Tax Loss Harvesting

Equity issuance is all the rage. The SpaceX (SPCX) IPO on Friday, Alphabet’s (GOOGL) up-sized secondary announced last week, and a slew of other major go-public names over the remainder of 2026 (Anthropic, OpenAI) buck the years-long trend of intense buybacks and shareholder-friendly activities by the world’s most valuable companies.

Begin with the print itself, because the headline flatters the internals only slightly. The bulk of May's gains came from leisure and hospitality, which added 70,000 jobs, nearly half of them in food services and drinking places; local government contributed 55,000, health care 35,000, and manufacturing a modest 7,000, while financial activities actually shed positions.

Equity markets should remain supported by strong earnings and capital investment trends through 2026, but market concentration and macro risks leave less room for error.

If you think tracking error tells you how well a portfolio “tracks” the benchmark, it doesn’t. If you think it signals underperformance, that’s not right either. And if you believe high tracking error is inherently better or worse depending on the manager, that’s not the whole story.

Building resilient portfolios in markets delivering mixed messages can be a challenging affair. In our ongoing engagement with the retail and advisor community at VettaFi, we hear first-hand just how investors are tackling that challenge this year.

Fertilizers sit at the center of this transmission mechanism. As much as a third of the global supply of these commodities passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has largely been closed for three months. This has triggered shortages and a price spike.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, three of the world’s largest and most consequential private companies—SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI—are preparing to go public in the same year. Together, they could add nearly $4 trillion in market cap to public markets.

Chris Galipeau and Taylor Topoussis discuss high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.

We are halfway through 2026, and the planning priorities that have defined our client work this year are in focus. Some of what we are doing is recurring: fixing compliance errors, correcting quarterly estimate miscalculations, and keeping tax positions aligned with economic reality.

Our broad message for the second half of 2026 is this: Income still matters, but investors should be selective. Despite the recent rise in Treasury yields, we suggest investors favor a below-benchmark average duration with their bond holdings, favoring short- and intermediate-term maturities.

An increasing number of our neighbors are now retired. As they have made that transition, their sensitivity to the costs of living has increased, as has their skepticism over the way that inflation is measured. A common refrain: “I don’t care what the numbers say…things are REALLY expensive these days!”

For years, the retirement industry has framed the challenge the same way: Participants aren’t engaged enough. Employers need better communication. Advisors need to educate more.

In this episode of the Money Metals Midweek Memo, host Mike Maharrey argues that reports of inflation's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Drawing on both recent economic data and historical parallels, he contends that the United States may be entering a second wave of a broader long-term inflationary cycle reminiscent of the inflationary era of the 1960s and 1970s.

The latest Emerging Markets Insights discusses companies across various sectors that have expressed cautious optimism for the second half of 2026 despite ongoing geopolitical pressures and higher input costs. Templeton Global Investments highlight what they observed at a recently attended summit.

Get ready for an absolute blockbuster of a summer, and then some. While mega-cap tech stocks have been busy hogging the headlines on the corporate event calendar, a quiet transformation has been taking place just off the exchange floors. The IPO market, which spent the better part of the last few years stuck in a defensive crouch, has officially smashed the accelerator to start 2026.

As a symbol of economic vibrancy and opportunity, it’s hard to beat the public market. Its storied venues, where everything from butter to trillion-dollar tech companies are bought and sold, are a foundation of the modern world.

For weeks now, media reports have been suggesting that Washington and Tehran are moving closer to a memorandum of understanding (MOU). In practical terms, that would extend the current ceasefire by roughly 60 days and create a window to negotiate a more durable peace agreement.

The U.S. economy appears resilient, judging from key economic measures. AI-driven capex continues to power investment, support equity markets, and sustain a wealth effect that has propped up consumption. Real GDP growth remains positive. Private sector balance sheets are in generally good condition and many higher income and wealthy households have benefited from equity markets gains.

Climate change has become a defining force in geopolitics. As governments respond to record heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts, their policies and economic posturing are reshaping manufacturing, trade and energy security across the capital markets.

The IPO market may be entering one of its largest cycles in years, but the next wave may be defined less by breadth than by scale. Instead of hundreds of companies listing, a smaller group of AI and strategic infrastructure leaders could reset the market on their own.

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.

Stocks extended their advance for a ninth consecutive week, with the S&P 500 rising more than 5 percent in May on the heels of April’s 10 percent rally. This nine-week run coincides with the market’s March 30 bottom, when early signs of a potential off-ramp or ceasefire in the Middle East began to emerge.

A strong business isn’t always a winning stock at every moment, and 2025 was a good reminder of that. Developed market equities finished the year up more than 20%, but quality stocks lagged. That’s why Parametric favors a multifactor approach to capture factor risk premia.

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.

Last week, several Fed members signaled the central bank may have to raise interest rates to cool price inflation.

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.

Rising office delinquencies within commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) reflect genuine pressures from shifting work patterns, higher interest rates, and greater refinancing risk.

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.

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.

Economies around the world aren’t just reliant on AI investments for growth. The appreciation of AI stocks has supported spending, which is following “K-shaped” patterns. A significant correction to the valuations of tech leaders would therefore be even more likely to result in recession.

A little more than six months ago there were narratives circulating that national housing prices were in an even bigger bubble than the one twenty years ago and headed for an “inevitable” collapse. Given that national home prices dropped about 27% from peak to bottom in the last housing bust, that would be something to worry about.

The global defense industry continues to move rapidly from legacy, heavy-hardware platforms to agile, unmanned systems. Today, the Trump Administration announced that it’s pursuing funding deals for drone companies in an effort to increase domestic production in today’s defensive landscape.

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.

Equities extend gains as earnings and semiconductors lead markets higher. Consumer confidence remains subdued despite economic resilience. Inflation is easing gradually but remains above the Fed’s targey.

Recent Federal Reserve communications have turned more hawkish, reflecting concern that persistent supply-driven price pressures could begin to feed into inflation expectations. But unlike in prior cycles, today’s environment is not defined by supply shocks alone.

The reality is, the American people wouldn’t accept the level of taxation necessary to maintain the warfare/welfare state. There would be a tax revolt. So, the government resorts to a less obvious tax.

Many debates in defined contribution (DC) circles focus on fees, new asset classes, and ever more complex solutions. But the biggest improvement available to plan participants may come from something far simpler: how their fixed income is managed.

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.

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.

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).

On the surface, last week looked engineered to embarrass our positioning. The dollar index climbed to a six-week high above 99.3 by Friday and finished the week roughly flat at those levels.