S&P 500 finished up 2.4%, though certainly in the early days of August, that did not feel like a particularly likely outcome. In client conversations a few days into the selloff, our feeling was to stay put and not tinker with the portfolios we suggested in early August.

In our view, stagflation scenarios tend to be worse for balanced portfolios than recessions.

This week saw a nontech giant cross a unique milestone and a tech giant’s earnings report become a Mainstreet sensation.

As noted in this past weekend’s newsletter, following the “Yen Carry Trade” blowup just three weeks ago, the market has quickly reverted to more extreme short-term overbought conditions.

As I write this, gold continues to trade above $2,500 an ounce after surging past the psychologically important level for the first time ever in mid-August. For seasoned gold mining investors, this should be a moment of validation. After all, the yellow metal has long been seen as the ultimate hedge against economic uncertainty.

Copper has been trending lower since the middle of May, but supply disruptions in Latin America could help reverse that trend.

When you see that behavior at extreme valuations, it tends to be a sign of underlying skittishness and risk aversion. When valuations are setting record extremes because the news can’t get any better, even a slightly less optimistic outlook becomes a risk.

China's economic transformation presents both challenges and opportunities for global markets.

The path for lower rates in the U.S. has finally arrived.

An extended period of elevated interest rates may have long-term implications for both consumers and businesses—affecting how investors value company shares.

Portfolio managers should always have good explanations for their underweight positions. These days, it matters more than ever.

Midstream’s second quarter earnings calls reinforced the positive outlook for US natural gas demand driven in part by expected power demand from data centers. This note discusses the advantages of natural gas for data centers, additional factors contributing to demand growth, and how midstream is uniquely positioned to benefit from these trends.

Mining stocks can certainly benefit from gold’s run as the precious metal looks to break past the $2,600 per ounce mark. Gold prices are already up about 23% for the year and could keep on rallying with a number of tailwinds behind it.

We all knew it was coming…and in Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said it will come next month. He said, “the time has come,” and the futures markets have priced in either a 25 or 50 basis point rate cut at the meeting on September 18.

That anthem was characteristic of the era. After two decades of economic frustration, free market policies had prompted a surge of growth and a bull market for stocks. The captains of industry were corporate raiders, who purchased companies, slashed expenses, pushed up prices and reaped outsized rewards.

This week we take a not-so-random walk through the data, trying to simplify what is actually a fairly complex subject. I think it is quite fun, but also important. Let's dive in.

This week, before she accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Vice President Kamala Harris threw her support behind President Joe Biden’s tax proposals for 2025, which include a steep 44.6% capital gains rate and an unprecedented 25% tax on unrealized gains.

Are we going to have a recession? Are we already in a recession?

If interest rates decrease over the next 12 months, as the market expects, long duration bonds could potentially provide equity-like returns for investors.

Amid expectations of rate cuts from major central banks, managers are increasing their exposure to more cyclical and value-oriented names, including autos, transportation, and short-cycle industrials.

Active management can lead to high portfolio turnover and a higher tax bill. Wealth managers might feel that an active strategy could be too inefficient for clients who are sensitive to taxes. Find out how implementing a core-satellite portfolio with a direct indexing core may improve tax efficiency.

The US Treasury’s debt-issuance polices have become a powerful form of policy easing. By shortening its issuance profile to reduce long-term interest rates, the Treasury has delivered economic stimulus equivalent to a one-point cut to the Fed’s policy rate, impeding the central bank’s efforts to control inflation.

Are the “Mega-Cap” stocks dead? Maybe. But there are four reasons why they could be staged for a comeback. The recent market correction from the July peak certainly got investors’ attention and rattled the more extreme complacency.

Silver is an important component of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, meaning that for China to reach its ambitious climate targets, it must import massive amounts of the white metal. In June alone, China spent over $228 million on silver, a new monthly record based on Bloomberg data going back to 2009.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the government, what’s old is sometimes new again.

Markets were recently rattled by concerns the U.S. may slip into recession, but it's not clear that those fears are justified.

Portfolio Manager Jeremy Sutch, CFA, and Chief Investment Officer Sean Taylor assess the issues besetting the region’s key markets—from domestic challenges to geopolitical headwinds—as well as their structural strengths, and whether prospects may brighten with the onset of a U.S. rate-cutting cycle.

Value has been in a protracted slump versus growth for years, but it’s been undergoing something of a makeover during that time.

As much as my two-pronged dividend strategy works in all markets, we still need to acknowledge that politics influences the market. Sometimes it’s a tangible impact like big swings in the price of oil. Other times it’s just investor sentiment moving the market.

Advisors are offering customized holistic wealth management to their clients and their families to help ensure an orderly transition of wealth

The tea trade has lessons for today’s global commerce.

Having been warned about the risk, investors now ask if the yen carry trade unwind is complete. Here's how far it might still go.

During volatile times, it is important to maintain perspective, stay focused on your long-term objectives, and avoid knee-jerk reactions based on the latest twists and turns in the market.

On Monday morning, investors woke up to plunging stock markets as the “Yen Carry Trade” blew up. While media headlines suggested the sell-off was due to fears of a recession, slowing employment growth, or fears over Israel and Iran, such is not the case.

On Monday, global equities and digital assets underwent a dramatic selloff as the unwinding of the Japanese yen carry trade rattled markets. The S&P Global Broad Market Index (BMI), which measures the performance of more than 14,000 stocks around the world, retreated 3.3%, its worst trading day in over two years.

With investors reacting to the worst global stock market sell-off since the early days of the COVID pandemic in 2020, Portfolio Manager Oliver Blackbourn and Global Head of Multi-Asset Adam Hetts consider the all-important question – what next?

The growth of bureaucracy around the world has led to a proliferation of rules. This creates multitudes of problems, one of which is that the state has made understanding what it is doing impenetrable, boring, nuanced, and technical.

Copper prices have pulled back since peaking in May at $5.12, but the long-term bull case for copper remains strong.

Friday’s jobs report has put a damper on economic sentiment for the moment. But much hype has been made about the so-called “Great Rotation.”