
Market Drilldown


What’s Both Cool and Hot? Wind and Solar Power Investments, Allocators Say
Seeing lush future profits, institutions are diligently investing in these two renewable energy sources.

What Are the Best Value Stocks—and the Ones to Shun?
Northern Trust screens for the top of the class, and also to red-flag the less appealing bargain plays.

Why Bother With Active Management When Mechanistic Passive Does Best Historically?
You want a helping of alpha along with beta-hugging index funds? We asked some shrewd allocators how they get it.

Why Airports Hold Promise for Asset Allocators
Despite US constraints and pandemic headwinds, odds are they’ll spring back to their old growth level, analysts say.

How to Find the Next Hot New Growth Stocks
Which young companies have the chops to be tomorrow’s stars? We ask canny strategists for their picks, and their methods.

How Activist Bill Ackman Finds His Targets—And Makes a Pile Off Them
The hedge fund honcho, who also has had his duds, combines a composed demeanor under fire and an appetite for enormous risk.

3 Inflation Scenarios: How Bad Could It Get?
Investors could see either a 1970s-style double-digit ripsnorter, a return to a more normal level, or something in between.

From Goldfish to Whale: Can Upstart Tech Challengers Displace the Big Five?
Disrupters focused on the ‘internet of things’ could be the ones to knock over today’s kingpins. Recall the fates of IBM and other one-time heavyweights.

Good SPAC, Bad SPAC: How the Jiffy IPO Method Is Regaining Favor
Ever since the SEC’s spring crackdown, these once-popular investments have wilted. But their excesses are being leached away.

The Ultimate Diversifier: What Real Assets Are Gaining in Allocator Portfolios
Infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels, plus farmland and other natural resources, is winning new favor.

Flowering Among the Ruins: Why Emerging Markets Are Poised for a Revival
This battered asset class should benefit from a host of new developments—such as a weaker dollar.

Commodities Rise: New Supercycle or Just a Temporary Blip?
Many institutions, wary of the asset class’s notorious volatility, keep their exposure low despite raw material price climbs.

How Did Ken Griffin Get to Be Such a Big Deal?
His hedge fund firm, Citadel, has thrived for the past 30 years, thanks to his data-driven zeal—and an early start. Way early.

Will Allocators Ever Embrace Liquid Alts?
Institutional investors mostly want to direct their non-market-correlated strategies themselves, but acceptance of these retail-oriented alternatives is inching up.