Lead-Lag Live
The retail brokerage landscape is entering a new phase. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a research aid or a chatbot layered onto an existing platform. It is increasingly becoming the interface through which investors research ideas, construct portfolios, and execute complex decisions that once required teams of analysts or
Newsletter
Key Highlights * Market leadership in 2025 has shifted away from mega-cap growth stocks toward small-caps, value-oriented sectors, and emerging markets. * The rotation reflects improving risk appetite and broader market participation rather than a move toward defensive positioning. * Small-cap and emerging-market strength has historically aligned with
Leaders-Laggards
Key Highlights * A multi-year global rearmament cycle is underway, driven by active wars, renewed great-power rivalry, and depleted military inventories.¹ * Defense spending growth is increasingly structural rather than cyclical, with record budgets and long-dated procurement commitments.¹² * Market pricing remains uneven, leaving several strategically critical aerospace and defense
Lead-Lag Live
Lead-Lag Live Recap: Hype vs. Reality in AI Investing
Weekly Signals
Key Highlights * The JOJO.INDEX has shifted into “junk-off,” signaling increased probability of near-term volatility. * Utility stock leadership triggered the rotation, a historically reliable early warning signal. * Credit spreads remain near historic lows, leaving little margin for error. * Investor sentiment shows extreme optimism despite signs of economic cooling.
Closing Thoughts for the Week
Major markets closed the year on an uneasy note as a thinly traded, holiday-shortened week delivered a reality check to 2025’s late-cycle rally. The S&P 500 slipped roughly 1% for the week, its first weekly decline in five weeks, while the Nasdaq fell closer to
Global View
The closing stretch of 2025 has been defined by record equity prices, broadening market participation, and an easing inflation backdrop that few anticipated a year ago. Central banks across developed markets have either paused or begun reversing tightening cycles, while investors have embraced a risk-on posture that has pushed
Newsletter
Key Highlights * Small-cap stocks have begun to reassert leadership after years of trailing mega-cap technology.¹ * Falling interest rates and improving cyclical conditions have historically favored smaller, domestically oriented companies.³⁴ * Tactical allocation strategies such as ATACX are designed to participate in risk-on environments while actively managing downside risk.
Newsletter
For decades, bonds occupied a familiar role in portfolios. A broad, plain-vanilla bond ETF offered diversification, income, and ballast against equity volatility. Investors could buy a core bond fund, reinvest interest, and largely ignore day-to-day market noise. That framework worked well when inflation was subdued and interest
Newsletter
Key Highlights * Industrials have historically outperformed early in deregulation cycles, as expectations for lower compliance costs and faster permitting drive earnings re-rating before policy changes are fully implemented. * Regulatory relief creates operating leverage, particularly for industrial and mid-cap companies where compliance costs weigh more heavily on margins and
Macro Observations
It’s the Last Gasp Before a Deflationary Bust
Lead-Lag Live
Lead-Lag Live Recap