For much of the last seven years, the bulls have been in firm control on Wall Street. The iconic S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has gained at least 16% in all but one year since 2019. Meanwhile, the ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) just eclipsed 50,000 for the first time in its nearly 130-year history, and the technology-driven Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) has consistentl...
For much of the last seven years, the bulls have been in firm control on Wall Street. The iconic S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has gained at least 16% in all but one year since 2019. Meanwhile, the ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) just eclipsed 50,000 for the first time in its nearly 130-year history, and the technology-driven Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) has consistently delivered outsize returns. There has been no shortage of catalysts fueling this upside, including the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) , the advent of quantum computing, the prospect of additional interest rate cuts, and record share buyback activity from S&P 500 companies. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith speaks exclusively to Bloomberg News after they reported better-than-expected earnings in the fourth quarter and remains upbeat about the North Atlantic routes despite heightened geopolitical tensions. (Source: Bloomberg)
Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith speaks exclusively to Bloomberg News after they reported better-than-expected earnings in the fourth quarter and remains upbeat about the North Atlantic routes despite heightened geopolitical tensions. (Source: Bloomberg)
porcorex/iStock via Getty Images US banks posted the second-highest aggregate loan growth rate in the last three years in the fourth quarter of 2025. US commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loan associations, excluding nondepository trusts and companies with a foreign banking organization charter, reported total loans and leases of $13.478 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2025, up $267.80 billi...
porcorex/iStock via Getty Images US banks posted the second-highest aggregate loan growth rate in the last three years in the fourth quarter of 2025. US commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loan associations, excluding nondepository trusts and companies with a foreign banking organization charter, reported total loans and leases of $13.478 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2025, up $267.80 billion, or 2.0% sequentially, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That growth trumped the 1.2% growth rate in the third quarter of 2025 and the average quarterly rate for the last three years of 0.8%. It nearly matched the highest loan growth rate in the last three years - 2.1% in the second quarter of 2025. Much of the loan growth came from the largest institutions. The four biggest banks by total assets at 2025-end - JPMorgan Chase Bank NA ( JPM ), Bank of America NA ( BAC ), Citibank NA ( C ) and Wells Fargo Bank NA ( WFC ) - each grew loans by at least 1.6% and accounted for 43.1% of the total change in loans. And the top 20 banks, all of which reported higher loan balances except for TD Bank NA ( TD ) and Fifth Third Bank NA ( FITB ), represented 70.4% of the total growth. While the loan growth was top-heavy, it was still widely dispersed throughout the industry. The median rate last quarter was 1.4%, up from 1.3% in the third quarter of 2025 and matching the three-year average. NDFIs still driving loan growth Outstanding loans to nondepository financial institutions (NDFIs) increased by more than $106 billion, or 7.3% quarter over quarter, representing nearly 40% of the aggregate growth in total loans and leases. The private equity category showed the highest increase, up $37.24 billion, or 11.2%. Loans to business credit intermediaries, consumer credit intermediaries, and mortgage intermediaries went up 7.5%, 7.2%, and 6.0%, respectively. A small portion of the fourth-quarter NDFI growth was from reclassifications, according to the Federal Reserve's no...
Brown-Forman ( BF.A )( BF.B ) declares $0.231/share quarterly dividend , in line with previous. Forward yield 3.1% Payable April 1; for shareholders of record March 9; ex-div March 9. The company has now announced a dividend of $0.231 for two consecutive quarters. See BF.A Dividend Scorecard, Yield Chart, & Dividend Growth. More on Brown-Forman Brown-Forman: Intriguing Long-Term Buy Brown-Forman: ...
Brown-Forman ( BF.A )( BF.B ) declares $0.231/share quarterly dividend , in line with previous. Forward yield 3.1% Payable April 1; for shareholders of record March 9; ex-div March 9. The company has now announced a dividend of $0.231 for two consecutive quarters. See BF.A Dividend Scorecard, Yield Chart, & Dividend Growth. More on Brown-Forman Brown-Forman: Intriguing Long-Term Buy Brown-Forman: Significant Free Cash Flow Generation Underpinned By A Strong Balance Sheet Brown-Forman Corporation: Rating Downgrade To Sell On Worsening Demand Conditions Global spirits glut forces producers to idle distilleries and cut prices: FT Saudi Arabia is slowly loosening its alcohol rules as part of a modernization push
Kagenmi/iStock via Getty Images INDZ is an actively managed India ETF designed to reduce passive index drag by selecting high-quality Indian companies with durable earnings power and disciplined valuations. India is a high-dispersion equity market where long-term outcomes are driven primarily by company-level fundamentals. While market-cap weighted indexes provide broad exposure, they also allocat...
Kagenmi/iStock via Getty Images INDZ is an actively managed India ETF designed to reduce passive index drag by selecting high-quality Indian companies with durable earnings power and disciplined valuations. India is a high-dispersion equity market where long-term outcomes are driven primarily by company-level fundamentals. While market-cap weighted indexes provide broad exposure, they also allocate capital indiscriminately across businesses with widely divergent quality, durability, and return potential. This structure embeds persistent performance drag by diluting exposure to the companies that matter most for long-term compounding. Structural growth, reform momentum, and rapid technology adoption continue to expand India’s opportunity set, but they also sustain index exposure to businesses that lack capital discipline or the ability to adapt. In this environment, owning everything equally is costly. Selectivity is essential to capturing durable returns. Our mission is to minimize passive index drag by systematically focusing on higher-quality companies with durable earnings power and disciplined valuations. Why Active Management Matters in India India’s equity returns are driven by a much smaller subset of stocks than the U.S., meaning that capturing most of the market’s gains in India requires far greater security selection rather than broad index exposure. What Is the VanEck India Select ETF (INDZ)? The VanEck India Select ETF ( INDZ ) is designed to provide selective exposure across high-quality Indian companies, combining active research with rules-driven discipline to support consistent, long-term compounding in a market defined by dispersion. Smaller Subset of Companies Drive Returns in India Source: VanEck, FactSet. Data as of February 28, 2006 - January 31, 2026. India is represented by the MSCI India Index. U.S. is represented by the S&P 500 Index. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Index performance is not representative of fund performa...
India and France have agreed to increase connections between two of their largest ports and others, giving fresh momentum for a proposed commercial corridor stretching from South Asia to Europe that some analysts say could rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The agreement between India’s Adani Ports and France’s Port of Marseille Fos marks a key step towards making the India–Middle East–Europe...
India and France have agreed to increase connections between two of their largest ports and others, giving fresh momentum for a proposed commercial corridor stretching from South Asia to Europe that some analysts say could rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The agreement between India’s Adani Ports and France’s Port of Marseille Fos marks a key step towards making the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) a reality. The memorandum of understanding, signed on Wednesday, proposes...
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter The start of the year has been an absolutely brutal one for software companies. There’s a big fear that the rise of AI and advanced coding models will pull the rug out from this industry. But even before these AI fears, software companies were seeing their growth slow. So how do...
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter The start of the year has been an absolutely brutal one for software companies. There’s a big fear that the rise of AI and advanced coding models will pull the rug out from this industry. But even before these AI fears, software companies were seeing their growth slow. So how does the business actually work? And more importantly, what types of companies will actually survive the “SaaSpocalypse”? (Or maybe “the CaSaaStrophe”?) On this episode, we speak with Jared Sleeper, a longtime software investor who is now a partner at Avenir. We talk about the history of software, the evolution of business models, and where the threat is most acute. He also talks about why investors are so nervous and their fears that in the long term, many of these companies will be worth zero, while in the short term, they’re not even making much money on a GAAP basis.