Tax Planning

The U.S. economy faced intensifying headwinds in May as both consumer and wholesale inflation metrics surged to multi-year highs.

The word seems to be spreading that small- and micro-cap stocks have so far been enjoying a stellar 2026. What seems less well known is that the current cycle of market leadership for the two asset classes stretches back to 2025 and has been in place for 14 months.

Dispersion continues to be the definitive story of 2026. As we progress through June and approach the conclusion of the first half of the year, the equity landscape remains distinctly bifurcated. Pockets of deep structural growth stand in contrast to areas grappling with macro headwinds.

In this month’s Allocation Views, strong corporate fundamentals and resilient growth fuel our continued optimism toward equities into June, despite persistent inflation and more restrictive monetary policy.

In addition to a greater range of chips supporting AI development, several factors could cause the current cycle to last longer than expected.

While owning a significant amount of a successful stock can be incredibly lucrative – especially in a company on the rise – the more you own of a single equity, the more closely your personal financial fate is tied to its performance.

For many investors, wealth management still feels segmented. Investments are handled in one meeting, taxes in another, estate planning somewhere else, and major life decisions often happen independently of all three.

For many registered investment advisors (RIAs), success has traditionally been measured in assets under management (AUM). As the industry evolves and consolidation accelerates, a broader question is emerging: are you building a practice or an enterprise?

For more than four decades, PIMCO’s Secular Forum has provided a disciplined framework for stepping back from short-term market noise to assess the structural forces that will shape the global economy and markets over the next five years. Yet rarely has this exercise been more consequential than it has recently.

After more than three years of underperformance, our prognosis for global health care stocks remains positive. The sector now offers a broader set of high-quality companies at valuations that appear increasingly disconnected from fair value.

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.

With the latest CPI report showing that inflation is likely here to stay, it could be time to pivot towards ETFs with downside protection.

LPL Research analyzes bond markets as yields rise, exploring Fed policy expectations, inflation trends, and whether bad news is already priced into Treasuries.

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.

The war in Iran is putting pressure on airlines. Higher jet fuel prices are cutting into profit margins, and the risk of a prolonged conflict may reduce travel demand in Europe and Asia. But for lessors, these gathering clouds may come with a silver lining.

The takeaway for both HY and EM corporates is straightforward. Once oil prices are above breakeven, further moves in oil tend to matter less for credit performance.

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.

The Numbers Are Staggering – The Magnificent Seven stocks now carry a combined market cap larger than the GDPs of Germany, Japan, India, and the UK combined. Meanwhile, 2025 tech-sector capital expenditures rivaled the peak-year spending of the Manhattan Project, rural electrification, the Apollo moon shot, and the Interstate Highway System — all at once.

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!”

With tech stocks pushing to new highs on enthusiasm around transformational technologies, the real question isn’t just momentum. It’s whether markets are becoming frothy, even bubble‑like, reminiscent of the dot‑com era. We don’t think so.

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 rise in U.S. Treasury (UST) yields, specifically the ten-year note, since late February has captured the attention of global investors in a very visible fashion. Just a couple of weeks ago, headlines were blaring that the UST 10-year yield had reached its highest level since the beginning of 2025, leaving market participants to wonder: What comes next?

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.

Even if the Middle East war does find a lasting settlement, the specter of inflation appears poised to hang over the markets. Indeed, while employment data had, up until recently, been the primary focus for investors, arguably, inflation reports have now moved into the ‘leaderboard’ position.

Learn what's in store for the remainder of 2026 and the challenges that lie ahead in our mid-year outlook for U.S. stocks and the economy.

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.

Given its focus, the launch presents a milestone for the asset management community. ASD blends a sophisticated index design with structural corporate philanthropy to create an ETF that resonates with those invested financially and emotionally.

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.