Read the latest market insights by the HUB Investment Research Team.
July brought elevated volatility as geopolitical tensions, uncertainty around Federal Reserve policy, and concerns over whether AI-driven valuations and heavy capital spending could be…
The panelists are cautiously optimistic about the second half of 2026, supported by resilient growth and AI investment. Emerging markets may offer attractive opportunities…
The second quarter of 2026 delivered a strong rebound following negative domestic and international market returns in Q1, with small cap stocks and emerging…
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Rocket ManElton JohnRocketman I’m a rocket manRocket man burnin’ out his fuse up here alone When SpaceX became the largest IPO in history during June, investors had high hopes it might ignite more enthusiasm and push stocks to even loftier heights. The SpaceX IPO...
LimelightRushLimelight Living in the limelight, the universal dreamFor those who wish to seemFor those who wish to be must put aside the alienationGet on with the fascinationThe real relation, the underlying theme When it comes to investing in the latest themes, there...
The Boys are Back in TownThin LizzyThe Boys are Back in Town Spread the word /Guess who’s back in town As the month neared the end, the research team was questioning what does it take to “break” the U.S. equity markets. Starting with a global pandemic in 2020, the...
![[Video] Q1 2026 Economic and Market Commentary](https://hubrpw.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-at-3.45.26 PM-400x250.png)
Economic Deck In this quarterly update, Brian Collins, Chief Investment Officer at HUB Retirement & Private Wealth (HUB RPW), recaps a turbulent quarter under the theme "The World Runs on Energy." Key Highlights: A quarter in three acts: January brought modest...
Deja VuCrosby, Stills, Nash & YoungDeja Vu If I had been here before /I would probably know what to do Two American icons, Mark Twain and Yogi Berra, have sayings that are attributed to them though actual records of their statements are hard to come by. “History...
Overview The recent conflict that started on February 28, 2026 with the U.S. and Israel launching an offensive against Iran has rattled investment markets around the globe. Since the conflict started, U.S. equity markets have declined less than 1% and the U.S. 10YR...
Grimes, featuring HANAWe Appreciate the Power And if you long to never die/Baby, plug in, upload your mind/Come on, you’re not even alive/If you’re not backed up on a drive For a short month, February sure had a lot happen during its 28 days. Investors started the...
Tenth Avenue Freeze OutBruce SpringsteenTenth Avenue Freeze-Out I’m gonna sit back right easy and laugh / When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half / With the Tenth Avenue freeze-out January is often considered the bellwether month for the U.S. stock market....
![[Video] Q4 2025 Economic and Market Commentary](https://hubrpw.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-26-at-5.37.55 PM-400x250.png)
Economic Deck In this quarterly review, Brian Collins, Chief Investment Officer at HUB Retirement & Private Wealth (HUB RPW), breaks down Q4 2025 performance and looks ahead to what 2026 may bring. Key Highlights: Strong finish to 2025: U.S. and international...
HUB Retirement & Private Wealth recently hosted its 2026 Investment Roundtable, a gathering of senior investment professionals from American Century Investments®, Apollo Global Management, and DWS Investment Management. During the Roundtable, the...
Don’t StopFleetwood MacDon't Stop Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow / Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here December is often a difficult month for many people as they juggle the often-unrealistic expectations of the impending holiday season, the challenges of meeting...
On January 3, 2026, the United States executed Operation Absolute Resolve, a large-scale military strike on Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The operation involved more than 150 aircraft launching from...
Defying GravityWritten by Stephen Schwartz (2003)Defying Gravity Movie sequels often carry lofty expectations based on the success of the original. Fans are enthusiastic to find out how the story continues, who the next villain may be, or what unusual predicament the...
Mark Tremonti and Scott Stapp (1999) Higher The end of October is an interesting time for many. Those who love the fall season are drawn to the changing colors and crispness of the autumn air. For others, it is a time of transition towards winter and an awareness that...
![[Video] Q3 2025 Economic and Market Commentary](https://hubrpw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-21-at-12.10.14 PM-400x250.png)
At This Rate.. As we reflect on the latest quarter, one central theme emerges: investors are cautiously optimistic, yet still navigating an environment shaped by interest rate uncertainty and shifting economic data. The Federal Reserve’s decision to pause rates while...
‘Cause, everything’s right / So just hold tightThis crazy world / It turns, it turnsEverything’s RightPhish Back in June, the song for the Q2 commentary was the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”, appropriate given the strong finish to the quarter after the brief Tariff...
Good TimeNiko Moon We just tryna catch a good time /Even if it takes all night With Labor Day falling on September 1st this year, it seems like Summer 2025 was shorter than it should be. Yes it was the same number of days as always, but it just seems shorter. Maybe it...
Going, Going, GoneLuke Combs Like the changing of the seasons /Good things, they come and then they go The end of July brought Lollapalooza weekend to Chicago. A four-day music festival that welcomes bands with names such as Barry Can’t Swim, Zinadelphia, and Still...
![[Video] Q2 2025 Economic and Market Commentary](https://hubrpw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-15-at-2.04.10 PM-400x250.png)
Q2 2025 was shaped by the “Tariff Two-Step”—a swift policy reversal that triggered both a market drop and a quick recovery. Despite mid-quarter uncertainty, diversified investors saw strong gains by quarter’s end. On April 2, President Trump announced sweeping...
Good VibrationsBrian Wilson and Mike Love (1966) When Brian Wilson, the genius behind the music of the Beach Boys, passed away in June there were numerous retrospectives about his many talents, including his ability to create musical orchestrations that produced so...
Is “Everything gonna be alright”?Everything’s Gonna be Alright- David Lee Murphy and Kenny Chesney (2018) It would be naïve to think that one month of rallying US stocks would mean that markets are back on track and there is nothing to worry about. Remember that to...
“Oh my mama told me there'll be days like this...”- Days Like This by Van Morrison (1995) There is an old saying, “in like a lion, out like a lamb.” It is usually associated with the variability of spring time weather but in the case of April’s investment markets, it...
![[Video] Q1 2025 Economic and Market Commentary](https://hubrpw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-21-at-4.51.52 PM-400x250.png)
As we closed the first quarter of 2025, investors were met with a stark change in tone from the high-growth environment of the past two years. Rising volatility, shifting trade policies, and renewed concerns about recession created a market defined by uncertainty—and...
As expected, investment markets around the world responded to yesterday’s announcement by President Trump that new tariffs would be levied against all products imported into the US. The reactions across equity markets have largely been negative as investors and others...
“This world keeps spinning / And with each new day / I can feel a change in everything”“Well, it all keeps spinning, spinning ‘round and ‘round and upside down”- Upside Down by Jack Johnson (2006) In thinking about the investment markets over the last month and for...
Investment markets in the last three weeks have experienced heightened levels of volatility and reversals caused by multiple factors including the Trump administrations’ aggressive actions on tariffs and trade matters; the shift in foreign policy, particularly related...
A New Administration Gets Down to Business January Recap and February Outlook January seemed to go on forever, as the country faced extreme weather and devastating wildfires [1]. The new administration got underway with a lot of sound and fury, particularly around...
Seems Like Old Times? December Recap and January Outlook The inauguration of only the second U.S. president to win two non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland was the first) is historic by a host of measures. Starting a second term of office with the president’s party...
A New Regime Comes Into Focus November Recap and December Outlook The transition to a new administration is underway with announcements of cabinet position nominees. The pro-business lean of the incoming government is not a surprise, and the emphasis is likely to be...
A Historic Election Removes Some Uncertainty October Recap and November Outlook An election season with several twists and turns came to a clear end with the decisive reelection of President Donald Trump. The received wisdom is that the financial markets hate...
A Volatile Start to the End of the Year? September Recap and October Outlook September equity markets ended the month in positive territory, but with volatility increased. The VIX, the markets “fear index” closed higher than last month, at 16.73, up from 15.00....
The Finish Line or the Starting Gate? August Recap and September Outlook As summer ends and September continues, attention is focused on the long-anticipated change in the Fed’s monetary policy, from holding rates steady to returning rates to lower levels. July and...
August Market Commentary Too Late, Again? July Recap and August Outlook After weeks of Olympic-themed press reports about the Fed “sticking the (soft) landing” and safely guiding the economy to a place where inflation is coming down and growth is holding off...
June Recap and July Outlook At the FOMC meeting in mid-June, the story was the drop in expectations for multiple rate cuts in 2024 to potentially only one rate cut later in the year. However, positive data around inflation and labor markets appears to have...
May Recap and June Outlook May saw a return to more confidence in the economy and the markets. The Fed met early in the month, and Chairman Powell managed to curb market pessimism by stating that it was unlikely that the Fed’s next move would be a rate hike. The...
April Recap and May Outlook April had it all, and most of it was not so great. Inflation is proving sticky again, which forced the market and the Fed to reassess the timing of interest rate cuts. Conflicts intensified in Ukraine and the Middle East, and in the U.S.,...
March Recap and April Outlook Among the more interesting bits of Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress last year was his admission that he’s been a Grateful Dead fan for 50 years. In his comments at the press conference after the March FOMC meeting, he affirmed that...
February Recap and March Outlook Depending on your focus, the story the recent economic data is telling may be different. But one point of view has been remarkably consistent this year: the market does not seem to care about any of it. February saw the S&P 500’s...
January Recap and February Outlook As goes January, so goes the year. That old stock market canard has a double-edged meaning this year, as the stock market as measured by the S&P came in strongly positive. But the path to getting there included dashed...
The drama around the timing of the Federal Reserve’s first cuts to the key short-term interest rate continued in last few weeks of the old year and into the first week of the new year. Two months of slowing labor market data, coupled with a change to the wording in...
November Recap and December Outlook After a year in which Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell managed to hold everyone’s attention – again – here we are waiting for the outcome of the last FOMC meeting of the year. A few weeks ago, with the narrative of rates being...
October Recap and November Outlook The Federal Reserve's November meeting went as the market expected: no change in rates. What wasn't expected was the October and early November rollercoaster of bond yields. And by rollercoaster, think Kingda Ka. The ten-year U.S....
September Recap and October Outlook The outcome of the Fed's meeting in September was to hold rates at the current level. It has been described as a "hawkish pause," and the Fed was clear in post-meeting remarks and statements that one more increase is still possible...
August Recap and September Outlook For most of the summer, increasingly positive data releases fed into the market’s upbeat view of the economy. This seemed to contradict the consistent messaging from the Federal Reserve that it isn’t done raising rates and inflation...
July Recap and August Outlook Data releases in July told a story of a stronger-than-expected economy, with headline CPI falling and the labor market remaining robust. The doom-and-gloom scenario of an all-but-inevitable recession seemed to be replaced by something...
June Recap and July Outlook The Fed finally hit “pause” on interest rate increases in June after fifteen months and ten consecutive rate hikes. The “dot-plot” indicated that Fed officials think two further increases may be necessary in 2023, and it’s become clear that...
May Recap and June Outlook The debt ceiling negotiations dominated headlines throughout the month. By month end, the deal was hammered out and on its way through Congress to end up on the president's desk before "X-Date" when the Treasury ran out of money. The...
April Recap and May Outlook The biggest news in the Fed’s statement after their meeting on May 3 was what it didn’t say. The Fed’s statement from March contained the language “the Committee anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate” for the...
March recap and April Outlook Equity markets, using the S&P 500 index return as a proxy, at first glance appear to have shrugged off the mid-month drama of multiple domestic, regional bank failures and the forced sale of a massive Swiss bank. Attention was...
February Recap and March Outlook If there's an aphorism for February that you could embroider on a pillow, it would be, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Markets appear to have finally started taking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's...
January Recap and February Outlook The market adage is “as January goes, so goes the year.” Is it true? According to an analysis by Fidelity, January returns are positive about 75% of the time the full year turns out positive. The rally was certainly a relief after...
The Fed Goes Meta December Recap and January Outlook While the equity markets, as measured by the S&P 500 index, was up in the third quarter, December was a disappointment from the gains seen in October and November. For context, Dow Jones Market Data indicates...
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