News & Investment Updates From Midtown Financial Advisors

Most investors today do not suffer from a lack of information. They suffer from too much of it.

Headlines arrive instantly. Opinions multiply by the minute. Every economic release, policy debate, and geopolitical development gets dissected in real time across an expanding number of channels.

The question is no longer where to find market commentary but which commentary or opinion, if any, deserves a response.

The month of May was a useful illustration. Markets navigated inflation concerns, shifting rate expectations, geopolitical tension, fiscal debates, and ongoing questions about artificial intelligence and concentration risk. Underlying trends largely persisted through the noise. The gap between what headlines suggested and what markets actually did was notable, though not unusual.

This month’s Note explores the distinction between information and signal, why short-term activity often feels more important than it is, and how a systematic investing process helps separate temporary noise from lasting change.

But first, here’s a summary of the global asset classes utilized in our portfolios and their exposures for June.

The market environment over the past several weeks has been defined by speed. A sharp equity drawdown was followed by an equally rapid recovery, creating a difficult backdrop for many investors and particularly for systematic investing strategies.

In periods like this, price tends to move faster than fundamentals can be interpreted or acted upon. By the time a narrative takes shape, markets have often already moved in the opposite direction.

Moves like these can feel disorienting, as conditions change faster than most investing approaches are designed to fully capture. They also tend to expose the tradeoffs embedded in different approaches — especially those that rely on price and discipline rather than prediction.

This month’s investment update examines how our trend-following process has evolved to better navigate these environments and how those refinements influenced positioning through the recent volatility.

But first, here’s a summary of the global asset classes utilized in our portfolios and their exposures for May.