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Lessons From Past Conflicts for Today’s Stock Market
As strikes on Iran continue and the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, it’s clearly too early for market watchers to stop thinking about geopolitical risk. As discussed in recent commentaries but worth repeating, history shows stocks often recover quickly...
Private Credit Under Pressure: Liquidity Mismatches in an AI- Disrupted Cycle
Corporate credit markets have become unsettled about the potential for advanced agentic AI tools from firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI to automate functions across legal, analytical, marketing, and sales workflows, effectively targeting the software as a service...
Why Oil Prices Matter Less — But Still Move Headline Inflation
Lower oil “intensity” — less oil used per dollar of economic output — means energy shocks have a smaller impact on growth than in past decades. And from the supply side, the U.S. is now a net exporter of petroleum products. Because we produce more than we import, the...
Markets Tested as Iran Conflict Continues
In our 2026 Outlook: The Policy Engine, we listed several risks to stocks that could prevent the S&P 500 from achieving our forecast for high-single-digit returns in 2026 (to a fair value target range of 7,300–7,400). One was narrow stock market leadership. Well,...
LPL Research’s 2026 Strategic Asset Allocation
LPL Research’s Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) sits at the center of our portfolio construction process because it defines how we expect diversified portfolios to generate more stable long-term outcomes across shifting market environments. The SAA is the long-term...
Five Reasons the Run in Emerging Markets Could Continue
After a stellar 2025 in which emerging market (EM) equities returned 34%, 2026 is off to a good start with the MSCI EM Index up 7% year to date. Last year’s near doubling of the S&P 500 return was driven mostly by a weakening U.S. dollar, which propped up EM...
Unearthing the Metals Melt-Up
The melt‑up in the metals market that defined 2025 has extended its strength into the early weeks of the new year, reinforcing the commodity sector’s position as one of the leading asset classes across global markets. To the surprise of most, gold outperformed the...
Evaluating Our 2025 Forecasts: Equity, Fixed Income, and the U.S. Economy
With 2025 behind us, it’s a good time to celebrate some of our better forecasts from last year while also reviewing some misses we can learn from. In our view, we got more right than wrong last year, but there were some misses among our tactical asset allocation...
Policy Tailwinds and Artificial Intelligence to Power Stocks in 2026
The bull market appears poised to extend its run in 2026, fueled by ongoing enthusiasm around AI and further easing of monetary policy from the Federal Reserve (Fed). However, with valuations running high and midterm election years often bringing more volatility,...
LPL Research Outlook 2026: The Policy Engine
In 2025, we observed a market environment where fiscal and monetary policy decisions, rather than traditional business fundamentals, were the primary drivers of market direction. This shift means that policy influence and market momentum have become significantly more...