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In this month’s edition, we highlight the growing evidence of AI’s impact across the S&P 500® Index and recent developments across inflation, health care, refining, capital markets and rail activity. We also spotlight NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s perspective on AI adoption, regulation and US competitiveness.

A reference guide for common AI infrastructure terms used across our insights and commentary.

While GPUs have dominated the AI market for their essential role in parallel processing and model training, the rise of Agentic AI is shifting the spotlight. This new wave of autonomous AI relies heavily on general-purpose processing functions, driving significant growth in CPU demand.

In emerging markets (EM) debt, separating trading from settlement is a convenient fiction—and an expensive one. The execution of a buy or sell order is often treated as the finish line. 

International equities entered 2026 with momentum. After outperforming US stocks in 2025, they continued to lead during the first several weeks of the year, prompting renewed discussion about whether the long era of US market dominance was beginning to fade.

In emerging markets (EM) debt, the opportunity set is not defined by what exists. It is defined by what you can access. This distinction matters more than most investors appreciate.

In this month’s edition, we highlight the expansion in global manufacturing activity and the strong earnings outlook for the S&P 500® Index, both standalone and relative to Europe. We also spotlight a leading financial CEO’s perspective on how AI is reshaping banking, client relationships and capital markets.

When investors compare emerging markets (EM) debt managers, most attention focuses on investment views, including philosophy, country selection and risk measurement. Investors typically pay far less attention to how those views are implemented, even though the gap between an investment decision and its realized outcome is often where costs accumulate or are avoided. It is within this gap that trading capabilities in EM debt can become a meaningful differentiator between managers. 

Recent tensions involving Iran and the Strait of Hormuz have once again highlighted the role energy security plays in the global economy. While the events themselves are not reshaping the direction of the energy transition, they do reinforce an increasingly important reality for emerging markets (EM): energy security and energy transition are becoming more intertwined, not less.

In this month’s edition, we highlight the sharp inflection in US core capital goods orders—signaling a potential structural uplift in manufacturing—alongside a supportive earnings backdrop for the S&P 500® Index. We also examine evolving market dynamics, from narrowing leadership and rising global power demand to geopolitical shifts in energy markets and spotlight a recent segment featuring perspectives on risk management and disciplined, independent thinking.