Wealth Management
Cryptocurrency is making its way into retirement accounts, but it's not the right fit for every investor. Crypto IRAs, also known as bitcoin IRAs, allow individuals to hold digital assets like bitcoin and ether within tax-advantaged accounts.
While these accounts offer potential tax benefits—especially within a Roth IRA—they come with high fees, regulatory uncertainty, and extreme price volatility. Unlike traditional brokerage firms, crypto IRA providers operate under different standards, adding another layer of risk.
Some investors may find bitcoin ETFs a lower-cost alternative to direct crypto ownership within an IRA. Regardless of your approach, diversification remains crucial to balancing the risks and rewards of crypto in a retirement portfolio.
Finsum: Crypto is a very good alternative to integrate into the portfolio, but most investors either over or under index so be careful when integrating into your portfolio.
JPMorgan Chase is committing $50 billion to finance riskier companies backed by private equity as it expands into private credit. The bank has already deployed $10 billion across more than 100 deals since launching its direct lending push in 2021.
Traditional lenders, including Citigroup and Wells Fargo, have formed partnerships with private credit funds, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley rely on their wealth management divisions. JPMorgan's move reflects the sector’s rapid growth, fueled by insurers, pensions, and sovereign wealth funds seeking higher-yielding investments.
Private credit has increasingly replaced traditional debt markets, especially during market downturns, prompting banks to reclaim lost ground. While demand fluctuates with market conditions, JPMorgan aims to bolster its role in this evolving financial landscape.
Finsum: Banks are making a huge splash in the recent PC market and its worth monitoring how it evolves.
The transition away from zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) wasn’t painless, requiring sharp rate hikes and a challenging bear market before monetary conditions began resembling pre-2008 norms. Now, with higher government bond yields, investors have a genuine risk-free income opportunity, prompting a rethinking of portfolio strategies.
Angelo Kourkafas of Edward Jones suggests that as cash yields dip below bond returns in 2025, bonds are poised to outperform, restoring their historical role in balanced portfolios.
While trade policy uncertainty could complicate this outlook, he expects Canadian bond yields to stay rangebound, with income rather than price appreciation driving returns. He sees this fixed-income strength complementing a more measured equity rally, with a diversified stock-bond mix offering steadier returns in the year ahead.
Finsum: Oversized cash positions, could become a portfolio drag, especially for conservative investors who could lock in reliable income with bonds.
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The rise of separately managed accounts (SMAs) is reshaping the financial services industry, shifting brokers from commission-driven sales to fee-based consulting focused on long-term client relationships. However, this transformation remains incomplete, as many advisors misuse SMAs, treating them like expensive mutual funds rather than customizing portfolios for individual needs.
Despite SMAs' advantages, such as tax-loss harvesting and tailored asset allocation, few brokers fully leverage these features, with customization rates alarmingly low. A significant hurdle is inadequate diversification, especially as lower account minimums make it difficult to properly spread investments across multiple managers and styles.
To address these challenges, brokers need better training, more robust technology platforms, and a commitment to understanding both their clients and their investment managers.
Finsum: Ultimately, success with SMAs requires not just offering the product, but delivering ongoing service, customization, and disciplined portfolio management—a shift that, while slow, seems inevitable
After years of low volatility, foreign exchange trading is roaring back to life. The currency desk, once overshadowed by stocks and bonds, is thriving as global interest rate policies diverge and trade tensions resurface.
Optiver’s FX volumes have doubled since 2024, prompting a shift to 24-hour operations, with new hires and strategic relocations to meet surging demand. Banks are also rebuilding their currency trading teams, recruiting veterans from the 2008 financial crisis alongside fresh talent eager to navigate the revived market turbulence.
Hedge funds are fueling the momentum, with record-breaking activity in Asian currencies and a renewed belief that FX can add real value to portfolios.
Finsum: Whether this marks a long-term shift remains uncertain, but for now, the “sleeping giant” of foreign exchange has undeniably awakened.
China’s new tariffs on U.S. energy imports are expected to hit the metallurgical coal market the hardest, given its role in steel production. While crude oil and LNG trade between the two countries is small, with minimal global disruption anticipated, U.S. coking coal made up nearly 12% of China’s seaborne imports in 2024.
If these tariffs make American coal uncompetitive, China’s steelmakers will need to turn to other suppliers, most likely Australia and Canada. This shift could force China to pay a premium, as these countries already have strong demand from India, the largest global importer of coking coal.
A reshuffling of trade routes might occur, with China buying more Australian coal and India offsetting that by sourcing more from the U.S., though not without some initial price volatility. As coking coal prices have been falling, Australian exports could gain a pricing edge if Chinese buyers pivot, while U.S. producers might face challenges securing alternative markets.
Finsum: Pay attention to the commodities circuit, as tariffs start to take hold, retaliatory efforts could spawn ways to generate alpha.