Insights Investments

“Do something you love and you’ve never worked a day in your life.” Tony Bennett The bull market is back, with stocks back at new highs amid one of the strongest short-term rallies in history. Although many lost faith in the bull market back in March, we’d argue the bull never left. Remember, volatility is the …

Thanks for reading this week’s Charts of the Week This week’s charts focus on key inflation metrics, sentiment, and how equities have started to look past the current crisis. We’ll keep publishing Charts of the Week every Monday. To view this week’s Charts of the Week, click here: Charts of the Week: Apr. 13-17  

Bank earnings this week offered a timely reminder that the U.S. consumer remains a far more durable force than many narratives suggest. The data produced by the largest financial institutions paints a picture of accelerating growth and improving credit quality, a combination not often seen. Banks are also finding themselves increasingly tied to the AI …

Consumer sentiment has collapsed irrespective of which metric you look at. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index just crashed to the lowest level in the survey’s history – even below what we saw during the depths of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008-2009, Covid in April-May 2020, and even the stagflationary 1970s. Surely things …

Today, we tackle a topic that we don’t write about a lot relative to its importance—municipal bonds. Why are munis important? A basic principle of investing (and one of the most ignored), Investment outcomes potentially should not be evaluated on returns but on the returns that you keep—returns after taxes. This is where municipal bonds …

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continue to gather significant assets, generally at the expense of traditional open-end mutual funds (albeit not completely). In the first quarter alone, ETFs have taken in some $425 billion in net flows, while traditional open-end mutual funds have seen $92 billion in investors assets leave, according to Morningstar. Beneath the surface of …

A global oil chokepoint sits at the center of today’s biggest market story — and the ripple effects are already showing up in prices, supply chains, and geopolitics. In Episode 183 of Facts vs Feelings, Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group, and Sonu Varghese, Chief Macro Strategist at Carson Group, sit down with …

“It isn’t about good or bad, it is about better or worse.” Burt White, Carson Group’s CEO The headlines remain volatile, but there are some clues that the worst could be over for the sell-off around the war in Iran. Since the war started I’ve been asked many times what I wanted to see for …

Thanks for reading this week’s Charts of the Week This week’s charts focus on all things inflation, the oil shock, and how consumers are starting to feel this crisis. We’ll keep publishing Charts of the Week every Monday. To view this week’s Charts of the Week, click here: Charts of the Week: Apr. 6-10

Financial stocks have gotten off to a rough start in 2026. While some are raising alarms about deteriorating credit conditions or systemic stress building beneath the surface, the sector’s recent struggles may be tied more to technology. Beneath the headline weakness, the structure and drivers of financial sector performance have evolved in ways that challenge …

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Middle East crisis has sent oil prices soaring, with the impact immediately felt on gasoline and diesel prices. We just got our first batch of inflation data that incorporates this, with the headline consumer price index (CPI) rising 0.9% in March (equivalent to an 11% annualized pace). The …