2025 has been an exceptional year for emerging market (EM) equities. South Korea has surged almost 80%, while South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico have each posted gains of more than 40% year to date. Within the MSCI country universe, six of the top 10 performers this year are emerging markets. This level of outperformance relative to the U.S. at the broad asset class level has been rare and, barring a strong late-year rotation, this will mark only the third time in the past 15 years that emerging markets have outperformed U.S. equities.

EM Equities Have Handily Outpaced U.S. Equities this Year

• Source: LPL Research, Bloombe

With hurricane season officially coming to an end on November 30, a niche area of the investment world called Catastrophe Bonds (“cat bonds”) has time to pause from a record-breaking year of issuance. Cat bonds are insurance-linked securities designed to transfer the risk of natural disasters — such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and wildfires — from large insurers to capital market participants. Investors receive a yield in return for assuming the risk that a predefined catastrophic event does not occur during the bond’s term. If the event does occur, investors may lose some or all their principal investmen

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be a transformative technology that impacts how we all live and do business. With some creativity, and time for current offerings to improve, it is not difficult to imagine how in the future these systems could enhance or even replace much of the work that we humans are currently doing. Late in 2025, none of this is breaking news and the relevant questions for investors are ultimately: what is the utility of these new tools in dollar terms and when should we expect to see the benefit? More use cases uncovered, or benefits realized sooner than expected would add additional tailwinds to the AI t

After a slow couple of years, the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market is finally picking up momentum. According to Pitchbook, the total number of deals for the first three quarters of 2025 increased by 13% compared to the same period last year. The total deal value for the same period in 2025 reached $3.4 trillion, up 25% from the same period last year as well. The recovery we are observing is not just about the rise in the number of deals but also about the value of the deals, driven by the rise in large, strategic, sponsor-backed transactions. In terms of regions, North America continues to lead the way. While among sectors, technolog