Insights Investments

Thanks for reading this week’s Charts of the Week Each week, we highlight a small set of charts we think best capture what’s happening beneath the market’s surface. This week’s charts focus on key trends across the economy, politics, gold, and markets that continue to shape the investment backdrop. We’ll keep publishing Charts of the …

By Blake Anderson, CFA®, Associate Portfolio Manager The first earnings season of 2026 is underway, and results from several S&P 500 heavyweights are offering a snapshot of the U.S. economy. From banks navigating interest-rate dynamics and robust capital markets to airlines riding soaring travel demand, the tone thus far has been constructive. Banks — Resilience …

By Michael Barczak, CFA®, VP, Investment Due Diligence 2025 was another extremely strong year for investors with markets posting above-average returns for US equities, international equities, and fixed income. As I look back on the year, three main trends really shine through for me. First, is that this was the year of the broadening. The …

“Rule one, politics usually don’t move markets and I hate talking about politics. Rule number two, never forget rule number one.” Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group With all of the latest news on Greenland, tariffs, the Federal Reserve, and more, I decided to take a look at politics and markets today. Let’s …

Thanks for reading this week’s Charts of the Week Each week, we highlight a small set of charts we think best capture what’s happening beneath the market’s surface. This week’s charts focus on key trends across the economy, housing, inflation, labor, and markets that continue to shape the investment backdrop. We’ll keep publishing Charts of …

President Trump took office a year ago, and markets continue to be driven by his policy ambitions. Especially tariffs. In our 2025 Outlook we warned that tariffs were a looming threat. That materialized in dramatic fashion on Liberation Day (April 2nd, 2025), but as we noted a year ago, President Trump likely sees the stock …

We’ve been talking about the fiscal impulse from the individual tax cuts coming for a while now, and highlighted this as a potential tailwind in our 2026 Outlook: Riding the Wave. Here’s what we wrote in our Outlook: “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is going to increase deficits by about $4 trillion over …

Wars, unemployment, the Fed…. Greenland — noise is and always will be abundant in financial markets. This noise isn’t all bad, and it’s our job to parse through it for you, but as we say time and time again, what really matters for stocks is earnings. Ultimately, a lot of factors affect earnings, but the …

The December CPI release was an important one because it closes the book on 2025. Here’s how headline and core CPI inflation (ex food and energy) have ended each of the last 4 years: By itself, the drop in inflation is more than welcome, and allows the Fed to focus on labor market risks. But …

After a strong start to the year and renewed highs across global markets, Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist, and Sonu Varghese, VP, Global Macro Strategist at Carson Group, step into the growing tension between Washington and the Federal Reserve, and what it could mean for markets, confidence, and policy credibility. They react to Jamie Dimon’s …

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” Peter Lynch 2026 so far feels like a repeat of 2025, as stocks are making new highs around the globe, with gold and silver soaring as well. As we noted in our …