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1. You Can Choose When You Retire—Not the Market You Retire Into
Sequence of returns: you can control when you retire, but not what type of market you retire into — Lincoln Financial Group
2. Choosing the Right AI Vendor: 7 Questions Every Decision-Maker Should Ask
AI is reshaping advisory firms—but not every solution delivers real value. Many firms first encounter AI through polished demos: portfolio insights surfaced in seconds, tasks automated on command, outputs generated with apparent confidence. Speed is impressive. But speed is not value, and novelty is not fit. For firms managing sensitive data and connected workflows, the bar is higher. The question isn't what AI can do in a demo—it's whether it improves the business. That's where disciplined vendor evaluation begins. — Orion
3. Anthropic Keeps Coming for Wall Street. Here Is the Ecosystem Behind the Push.
Anthropic has made financial services its most aggressive expansion target of 2026. The company launched Claude for Financial Services in July 2025, released enterprise plugins aimed directly at wealth management, investment banking, and equity research workflows in February, and held an invite-only briefing in New York in May where Dario Amodei shared a stage with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon to discuss what AI means for markets and the workforce. Each announcement has produced the same result in equity markets. On February 3, investors wiped nearly one trillion dollars in market capitalization from financial data and professional services firms. FactSet fell more than ten percent. Thomson Reuters posted its worst single-day drop on record at eighteen percent. S&P Global, Moody’s, LSEG, and Morningstar all followed. — John O'Connell
4. A Massive Wave of New Stock Supply Is Headed for Markets
The coming wave of equity supply we detailed in The IPO Boom is growing. Last week, Alphabet executed an $80 billion secondary equity offering to fund AI infrastructure, including a $10 billion private placement to Berkshire Hathaway. Now, the Financial Times claims that Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are planning similarly large equity raises to fund their 2026 capital expenditures. Add SpaceX’s $75 billion IPO, OpenAI’s $60 billion offering, and more supply coming soon from Anthropic and Stripe, and the equity market is being forced to absorb quite a supply shock. — Michael Lebowitz
5. Breaking the Correlation Cycle: New Approaches to Income and Growth Diversification
The classic 60/40 equities-to-bonds strategy has faced headwinds in recent years as a persistently positive stock-bond correlation undermines its core diversification premise. It was glaringly evident in 2022 when both asset classes sold off simultaneously as the Fed aggressively raised rates, delivering one of the worst years on record for the strategy. At Calamos, we recognized early on that diversification matters in all market environments. Since 1990, our Calamos Market Neutral Fund has consistently utilized volatility as it seeks to generate returns, provide a fixed-income alternative, and manage equity risk. More recently, Calamos pioneered the autocallable ETF structure, integrating a time-tested notes framework into a tax-efficient ETF wrapper. Today, that platform offers investors two distinct portfolio strategies—one focused on current income, the other on long-term growth—built on the same disciplined autocallable mechanics. — Calamos
6. AI Boom Is Reshaping Markets and Reviving Value Investing
Since early 2025, value stocks have enjoyed a strong run, defying market volatility driven by trade tensions, geopolitical stress and macroeconomic uncertainty. That resilience may seem counterintuitive given value’s historically cyclical profile. Yet, we believe the underlying characteristics of value stocks are proving particularly well suited to today’s evolving market landscape. Global markets have faced a wave of destabilizing forces over the last two years. In 2025, President Trump’s tariff agenda fueled market turbulence and made it hard for investors to forecast earnings. Ongoing AI disruption has added an unpredictable variable to businesses, while raising profitability questions about the US mega-caps. Meanwhile, the Middle East conflict prompted a surge in oil prices with cascading effects across economies and sectors. — Avi Lavi
7. Is Content Marketing Dead? The AI Search Revolution Says Not So Fast
Is content marketing dying? For the past three years, marketers have been clutching their hearts as they watch organic search traffic to their websites plummet, quarter after quarter. And the trend isn’t going to stop anytime soon. According to new research, in 2026, 80% of B2B Google searches result in no clicks to a website. That’s an absolutely staggering statistic. What the heck happened to all those clicks? — Elizabeth Harr
8. “I’m Just Trying to Remember to Eat Lunch”: The Long-Term Care Lesson That Changed My Life
I have been in the business of long-term care financial planning for more than 30 years, which makes me old-ish. I can tell that I’m old-ish because I increasingly reminisce about things. For instance, the Knicks in the NBA Finals take me back to when they were in the Finals in 1994, playing the Houston Rockets, and having that Game Six interrupted by the O.J. Bronco chase—which was also the night of my bachelor party. I also have been reminiscing about how I became involved in long-term care financial planning. My wife of 30+ years would cringe at any blustery framing of my “origin” story, but I want to share my path because the crises that pulled me into my profession remain a persistent source of pain and stress for many families. It’s become my life’s work to help those families navigate the challenges of health, financial planning, and the stress that comes with every long-term care situation. I hope by sharing this story, it illustrates what many families are up against and what they can do to mitigate the problems. There are three key people in this story, and please indulge a bit of artistic liberty to write about it from their points of view instead of my first person. This is a fictional reconstruction based on real conversations and events. — Tom West
9. New Research Puts the Section 351 ETF Conversion Market at $5.0 Trillion
ExchangiFi has published new research measuring the potential market for Section 351 tax-deferred ETF conversions. Drawing on Federal Reserve data, IRS aggregates, and industry research, the paper estimates that $5.0 trillion in U.S. taxable equity assets are structurally suited to convert into ETF wrappers without triggering immediate capital gains tax. The paper splits the opportunity into three pools. An estimated $2.9 trillion sits in low-basis concentrated single-stock positions held by founders, executives, and long-term investors. Another $1.0 trillion sits in aged direct-indexing accounts with no losses left to harvest. A further $1.1 trillion sits in actively managed taxable equity SMAs losing an estimated 100 to 200 basis points a year or more to turnover-driven tax drag and fees. — Matt Bucklin
10. Summer Rally or Summer Correction?
Two weeks ago, after the S&P 500 logged its ninth consecutive weekly gain, we discussed that a bull market pullback was coming. It came. From the May 27 record near 7,621, the index slid 4.5% and bottomed almost exactly on its 50-day moving average before ripping back to close Friday at 7,431.46. That is not the opening act of a bear market. That is the kind of bull market pullback that resets sentiment and, more often than not, clears the runway for the next leg higher. The harder question is what happens after the bounce. — Lance Roberts
11. Stop Competing for Deals Already Won
The short version: in B2B, the buyer usually picks a winner before they ever contact you. Big firms respond by outspending everyone to dominate the early research phase. A small firm can’t win that war, but it can do something a giant can’t: arrive already trusted, through a warm introduction, before the search even starts. That’s what a give-first referral is built to do. Whose game are you playing? For most small professional-services firms, the honest answer is the big companies game, and it’s quietly costing you nearly every deal you think you’re competing for. — Mike Garrison