Dividend paying stocks with sustainable and increasing payouts represent an attractive opportunity in today’s market, in our view. The S&P 500 Index has returned 59% from the beginning of 2023 through the end of May 2025. Growth stocks measured by the S&P 500 Growth Index have led the way with an 81% return over that period. Yet dividend stocks have lagged both indices significantly. The Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index is up only 20% during that time. We believe there are several good reasons to increase exposure to dividend paying stocks today.

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Bob Carey discusses his long-term outlook for equity markets as the baby boom generation ages. He also weighs in on potential near-term drivers of equity market performance, including tariffs, regulations, and the “one big, beautiful bill”.

Equity market volatility has surged in 2025 amid the Trump administration’s rapidly evolving tariff policies and global retaliatory measures. While volatility can be unsettling, we believe long-term investors can capitalize on market dislocations by targeting investment themes with strong secular growth drivers. In our view, U.S.-focused manufacturing and industrial stocks, many of which can be found in the First Trust RBA American Industrial Renaissance® ETF (AIRR), are well-positioned to outperform as policy uncertainty fades.

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Ron Pernick is the founder of Clean Edge, a firm specializing in thematic research surrounding clean energy, transportation, water, and the power grid.  In this episode, we discuss the evolution of these themes and how a new administration may impact their continued growth.

• Net inflows for US-listed ETFs totaled $53.7 billion in April, bringing total ETF assets under management to $10.30 trillion.
  
  
• Equity ETFs had net inflows totaling $32.2 billion in April, bringing trailing 12-months (TTM) net inflows to $806.4 billion. Active equity ETFs accounted for $16.7 billion in net inflows in April, compared to $15.5 billion in net inflows for passive equity ETFs. Total AUM in actively managed equity ETFs was $579.3 billion, accounting for 7.2% of all equity ETF assets ($8.03 trillion), as of 4/30/25.
  
  
• Fixed income ETFs had net inflows totaling $12.3 billion in April, bringing TTM net inflows to $343.1 billion. Active fixed income ETFs accounted for $1.9 billion in net inflows in April, compared to $10.4 billion in net inflows for passive fixed income ETFs. Total AUM in actively managed fixed income ETFs were $335.3 billion, accounting for 17.5% of all fixed
  income ETF assets ($1.92 trillion), as of 4/30/25.
  
  
• Commodities ETFs had net inflows totaling $3.8 billion in April, bringing TTM net inflows to $22.3 billion. Precious metals ETFs (+$3.9 billion) had the largest net inflows for the month.

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Brian Wesbury shares his views on why the Trump Administration is upending global trade, why tariffs may be an insufficient cure for problems created by big government, and where the US economy is headed for the rest of 2025.

After a strong January, the S&P 500 Index (“Index”) has now declined for three consecutive months. April was highly volatile, with the Index dropping 11.2% in the first six trading days before rebounding to finish nearly flat for the month. This marks the third time this decade the Index has posted three straight negative months-the last two instances (2020 first quarter pandemic and the early fall 2023 recession scare) were followed by sharp rebounds. 

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Bob Stein provides perspective on likely economic outcomes that may result from the evolving policy mix of the new Trump Administration.  Plus, Bob shares an early peak at potential contenders for the 2028 US Presidential election.

March was an awful month for U.S. equities as the S&P 500 Index fell almost 6%. All sectors were negative except Energy (+3.9%) and Utilities (+0.3%), while the Magnificent 7 (“Mag 7”) sectors led the rout. Information Technology (Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA), Communication Services (Alphabet, Meta), and Consumer Discretionary (Amazon, Tesla) all fell over 8% and were the three worst performing sectors.

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International equities have struggled to capture investor enthusiasm in recent years. Over the decade ending 12/31/2024, the S&P 500® Index notched a robust 13.1% annualized return, dwarfing the modest 4.8% return of the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index. Against this backdrop, U.S. equity exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) captured 87% of all equity ETF net inflows in 2024. While international stocks account for nearly half the world’s equity market cap, the average U.S. investor allocates just 8% to international stocks, according to a recent survey. However, the first quarter of 2025 showed signs that the tide may be turning for international equities, as the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index climbed 5.4%, while the S&P 500® Index shed 4.3%. Below we explore some of the factors that fueled this outperformance and discuss why we think many investors may benefit from revisiting international allocations. We then highlight two unique actively-managed international ETFs: the First Trust WCM International Equity ETF (WCMI) and the First Trust WCM Developing World Equity ETF (WCME).

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