In today’s low-interest-rate environment, a pervasive challenge for advisors is the need for income-oriented solutions for clients, especially those at or nearing retirement. That need has led many to seek high-risk sectors of the bond and equities markets. The consequences of those decisions could be disastrous for investors. So we are going to look at another solution.

Here's the latest on the three largest cryptocurrencies by market share: bitcoin, Ether, and XRP.

Every January, I start keeping track of the predictions for the upcoming year I hear in the financial media and from advisors and investors. Today we’ll look at a list of “sure things” I’ve been hearing for 2020.

For many investors, the beginning of the year is a time for them to review their investing strategies and reassess their risk tolerance. Though the U.S. stock markets have been on an incredible run last year, recent polls of economists and American voters indicate great concern about a looming recession.

Which is better: growth or value? It’s an age-old investor question. Tony DeSpirito discusses its modern-day implications in a world of widespread disruption.

Today's release of the January Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand was up 0.5% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, up from a 0.2% increase last month. It is at 2.1% year-over-year, up from 1.3% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at 0.5% MoM, up from 0.1% the previous month and is up 1.7% YoY NSA. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for 0.1% headline and 0.1% core.

As a recovery in global manufacturing began to take hold in the fourth quarter of last year, commodity prices rose dramatically. Yet, emerging market (EM) stocks failed to see the similarly strong outperformance of U.S. stocks that typically accompanies rising commodity prices.

The economy was mixed in 2019. Consumer spending, while uneven, was relatively strong, supported by solid fundamentals. Business fixed investment and manufacturing were weak, but not “recessionary weak.” January data are to be taken with a grain of salt – seasonal adjustment is huge and weather (good or bad) can exaggerate – but figures point to more of the same.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for January new residential housing starts. The latest reading of 1.567M was above the Investing.com forecast of 1.425M and a decrease from the previous month's revised 1.626M.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for January new residential building permits. The latest reading of 1.551M was an increase from a revised 1.420M in December and above the Investing.com forecast of 1.450M.

Three key themes from our latest Cyclical Outlook will likely drive the global economy and central bank policy in the year ahead.

While there are a number of uncertainties in the global economy today, many investors may not realize the depth and breadth of potential opportunities emerging markets still offer—on both the equity and fixed income side.

This is going to be one of those years where we believe behavior—for advisors and clients—is going to really matter. At Russell Investments, we believe one of the biggest detriments to a client’s return is their own behavior.

The coronavirus outbreak is sending ripples through global supply chains and disrupting businesses.

We are here to talk about hedge fund replication and how advisors can access hedge fund strategies without the burdensome cost and illiquidity of alternative investment classes.

Three of eight indexes on our world watch list posted gains through February 18, 2020. The top performer is our own S&P 500 with a gain of 4.32%. Germany's DAXK is in second with a gain of 2.99% and in third is France's CAC40 with a gain of 1.32%. Coming in last is Hong Kong's Hang Seng with a loss of -2.34%.

The price of Regular and Premium are a penny and unchanged, respectively, from last week. According to GasBuddy.com, Hawaii has the highest average price for Regular at $3.54 and Mississippi has the cheapest at $2.07. The WTIC end of day spot price closed at 52.29, up 5.5% from last week.

It’s time for our monthly look at market risk factors. We had a strong start to the year, with U.S. markets at all-time highs by mid-January. But a risk-off sentiment driven by the spread of the coronavirus from China spooked investors, leading to modest declines for equity markets at month-end.

Thirty years ago, many in the US were in fear that a rising power in Asia was on the verge of eclipsing the US. Now it's China, back then it was Japan.

The world is going through a period of accelerating change, as four secular developments illustrate. Firms and governments must make timely adjustments, not only to their business models and operational approaches, but also to both their tactical and strategic mindsets.

The cognitive dissonance in the credit market is stunning. I recently have had the feeling that I’m living peaceably in Britain during the 1930s while on the continent the Germans were building weapons, expanding their army and navy, and opportunistically grabbing land.

SSGA issued the first ETF in 1993 and today is a dominant leader in the ETF industry. It offers the world’s biggest ETF, SPY, with $314 billion in assets. From sectors and smart beta to fixed income, SSGA has relentlessly pursued new ways to solve client's most complex investment challenges.

If you do any of the things below, you are on the “sales prevention team.”

For many advisors, asking clients for referrals remains a messy, uncomfortable situation.

Is there a way to politely ask the male advisors I work with not to make everything a sports metaphor?

No matter what industry you work in, being a woman brings unique challenges that men don’t have to deal with. The response isn’t to resign ourselves or get overly caught up in fighting for systemic change. Instead, identify what those challenges are and get the resources you need to overcome them.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook. The latest reading of 74 is down 1 from last month.

Friends of mine who are enduring the crucible of the loss of their spouses tell me that one of the hardest things, along with the grieving process, is the uncertainty surrounding finances.

This morning we got the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The diffusion index for General Business Conditions at 12.9 was an increase of 8.1 from the previous month's 4.8. The Investing.com forecast was for a reading of 5.0.

The spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 appeared to be slowing, but adjustments in the criteria for recognizing cases changed, boosting the reported number of infections. The change increased anxiety and uncertainty about the economic impact.

In 2007, I was at a conference where Paul McCulley, who was with PIMCO at the time, was discussing the idea of a “Minsky Moment.” At that time, this idea fell on “deaf ears” as the markets, and economy, were in full swing. However, it wasn’t too long before the 2008 “Financial Crisis” brought the “Minsky Moment” thesis to the forefront.

So how much would you pay to own the boxing gloves worn by Ali or Frazier that day? What would its worth be to a collector today? – ‘Priceless.’ A funny word that the term priceless tends to come into play when the historic or sentimental value of an object far outweighs its intrinsic value. An object whose worth truly lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Financial markets remain blissfully in denial of the many predictable global crises that could come to a head this year, particularly in the months before the US presidential election. In addition to the increasingly obvious risks associated with climate change, at least four countries want to destabilize the US from within.

Growing fears about the coronavirus have hit Chinese stocks. While markets will remain unstable until China gets the outbreak under control, equity investors should revisit lessons from previous epidemics and consider the potential longer-term effects of the current crisis.

Don’t look at me like I’m crazy – hear me out. TikTok in 2020 is what Instagram was in 2012. Here’s why you want to get there first.

Judy Shelton, whom President Trump has nominated to serve as a Federal Reserve governor, has written about the virtues of the 19th century gold standard and expressed her eagerness to join the central bank in managing the nation’s money supply. That would have been an unacceptable position for anyone supporting the Constitution’s specie standard for money in the 1830s.

I advise against variable, indexed (i.e., equity-indexed and fixed-indexed), and other similar annuities that pay high commissions, have high surrender charges or have high annual fees. But SPIAs may have a role in retirement plans.

With all the attention that is paid to macroeconomic variables and forecasted growth, it’s vitally important to understand the role that the economy plays in portfolio returns – in particular, the returns of the value, beta and size factors.

We’ve all gritted our teeth whenever one of the trade magazines comes out with a list of the “top” wealth management firms, ranked from “top” to “bottom” based on the absolute least meaningful way to measure the quality of an advisory business: their AUM. The goal of such lists should be to identify those firms that are best at serving their clients and are managed in a healthy and sustainable way. Here’s a way to rank firms that achieves that goal.

Advisors Asset Management (AAM) is a leading provider of income-generating investment solutions. It entered the ETF market in 2017 and offers investors an innovative high dividend value strategy across domestic, emerging and international developed markets. These ETFs focus on income and value, seeking to help investors meet their current cash flow and future capital appreciation goals.

One of the most prominent research studies in the ETF market is the survey that Brown Brothers Harriman does in cooperation with ETF.COM. This is the seventh year that study has been conducted, and my guest, Ryan Sullivan, and I will discuss the results.

So far in 2020, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has averaged 0.01 percent when adjusted for inflation. Since the end of January, it’s actually dipped below 0 percent, trading as low as negative 0.14 percent on January 31.

Our emerging markets equity team looks at news and events shaping emerging market performances in January, from coronavirus fears to trade to Middle East tensions.

Today we’ll extend the GDP discussion, looking at where these numbers originate, what they miss, and what the Fed in particular does with them. As you’ll see, we need better data… but it’s not at all clear Fed officials would use such data correctly, even if they had it.

Month-over-month nominal sales in January increased by 0.3% (0.26% to two decimal points). Real Retail Sales, calculated with the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index, increased by 0.1% (0.12% to two decimal points).

Although stocks rebounded after a sharp drop in January, the market’s reaction to the coronavirus outbreak highlighted stock vulnerabilities.

While red may be the color of the day, it’s a color investors have not seen from most asset classes over the last twelve months. For example, the S&P 500 rose ~26% and investment-grade bonds gained ~14%. However, just as in a healthy relationship, we cannot take this excellent performance for granted and become complacent about the future returns we expect to come our way.

January was a tough month. We started with a U.S. attack on an Iranian general (creating thoughts of war) and ended with the possibility of a new global pandemic (with the Wuhan coronavirus spreading around the world). In between, of course, we had the impeachment spectacle here in the U.S., as well as the British exit from the European Union.

Kenneth Leech, Chief Investment Officer at Western Asset Management, takes a deep dive into what he views as key market drivers throughout 2020 as well as his current view on various sectors within the bond markets.

The February preliminary came in at 100.9, near the interim peak of 101.4. Investing.com had forecast 99.5.