Analysts at Jefferies are warning investors to avoid small-cap tech stocks due to their high valuations and falling earnings and revenue estimates. In a note, analysts said that their current valuations of 3.4 times sales are not cheap compared to their long-term average of 2.1 times sales. They believe there are “too many nonearners” and then tend to perform poorly when the Fed is hiking interest rates. However, the analysts aren’t telling investors to avoid small-cap stocks altogether, as they like names in the healthcare and consumer-discretionary sectors, which have been outperforming. Analysts stated that valuations in healthcare stocks haven’t jumped as much as their stock performance. Plus, mergers and acquisitions have picked up in the healthcare sector, which the analysts believe could help drive performance. They also believe that discretionary stocks are the cheapest sector in the small-cap range and they tend to outperform when coming out of bear markets.

Finsum:Jeffries analysts are warning investors to steer clear of small-cap tech stocks due to high valuations and falling earnings and revenue estimates. 

The idea of customization rocks your financial world, does it? 

Well, then, direct indexing just might speak to you. 

You might that to kick things off, most direct indexing could be labelled as somewhat boiler plate, yielding access to a handful of core indexes like the S&P 500 or Schwab 1000, according to yahoo.com. Then comes the customization, with the opportunity to personalize the portfolio. How? By pruning out certain companies it contains.

The catalyst behind such decisions could be, oh, say, personal values and beliefs like leaving out fossil fuel producers gun manufacturers and alcohol, the site continued.

The degree of transparency into each holding available through direct indexing can generate additional chances to personalize investments.

Investors can scoop up the stocks of an index instead of a mutual find or exchange-traded fund through direct indexing, according to cnbc.com.

While direct indexing was once the exclusive domain of those boasting mega dollars, the mainstream’s been getting on board as well. The likes of Vanguard, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley are providing offerings to abet the ability of individuals to personalize their positions based on factors like risk tolerance.

Direct indexing will now become available to teens and young adults after the gig economy platform PettyGigs and financial API Atomic announced a partnership. PettyGigs is a two-sided platform that connects young adults with local businesses and busy professionals. Teens can perform small tasks to earn money in their free time. Atomic provides fintech companies the ability to integrate wealth management and trading into their products. This includes capabilities such as conscious investing, direct indexing, and tax-loss harvesting. Through the new partnership, users of PettyGigs, also known as "Giggers," can allocate their earnings from each Gig into a fully diversified curated portfolio with benefits including direct indexing, tax-loss harvesting, and ESG investing. The portfolio has no account minimums. The partnership will also introduce socially responsible investing to young investors.

Finsum:A recently announced partnership between Atomic and PettyGigs makes direct indexing and ESG investing available to teens and young adults.

Meantime, investors so far continue to quake over performance of fixed income assets.

The Fed’s expected to continue fueling interest rates not on through the second half of the year, but into next year as well, according to wellsfargo.com. Consequently, the degree of the yield curve inversion may top what had been the two cycles before.

Now, up to now for the year, a regular theme’s emerged: the trepidations among investors evolving around the performance of fixed income assets. Some of the top questions swirling in the noggins of fixed income investors that Wells identified: 

1. What is happening to bonds so far in 2022?
2. Why continue to invest in bonds?
3. Why is the Fed garnering so much attention this year?
4. What should investors expect from the remaining three Fed meetings of this year?
5. What does Fed quantitative tightening mean?

While some market activities are difficult project, one thing that can be pinpointed are long trends in fixed income investing, according to fi-desk.com. Why? Because we can see them and, among all fixed income managers, increasing rife with significance. 

Six trends they’re picking up on in the industry include Direct Indexing or Custom Indexing; Increased use of home office model portfolios; tax-loss harvesting in SMAs; truly optimizing rather than sequentially allocating; insisting on system interoperability; aggregating various data sources; and a shift in the Build vs. Buy debate.

--And these developments should be embraced, according to the site. “We believe these six trends are changing fixed income portfolio management for the better.”

Inflation: the omnipresent bugaboo. As it continues to hang around a 40 year high in the U.S., to offset unabated volatility In the traditional stock market, many investors are plumbing for alternative strategies, according to glovenewswire.com as sourced from yieldstreet.

Now, fortuitously, in recent years. diversity and accessibility has evolved into the name of the game in alternative investment options. Yieldstreet, among other online investment platforms, have significant ratcheted up the ease with which investors can alter direction and sprinkle critical diversification into the portfolios, the site continued. 

And there’s this: given the gaggle of strategies from which to select, all investors need do is home in on the alternative investment , such as P2P Lending, real estate or crypto, best sutured to for their specific investing style and level of risk.

So, if the stock market isn’t your cup of tea, according to investables-blog.webflow.io, seven best investment alternatives include: 

• Gold
• Real estate
• Cryptocurrency
• Art
• Wine & Liquor
• NFTs
• Watches

In the event inflation extends beyond 3%, the site added, there’s as much as a 32% uptick in art sales.  When conditions hit the skids in traditional finances, investors head to the best alternative investments. That, most of the time? Bingo. Art.