LPL Research explores the drivers behind the rally in metals, the associated risks, and the outlook for their durability.

According to what has been announced so far, the government plans to restrict future purchases of single-family homes by large institutional investors. It would not force them to sell homes they already own, nor would it affect individual buyers or small landlords.

LPL Financial LLC announced today that financial advisors Jeffrey J. Wilson, CFP®, and Michael Sadowski, CFP®, of Wilson Peak Wealth Management Inc. have joined LPL Financial’s broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) platform and will be leveraging Private Advisor Group’s infrastructure for the next stage of their growth.

As the new year begins, one market theme is already attracting plenty of attention, and that is the dispersion and broadening out in the stock market that has occurred during the first two weeks of trading.

Precious metals surged out of the gate to begin 2026, not dissimilar to how they closed out 2025. Gold has already made two record highs this year alone, is currently trading above $4,600 per ounce, and is up over 6% in 2026.

Municipal bonds enter 2026 as a compelling option for investors: attractive yields, strong fundamentals, and structural changes that continue to reshape the market. After a volatile 2025, marked by Treasury market dislocations and record muni issuance, the outlook for this year suggests more stability — and opportunity.

At the heart of value investing is the concept of buying an undervalued stock that appears to be mispriced by the market and holding that stock until its intrinsic value is reached. Investors determine intrinsic value in several ways, including analyzing a company’s financial statements, evaluating management, and identifying competitive advantages.

LPL Research takes a look at fourth quarter earnings season as it unofficially kicks off this week with a dozen banks and asset managers in the S&P 500 slated to report.

As investors stepped away from the tape to hang their final holiday decorations, pack their bags to visit loved ones, and prepare for the New Year, markets fell quiet over the last two weeks of 2025.

LPL Research reviews 2025 market predictions: key wins, misses, and lessons across equities, fixed income, and the U.S. economy.

2025 was a good year for most fixed income markets but we’re approaching 2026 with caution. All-in yields are still attractive for most markets, but spreads (the additional compensation for owning riskier debt) are low, suggesting investors aren’t getting paid to take on a lot of credit risk right now.

The Santa Claus Rally often grabs headlines because markets tend to deliver solid gains during this short window — or perhaps because it falls during a typically quiet news cycle.

Investors navigating the 2026 landscape must balance a fragmented "K-shaped" consumer market against the tailwinds of falling interest rates and the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA). Despite a cautious Federal Reserve and potential government shutdowns, the prevailing view is that structural transformation and fiscal support will foster economic resilience.

LPL Research examines why the bull market appears ready to continue its run in 2026, powered by AI enthusiasm and further easing of monetary policy from the Fed.

LPL will explore current industry developments, share best practices for demonstrating fiduciary responsibility, and offer ways to support your growing practice. Learn how to discover opportunities at the growing intersection of retirement and wealth planning.

Pioneered by Harry Markowitz's Modern Portfolio Theory, the classic 60/40 portfolio allocates 60% to stocks for growth and 40% to bonds for income and risk mitigation. This strategy is predicated on the idea that these two asset classes, when combined, should have a less-than-perfect correlation to optimize risk-adjusted returns.

Value seems to be having a moment — over the last six weeks value style and value factor indexes (a subtle but real nuance, as we will show) are outperforming representative broad market and a representative growth style index.

The year 2025 exemplifies the prevailing regime — markets driven less by fundamentals and traditional business-cycle dynamics and more by fiscal and monetary policy influence. Today, policy decisions have emerged as one of the most impactful forces driving market direction.

Despite nearly a 5% deficit mid-month, the S&P 500 finished November with a modest 0.1% gain, fueled by strong earnings, AI optimism, and hopes for Fed rate cuts. This rebound helped repair technical damage, lifting the S&P 500 above its 50-day moving average, though retail investors remain hesitant to re-engage.

Following the 2021–2022 inflation shock, the historic negative correlation between stocks and bonds—the foundation of modern portfolio diversification—temporarily broke, fueling debate over whether the "Greenspan Put" era of Fed-induced market stability has ended.

As we put the finishing touches on Outlook 2026, here are several other key factors that will drive markets in 2026 that investors will want to keep in mind.

Despite an intra-year drawdown of 18.9%, the S&P 500 is poised for a strong 2025, currently up about 14%. This pattern of experiencing a large correction on the way to significant annual gains is common; since 1980, the average yearly drawdown has been over 14% while the index gained an average of 10.7%.

Corporate America delivered another exceptional earnings season, with third-quarter S&P 500 earnings growth tracking over 13% and achieving one of the highest beat rates ever recorded. Companies successfully adjusted to shifting macroeconomic pressures, including tariffs, as expectations continued to rise. The impressive results were bolstered by robust revenue growth and significant investment from mega-cap technology firms.

Emerging market (EM) equities have seen exceptional outperformance in 2025, with major countries like South Korea and Brazil posting massive gains. The primary driver of this trend has been a weakening U.S. dollar, which historically encourages capital flow outside the United States. The critical question now for investors is whether this dollar weakness marks the start of a multi-year downtrend or is simply a temporary correction.

As 2025 nears its final 100 calendar days, market focus is already beginning to turn forward and attempt to reconcile what market drivers could remain in place, and what could change in the first year of the new half-decade. While not an exhaustive list, here’s some of our early keys to 2026.

Market corrections often present chances to acquire quality assets at attractive valuations. Hence, “buy the dip” has long been a mantra for many investors.

As global labor arbitrage becomes less viable and access to cheap labor in emerging markets continues to narrow, businesses are increasingly turning to AI as a domestic solution for cost control and productivity gains.

Anecdotes such as these are helpful reminders that long-term investors need not chase the hottest fads in the market and can at times get ahead of the crowds by simply paying attention to the world around you.

LPL Research explores how AI-driven investments and intellectual property are reshaping U.S. economic growth, capital flows, and market dynamics.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be a transformative technology that impacts how we all live and do business. With some creativity, and time for current offerings to improve, it is not difficult to imagine how in the future these systems could enhance or even replace much of the work that we humans are currently doing.

The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) balance sheet runoff — commonly referred to as quantitative tightening (QT) — is set to conclude on December 1. Since initiating QT, the Fed has reduced its balance sheet by over $2 trillion, largely through the drawdown of its overnight reverse repo program (O/N RRP).

LPL Research reports on Fed rate cut, U.S.–China trade truce, strong earnings, and AI spending scrutiny amid narrowing market breadth and volatility risks.

This bull market has been on quite a run. The S&P 500 is up 35% since its April 8, 2025 year-to-date low, and up over 92% since it began on October 12, 2022, excluding dividends.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. As widely expected, the Federal Reserve (Fed) cut interest rates by 0.25% at its October Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting yesterday.

With the stock market in record-high territory and up about 35% off the April lows, market participants clearly haven’t been too scared lately. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of things to worry about.

The equity market has shown remarkable resilience over the past two weeks despite rising U.S.-China trade tensions, a spike in equity market volatility, and growing credit concerns tied to business development company (BDC) and regional bank lending losses.

While markets have been focused on the expected trajectory of short-term interest rates through Federal Reserve (Fed) rate cut expectations, the Fed’s balance sheet has recently come into focus as well.

In corporate credit markets, early indicators of stress often emerge subtly — not through dramatic dislocations, but through nuanced shifts in borrower behavior and market dynamics.

Recent data shows that even after strong international stock performance year-to-date U.S. stock markets continue to dominate global equity indexes, representing around two-thirds of the market capitalization of all global stocks, as represented by the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI).

Sunday, October 12 marked the third anniversary of this bull market. Fast forward three years, and this bull market is still going strong. But will it continue? You may be surprised to know that bull markets lasting three years tend to keep going for a while.

For starters, much has been said about equity valuations, and stocks are definitely trading at elevated multiples. However, the forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of the S&P 500 has yet to reach dotcom era levels, and in fact remains below December 2020 levels because earnings were depressed coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. T

October 8 marks World Financial Planning Day, a global celebration highlighting the power and purpose of financial planning.

We believe corporate America will follow up an outstanding second quarter earnings season with another good one in the third quarter.

With the third quarter (Q3) behind us, we decided to conduct a deep dive into the key factors that shaped Q3 performance. Below, we’ve highlighted what we believe to be 10 of the key takeaways.

Despite a weaker end to the month, the equity market “melt-up” successfully navigated what has historically been a tricky month for equities, as represented by the S&P 500 in September (average returns -0.61%), closing out the month (as of September 29) with a handsome gain of over 3%.

LPL Research analyzes recent market performance as Fed expectations, strong economic data, government shutdown concerns and more continue to have an impact.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) delivered a highly anticipated 0.25% interest rate cut during its September 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

As expected, the Federal Reserve (Fed) cut interest rates last week to take the fed funds rate down to 4.25% (upper bound). Moreover, through the release of the updated dot-plot, the Committee signaled that two more interest rate cuts could be appropriate this year, which would take the fed funds rate down to 3.75% (upper bound).

During last week’s press conference after the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) rate decision, Chairman Jerome Powell warned his audience there is no risk-free path for interest rates right now.

The summary of economic projections and “dot plot” that reveals where members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expect the economy and rates to go in coming years will be interesting given the recent slowdown in job growth and relatively little upward pressure on inflation.