Closing Thoughts for the Week
Key Highlights * Precious metals ended 2025 at record highs, with silver and platinum dramatically outperforming gold as industrial demand collided with falling real yields and renewed safe-haven flows. * Equities and hard assets rallied simultaneously, an unusual combination that reflects optimism around monetary easing alongside persistent macro and geopolitical uncertainty.
Macro Observations
Key Highlights * Silver’s recent surge is not corroborated by inflation expectations, which have remained range-bound. That disconnect suggests the move is driven by stress, not rising consumer prices. * Historically, silver outperforms gold and inflation hedges when confidence in growth and liquidity deteriorates, not when economies are overheating. * Persistent
High Yield Spotlight
Key Highlights * Fallen angels occupy the highest tier of the high-yield market, with roughly three-quarters of the portfolio concentrated in BB-rated bonds, materially reducing exposure to the most speculative segments of junk credit. * Higher quality has not meant lower returns. Over full market cycles, fallen-angel strategies
Newsletter
Key Highlights * As inflation pressures ease in 2025, U.S. policymakers are shifting focus from price control toward measures that support economic growth. * Deregulation has re-entered the policy toolkit as a way to reduce business costs and improve economic efficiency without relying solely on monetary or fiscal stimulus. * Recent
Leaders-Laggards
After more than a decade in the shadows, nuclear energy is reasserting itself as a strategic pillar of the global energy system. What has changed is not just sentiment, but necessity. Explosive growth in electricity demand from AI data centers, renewed energy-security priorities, and an increasingly supportive policy environment
Newsletter
A Free Membership for Financial Advisors
Newsletter
In early 2025, Washington reversed course after years of expanding regulation. The White House’s new executive order—dubbed the “10-for-1 Rule”—requires agencies to repeal ten regulations for every new one introduced¹. The intent is explicit: shrink the regulatory state and drive compliance costs below zero². For
Global View
Key Highlights * Markets are embracing a soft-landing narrative as central banks pivot toward easing, even as labor markets loosen and growth signals become more uneven beneath the surface. * The Federal Reserve’s rate cuts have supported risk assets, with cooling inflation and rising unemployment giving policymakers room to ease
Lead-Lag Live
Lead-Lag Live Recap
Weekly Signals
Key Highlights * Large-cap value appears to have bottomed against large-cap growth, ending a multi-year stretch of relative underperformance and signaling a potential shift in market leadership. * Valuation extremes favor value stocks, with discounts versus growth near historically rare levels, increasing the odds of sustained mean reversion if
Newsletter
A political leader cutting through a stack of red tape may seem symbolic, yet in a slowing economy it signals something deeper: a policy pivot toward growth through deregulation¹. When interest rates are near historic lows and fiscal tools are constrained by deficits and politics, easing regulations can act as
Newsletter
It wasn’t long ago that Washington appeared ready to tighten controls on artificial intelligence. Lawmakers held headline-grabbing hearings, agencies floated new guardrails, and the policy world seemed braced for a sweeping federal framework. That momentum has shifted. Instead of pushing ahead, regulators across the federal landscape are slowing