The recent uptick in US inflation has led to a shift in the market's near-term rate-cut expectations, with many economists now predicting a slower pace of rate hikes.
Gold's recent price resilience has been supported by strength across global fundamental demand sectors, including central bank buying and strong jewelry demand.
The quality themes and companies offering exposure to AI are closely aligned with megatrends that are likely to define economies and markets for decades, including demographic shift, automation, digitalization, green energy, and geopolitical volatility.
The 1995/1996 rate cut episode, which consisted of only three decreases worth 75 bps in total, serves as an interesting parallel to the current situation, where the market has finally 'come to the Fed' with respect to rate cut expectations for 2024.
Stocks were down for the week as investors appeared to take some profits and traders parsed Fed Chair Jerome Powell's Congressional testimony.
The state of the economy has historically played a vital role in influencing the performance of US equities during election years. Our analysis suggests that investors may want to stay invested, particularly if reasonable growth and inflation are expected, as there is still time to strategically position portfolios.
The remarkable progress in humanoid technology, fueled by groundbreaking technical advancements and cost reductions, signals the potential for disruptive shifts across industries. Despite current challenges in combining mobility and cognitive abilities, we expect innovation to continue and broad-ased adoption to follow.
As stocks extended their tech-lead advance, AI names powered the gains in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite.
The entrenched nature of inflation, including high wages, fierce services spending, increased input costs and supply chain issues, expectations for rate cuts are likely to fade as the potential for another Fed rate increase becomes more likely.
Sometimes you pay higher fees for lower costs, depending on your rebalancing size and frequency, trading costs can accumulate significantly and have a larger impact on the total cost of ownership.
A weakening consumer likely leads to stagflation, with the credit card situation at small banks rising to the loftiest level in history, and a potential government shutdown serving a severe blow to what's left of consumer resilience.
As data is AI's fuel, the growing demand for generative AI solutions creates a significant need for specialized software and hardware to support the capture, storage, and processing of massive amounts of data.