A few weeks ago, after LPL Focus 2026, we shared what we heard from LPL advisors. This week, LPL Research spent time with Commonwealth advisors at the Commonwealth National Conference in Aurora, Colorado. The questions were remarkably similar. Common

One of the more interesting developments in the bond market last week, in our view, had less to do with the news itself and more to do with how the markets reacted to it.

My colleagues and I often talk about “news failures” o

Meta’s September launch of Muse, a personal artificial intelligence (AI) agent designed to act on a user’s behalf across digital workflows, crystallized the market’s latest disruption narrative. If AI can make consumer switching eas

In this month’s edition of the Equity Research team’s flagship “Beyond the Numbers” publication, we discuss the potential threat that personal artificial intelligence (AI) agents, like Meta Platforms’ (META) recently rel

Happy Anniversary bull market! October 12 marked the fourth anniversary of the bull market that began at the S&P 500’s closing low of 3,577 on October 12, 2022. Four years later, the index has more than doubled, an impressive run considerin

Since the start of the war with Iran, investor attention has understandably centered on crude oil. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed roughly 15 million barrels of crude per day from the supply chain, representing nearly 20% of glo

Bank lending rarely commands the attention that payrolls, inflation, or consumer spending do. But it helps determine how much momentum the economy can sustain. Commercial and industrial (C&I) loans, the workhorse of corporate finance, pay for eve

Every time rates jump, the headlines follow the same script: bonds got hit. On a statement, they did. But that framing confuses two very different activities. Trading bonds is about where prices go next. Investing in bonds is about building a portfol

The U.S. economy is handing investors a muddled picture. Housing is stuck, hiring is lopsided, and households feel worse than the jobs data suggest. Add a string of geopolitical shocks and a Federal Reserve (Fed) under new leadership still establishi

On the surface, the numbers appear exceptional. U.S. venture-backed companies raised more than $400 billion during the first half of 2026, more than all of 2025, and SpaceX's IPO helped produce the largest venture exit quarter on record. However,