The bond ETF era dawned in Canada 25 years ago, with iShares' XBB and XSB launching on the Toronto Stock Exchange in November 2000, shattering barriers for everyday investors. Before these wrappers, Canadians chasing fixed income juggled steep minimums for individual bonds or liquidity-starved mutual funds. XBB mirrors the FTSE Canada Universe Bond Index, spanning nearly 2,000 investment-grade issues from federal to corporate corners, delivering broad-market ballast.
Asset TV's ETF Editor in Chief Kristin Myers joined CBS News to discuss the latest market reaction as the U.S. pushes for American oil companies to be involved with Venezuela's oil industry.
Source: Stock markets react to news of potential U.S. investments in Venezuela
Private alternatives, a multi-trillion behemoth, eye explosive retail penetration as advisors inch beyond the 60/40 cage. Michael Reisner, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of CION Investments, pegs average retail allocations at a skimpy 5%, with just 20-30% of advisors deploying them. "We see that as a tremendous opportunity" he says, forecasting meaningful uptake in coming years amid volatility's pull.
Mid-cap equities, the oft-ignored middle child of U.S. markets, emerge as a potential sweet spot, blending small-cap agility with large-cap stability. Hamish Preston of S&P Dow Jones Indices defines the S&P MidCap 400 as spanning companies with $8bn to $22.7bn market caps, a universe vast enough to rival entire nations' equity pools. "If you treated the S&P 400 as a stand-alone country, it would be one of the largest equity markets in the world," Preston notes, highlighting its domestic revenue tilt, 80% U.S.-sourced versus the S&P 500's 50/50 split.
The curtain falls on 2025, first year of a presidential cycle, and history whispers sweet nothings for December. Kim Inglis, senior portfolio manager at Raymond James, scans 80 years of S&P 500 data: 12 instances where November closed up 5% or more, each ushering a positive December averaging 2% gains. "Those are fantastic statistics." she says, as markets wrap a year chasing norms amid policy pivots.
Kim Inglis at Raymond James argues that today’s AI wave is fundamentally different from the 1990s internet boom. Then, firms often listed with little revenue or business plans. Now, the leaders are established companies with diversified businesses. Inglis underscores the adoption gap: 97% of U.S. households have a computer today versus 51% at the dot com peak, and roughly 70% of the global population has internet access compared with 6% in the 1990s. Those adoption metrics support scale and utility rather than pure speculation.
Christopher Davis at ISS Market Intelligence lays out a blunt five-year roadmap for the retail fund industry: slower growth, continued passive adoption, and a dramatic broadening of the product shelf. U.S. equities have driven the bulk of asset growth over the past decade, but forecasts now point to more modest returns. Slower asset growth will translate into weaker revenue growth for firms heavily exposed to domestic equity funds, making business-model choices more consequential.
Asset TV's ETF Editor in Chief Kristin Myers joined CBS news to discuss the expectations from the Federal Reserve and how the economy and markets will react to a rate cut.
AI’s surge is quickly becoming an energy story. Kim Inglis of Raymond James highlights that the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence is accelerating electricity demand at a pace that could reshape global energy markets. The IEA expects electricity demand to jump 40% by 2035, driven primarily by data centers and electric vehicles.
Private markets are seeing a surge in dispersion that makes manager and vintage selection as consequential as the underlying strategy. Alexander Sing warns that choosing the wrong year or the wrong manager can swing returns from strong outperformance to severe drawdowns. Top vintages can deliver 40%, while bottom vintages have fallen 10%. The gap between top-quartile and bottom-quartile managers mirrors that volatility, turning selection into a high-stakes decision.
Luke Barrs, Chief Business and Client Officer within Fundamental Equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management expects equities to remain constructive into 2026, even as elevated valuations create a narrower path forward. Large cap multiples have expanded after a strong rally, and market history suggests that a pullback of around 10% would not be unusual. Still, the earnings backdrop remains supportive, and Barrs sees fundamentals as the key reason public equities continue to look attractive.
Nadine Buckland, CEO at Zenzic Capital characterizes the European real estate credit market as structurally underserved, shaped by long-term bank retrenchment rather than cyclical volatility. Borrowers in the lower mid-market often require ticket sizes in the $10m to $50m range, which can be too small for larger managers and too complex for traditional banks. That dynamic has widened the role of opportunistic lenders providing capital for growth, repositioning, transitional financing, and occasional stressed or distressed situations.
