April saw a variety of articles published on Advisor Perspectives address core questions with which advisors and their client must contend.
Sophisticated clients and institutional prospects are already asking wealth management firms about AI governance. The firms with coherent answers are winning trust their competitors cannot buy back quickly.
Gen Z is coming of age in a world very different from that of their parents. Advisors who want to connect with this cohort need be conscious, not only of Gen Z’s biases and unique perspectives, but also of their own preconceptions and tendencies.
Kirsten Chang, senior industry analyst at VettaFi, joined Nate Geraci on this week’s ETF Prime to discuss the relentless pace of new ETF launches in 2026. The industry has launched nearly 370 new ETFs in just over four months. It is tracking toward 1,100 to 1,200 launches for the year, matching the record set in 2025, according to Chang.
The S&P 500 hit a fresh record high last week. The median stock in the index is sitting 13% below its 52-week peak. That divergence is not a footnote or a curiosity.
Is good news about the economy bad news for the stock market once again?
Listening is a skill that can be taught, can be learned, and can be practiced. If a client doesn’t think their advisor is really listening to them, they might take that opportunity to find another advisor who does.
The ability to explain something is not the same as having clarity on why it matters. Some advisors know exactly where their value sits and how to explain it. For others, it’s less obvious. If that’s the case, this isn’t something you solve by rewriting your messaging. It requires taking a step back.
Investors are piling into municipal bonds at the fastest rate in five years, drawn by attractive yields and the promise of a safe harbor from recent market volatility.
SpaceX also is ramping up its spending. The company said in April it’s struck an agreement for the right to acquire artificial intelligence startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year, or to pay $10 billion for the companies’ work together.
Microsoft Corp. may shelve one of the industry’s most ambitious clean-energy targets as it tries to remove hurdles that could hold it back in the race to power data centers, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Utilizing a portfolio of individual bonds can provide benefits that are difficult to reproduce via other fixed income investment vehicles. The portfolio can be completely customized to the specifications of an investor, providing a solution that aligns long-term financial goals with personal preferences. Product choice, issuer selection, cash flow, maturity, tax considerations, and credit quality, can all be customized.
LPL Research examines overlooked tech growth, assessing strong earnings, AI skepticism, and valuation opportunities for investors.
Deglobalization supports diversification: Reversing global trade reduces economic productivity, but the resulting decoupling of international markets increases the protective value of geographic diversification.
Despite continued geopolitical gridlock that has kept the Strait of Hormuz largely closed—and pushed West Texas Intermediate crude oil above $100 last week for the first time since the April 8 ceasefire announcement—U.S. equities continued to climb.
Thus far 2026 has been a roller coaster year for fixed income markets. The 10-year Treasury, the benchmark rate for the bond market, saw its yield trade as low as 3.94% and as high as 4.43%.
A persistent oil shock implies higher inflation and weaker growth, but risk assets appear unfazed, with equities and credit spread performance diverging from the caution implied by government bonds.
Affordability is a major problem that is finally getting the attention it needs. As important is directing that attention at the root cause of America’s cost-of-living crisis: inadequate wages.
For many investors, wealth is about more than financial outcomes. It represents values, aspirations, family priorities, and a desire for a meaningful future. Aligning your investments with personal purpose means that your financial strategy reflects not only what you want to achieve financially but also the priorities that guide your life and legacy.
Throughout Europe, companies are facing a quandary: How can they afford immense investments in decarbonization when a combination of now-surging energy prices, Chinese overproduction and US tariffs threatens to undermine their existing businesses?
The performance reflects a shift toward gaming infrastructure over content, with the technology sector contributing 10.39% to the index’s return while consumer discretionary holdings subtracted 0.80%, according to VettaFi index data for April.
Advisors are rethinking strategy in 2026, as geopolitics, AI adoption, and downside risk reshape market expectations and investment decisions.
Momentum and growth dominated in April 2026, driving the S&P 500 to a massive 10.5% return. Discover the data behind this risk-on shift.
Join the experts at Simplify for a product due diligence session exploring the private credit universe and what distinguishes it from traditional bond allocations.
Despite lingering geopolitical tensions, higher oil prices, and renewed inflation concerns, equities moved higher in April, supported by a strong start to the Q1 earnings season and resilient economic growth.
Decisions rarely stall because people need more time; they stall because people do not want to carry uncertainty by themselves. Writing forces them to do exactly that.
Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are leading the process, according to people familiar with the matter. A large majority of the financing is expected to be in the form of debt, with the rest equity, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.
Abel, known as a shrewd operator who’s always looking for ways to improve profits at the $1 trillion conglomerate’s varied businesses, said he had just one thought at the time: The company had already shelled out the money to book the arena for the annual meeting in 2026.
Women consistently report that the quality of their relationship with an advisor is their number one driver of satisfaction. They are not just looking for investment expertise. They are looking for partnership and a sense that their advisor understands what matters most to them.
There’s no doubt that Amazon will begin to take market share now that it has declared that its third-party logistics business is here to stay. This move allays concerns among potential customers that Amazon’s offerings wouldn’t be permanent or would take a back seat to its own volume during periods of peak freight.
The rationale is that government should be neutral on asset classes. It should not put its thumb on the scale by favoring some investment types over others. Marcia S. Wagner, founder of The Wagner Law Group, framed this clearly in a presentation at the 2026 Financial Planning Association SHIFT Conference.
An advisor who is involuntarily terminated should not assume the Broker Protocol is off the table. The text supports a good-faith argument that a terminated advisor can still qualify as a “departing” advisor who moves from one Broker Protocol signatory firm to another.
Investors are questioning the staying power of medical technology (medtech) stocks, which have fallen from grace since the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet we think innovation continues to create exciting opportunities in companies that march to a different beat than the rest of the healthcare sector.
While oil prices are likely to remain elevated in the near term, we do not view the current disruption as a lasting supply shock. A diplomatic resolution, or even progress toward one, should help bring prices lower by year-end. Although higher oil prices are a headwind, we believe both the economy and equity markets can absorb the impact with limited damage, as underlying fundamentals remain strong.
It’s no secret that college is expensive. And alongside mounting costs come almost as many strategies for mitigating them. When you need money to pay for college expenses, tapping your Roth IRA is one option you might consider.
There is also a popular notion that bond traders can see the future, that they know what inflation will be or if a recession is coming. But bond markets are often wrong. And they may be wrong now because bond yields are low relative to the risks the economy faces.
The complication is that the ceasefires stopped the escalation without resolving the underlying disruption. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly 20% of global oil supply, remains effectively closed. Oil prices fell sharply on the ceasefire announcements (including the largest single-day decline since 2020), then climbed back above $100 per barrel.
Last week’s data was a good reminder that we are likely in a “resilient but uncertain” phase of the cycle.
It may be a cliche to invoke the pick-and-shovel sellers of the California Gold Rush, but what better way is there to frame what’s happening to Apple Inc.?
Get ready each week with high-conviction insights that go beyond media headlines.
Alphabet Inc. is selling its biggest-ever euro-denominated bond and tapping the Canadian dollar debt market just months after record-breaking deals in other currencies, showing the huge funding needs of its ambitions in artificial intelligence.
Students of game theory often start with a lesson in the prisoner’s dilemma: two agents would gain a better collective outcome by cooperating, but each has an individual incentive to take action that is at their partner’s expense.
April showers came in the form of more inflows raining down on the exchange-traded fund (ETF) market last month. Assets under management (AUM) have now grown to a staggering $14.7 trillion for the year. That’s punctuated by year-to-date (YTD) net inflows of over $636 billion.
What a week this was! On Tuesday, I participated on a panel at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, where I discussed why Bitcoin miners have a head start in the race for AI compute.
Kevin Warsh wants to make some big shifts in monetary policy at the Fed. Unfortunately, unless and until soon-to-be former Chairman Jerome Powell steps down from his regular seat on the Federal Reserve Board, Warsh will be Chairman in Name Only.
The Federal Reserve held rates steady as expected last week, but the real story was the shift in tone inside the Committee. Three dissents in favor of moving to a neutral bias are highly unusual, and I do not recall seeing dissents on a bias in this way before.
Join the experts at CoinShares for a fireside chat to get all of your questions answered about bitcoin, beyond just the basics.
When it comes to investing, it’s the Wild West out there. Our clients are hearing things from less scrupulous members of the financial services industry that appear true on the surface but are really aimed at separating people from their money.
The same forces that are straining the political marriage across the Atlantic are also creating a long‑term opportunity set in Europe. Advisors should position clients’ capital so that it benefits from that structural shift, while staying disciplined about quality, valuation, and risk.
The poor sentiment toward private credit funds has dragged down many high-quality BDCs, as well as weaker ones. The chaos and bad press surrounding private credit funds are not reasons to avoid BDCs. In fact, we think it’s a reason to consider them.
