Despite May's usual reputation for underwhelming performance, U.S. stocks experienced a robust monthly gain. The S&P 500 delivered a total return of 6.3%, marking its biggest gain during the month of May since 1990, and turning positive year to date. Broad equity benchmarks stabilized on optimism surrounding trade deals, encouraging investors to return to previously struggling sectors. Given such a notable return for the month, we decided to dive into the sector components driving those returns and explore themes of what worked.

Sector Performance

Ten out of 11 sectors experienced gains in May, with the three largest

Hot Takes:

• Long-term unemployed as a percent of total unemployed is four percentage points higher than pre-pandemic, a potential harbinger of things to come.

• Trade tensions put pressure on manufacturers, driving up delivery times and prices paid, according to the latest ISM survey.

• The stable job market is providing the necessary support for an economy filled with uncertainty, but watch out for early signs of weakness, such as the rising ratio of long-term unemployed.

• For now, we expect the economy to grow, especially in the latter part of the year. The engine of growth will likely come from i

There has been no shortage of trade policy curveballs thrown at the market since the White House announced shockingly high reciprocal tariffs on April 2. Stocks declined sharply and interest rates spiked higher on the news, prompting President Trump to pivot to a 90-day pause on the newly added import duties for most goods entering the U.S. Since then, trade negotiations have progressed as the U.S. struck a deal with the U.K. and significantly reduced tariffs on Chinese imports until August 12. However, there have been plenty of bumps along the way. Just last week, President Trump announced a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union (EU) s

Managed futures funds have faced a difficult 2025, with the HFRX Macro: Systematic Diversified CTA Index down 8.0% through May 23. As one of our preferred liquid alternative implementation choices, a dive into what has been driving this year’s performance is warranted.

Performance Drivers

For background, managed futures strategies, also known as trend-followers or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs), can be notoriously difficult to parse (and not to mention agree on a category name). But these strategies use price-based signals over the past several weeks/months to take long and short positions across equity, bond, commod