Thematic ETF assets climbed 49.6% through the first 11 months of 2025, reaching $467.93 billion by the end of November, according to research from ETFGI.
Step aside, artificial intelligence. Another transformative technology with the potential to reshape industries and reorder geopolitical power is finally moving out of the lab: quantum.
In 2025, Advisor Perspectives’ most-read commentaries mainly centered on uncertainty around U.S. equities and on record-high valuations, in particular. Key themes included the bleak forecast for U.S. equities and the opportunities presented by non-U.S. stocks. Other articles weighed in on the risks around private equity that await retail investors delving into the space and on the investment potential of utilities due to AI and the shift to clean energy.
Franklin Templeton Institute believes tax-free municipal bonds continue to be well positioned in the current market environment.
When it comes to interpreting the economy we put a premium on sobriety. One good piece of economic data doesn’t mean a boom, nor does one bad report mean a bust.
We examine what’s driving gold’s ascent — from central bank reserves to portfolio hedging — and why it can play a strategic role for investors.
Micron Technologies (MU) rose 10% the week of December 15th, after the company markedly beat Q1 FY26 revenue and earnings expectations. The company is a key player in memory and storage products for many technology sectors, including AI data centers.
Like previous generations, most young people are going to end up owning homes. The housing market is in transition, and despite the current lack of affordability, there’s compelling evidence that we’re grinding back toward more normal levels.
Retirement dominated 2025’s top articles, featuring insights from William Bernstein and Allan Roth among others. Key highlights include critiques of retirement calculators, Vanguard’s expectations for the next decade, Roth IRA strategies, and the nuances of dividend investing for long-term portfolios.
At the big banks and the boutique investment shops, an optimistic consensus has taken hold: the US stock market will rally in 2026 for a fourth straight year, marking the longest winning streak in nearly two decades.
Bitcoin briefly topped the $90,000 mark on Monday before tumbling, leaving traders waiting on a potential breakout after the token missed a Santa rally that sent stocks to record highs.
Silver surged above $80 an ounce on Friday, capping a meteoric rally that drove the metal’s price up 176 percent over the year. What is driving silver higher at such an unprecedented rate?
SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to acquire private equity firm DigitalBridge Group Inc. in a deal valuing the data center investor at $4 billion including debt.
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 December 12th, the index was at 6.71 with 3 of the 6 components in expansion territory.
As we pass the halfway mark of the 2020s, comparisons now abound between our current decade and the roaring 1920s. F. Scott Fitzgerald best captured the opulence of the Flapper Era in The Great Gatsby, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
There is a rising market risk in 2026 that is largely overlooked as we wrap up this year. Optimism about 2026 is running high. Currently, investors are pricing in strong economic growth, robust earnings, and a smooth path of disinflation. Notably, Wall Street estimates suggest a significant acceleration in corporate profits...
The sovereign debt of developed market (DM) countries for decades was largely presumed to float free of governance and societal risk factors endemic to the sovereign issues of emerging markets (EM) countries. Global Bond Portfolio Manager Bill Campbell says this luxury is no longer the case.
Plenty of headlines were written as the One Big Beautiful Big Bill Act (OBBBA) made its way through U.S. Congressional debates earlier this year. For the advisor community, many were likely wondering how the OBBBA would affect their portfolio strategies. To be more specific, which investing themes could be boosted by this U.S. policy maneuver?
Global power demand is surging, energy security is the new macro imperative and innovation across grids and generation is redefining what “secure power” means for investors.
When the year began, a billionaire with close ties to the White House was a lock for the most newsworthy tech titan of 2025. But 12 chaotic months later, Larry Ellison, not Elon Musk, can justifiably lay claim to the title.
Bitcoin’s 30% slide from its all-time high is creating conditions financial advisers say are likely driving more tax-loss harvesting in digital assets than in previous years.
Nvidia Corp. agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence startup Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products.
Gold, silver and platinum jumped to all-time highs to extend a historic end-of-year rally for precious metals, with support from escalating geopolitical tensions and US dollar weakness.
What will 2026 be like? There are reasons to be optimistic, as many were a year ago. Here are five of them.
There are numerous hedging tools, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. One increasingly popular choice is the inverse exchange-traded fund (ETF), a vehicle designed to move opposite its benchmark and offer a straightforward way to target downside protection in a portfolio.
The “active” in active ETFs simply means there is not an underlying index. This somewhat obvious statement, made last February in my predictions column, was intended to dispel the misconception that active somehow means more risk or more tracking error, which certainly is not the case.
South Korea has been the top performer in 2025 in emerging markets equities through December 15, generating a 70.9% return in U.S. dollar terms. It has outperformed peers as well as developed markets, including the U.S.
Participants’ financial well-being is our top priority, and we know that they’re struggling with emergency savings, so we’re offering a way for participants to save with confidence—the Vanguard Cash Plus Account.
As we get ready to close out 2025, one stand-out trend in the U.S. Treasury (UST) market has been the steepening of the yield curve. The question now is whether this trend will continue into 2026, and if it does, how should investors position their bond portfolios?
AI remains the economy’s most powerful growth engine, but our Small Cap Growth team believes several other areas are also likely to deliver significant upside in the near-to-medium term.
Finding ways to effectively diversify a multi-asset portfolio allows investors to maintain their strategic equity allocation while managing risk. We may be entering a period when bonds can, at least in part, start to once again fulfill that function.
In a recent episode of the Money Metals podcast, host Mike Maharrey sits down with Peter C. Earle, PhD, of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) to unpack what the gold standard actually is—and why it still matters in a world of fiat money.
2025 was a good year for most fixed income markets but we’re approaching 2026 with caution. All-in yields are still attractive for most markets, but spreads (the additional compensation for owning riskier debt) are low, suggesting investors aren’t getting paid to take on a lot of credit risk right now.
As the dollar weakens and the migration to international equities continues, investors might still be on the fence when it comes to getting exposure.
Barring a miracle, bitcoin will end 2025 in the red, marking just the fourth time the largest cryptocurrency has done so in its history.
Intel Corp. shares fell in premarket trading Wednesday after a report said that Nvidia Corp. halted a test to use Intel’s production process to make advanced chips.
Copper extended a powerful December rally that’s carried prices for the industrial metal to unprecedented highs above $12,000 a ton on fears over a tighter global market in 2026.
Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions kept rising in 2025 and country pledges to cut them are nowhere near where they need to be to avoid catastrophic climate change, but there were silver linings too.
Gold rose to an all-time high above $4,500 an ounce on escalating tensions in Venezuela and expectations for more US rate cuts. Silver and platinum also advanced to records.
As traditional markets move into the final days of the year with a burst of seasonal optimism, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has barely stirred. Bitcoin is trading around $87,370, pinned in a $85,000 to $90,000 range and showing little sign of life — an asset built on hype, volatility and disruption ending the year in a standstill.
The Santa Claus Rally often grabs headlines because markets tend to deliver solid gains during this short window — or perhaps because it falls during a typically quiet news cycle.
No one can tell you what’s right for you, so don’t take advice from well-meaning people around you. Do your own due diligence and then decide. Often there are no “right” answers — there are only best answers with all things considered.
Well-written compliance policies aren't sufficient. Firms must demonstrate active implementation and enforcement. Annual compliance reviews must be substantive exercises that identify genuine issues and drive meaningful improvements, not checkbox exercises that rubber-stamp existing practices.
Now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the delayed October and November nonfarm payroll numbers, do we know more about the US labor market than we knew before the release? Probably not.
We guess if you say something enough, a lot of people will start to believe it. The current refrain is that the labor market is cold, weak, struggling. A Google search for “labor market” is eye opening. The first five headlines use the words ‘weakened,’ ‘troubling,’ ‘risky,’ ‘slowing,’ and ‘warning signs.’
CIO Sean Taylor reviews a year of strong performance across key Emerging Markets and Asia and looks ahead to robust investment opportunities in 2026.
It’s that time of year when Wall Street polishes up its crystal balls and begins predicting returns for 2026. Since Wall Street never predicts a down year, which would be unwise for fee-based product revenues, these forecasts are often inaccurate and sometimes significantly wrong. Let’s review some previous years.
Challenging the conventional view of gold as a bubble, this analysis explores whether the metal's 109% surge since 2024 signals a permanent paradigm shift rather than a looming crash.
After three strong years in a row, major indexes ended the year seeking direction. While optimism abounds, here are some potential issues that could trip up U.S. stocks.
Cinthia Murphy, Investment Strategist at VettaFi, breaks down new survey data on how financial advisors are thinking about equities, fixed income, and crypto heading into 2026. Brittany Christensen, Head of Business Development at Tidal Financial Group, highlights her top ETF stories to watch in the year ahead.
