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Jeffrey Gundlach thinks the Fed's own forecast exposes a contradiction at the heart of its rate decision, and he sees the same kind of stress already showing up in the bond market for AI companies before most equity investors have noticed.

<p>Small-caps lagged their large-cap peers for over a decade in an environment dominated by the Fed put, failing to manifest any long lasting outperformance. With so much now changed, can small-cap performance this year manage to establish a longer-term trend or will it too prove to just be a temporary rotation? Find out what the industry experts think in this episode of<em> ETF Zoo</em>. </p>

Chip stocks have taken it on the chin lately, but worries about the AI trade don’t have to bring down the entire market. The S&P 500’s information technology and communications sectors fell 15% from June 1 through July 29, when the Federal Reserve announced it was holding the fed-funds rate steady, strategist Jim Paulsen wrote Monday on Substack. The overall S&P 500 ended up down less than 4%.

Financial pros have long urged investors to hold diversified portfolios—and the risk posed by stock indexes’ persistently heavy tech stock concentration has amplified those calls. Over that period, investors diversified into bond and international stock exchange-traded funds amid an uptick in inflation expectations, skepticism over companies’ spending on artificial-intelligence buildouts, and heightened geopolitical concerns. One ETF hoovering assets suggests that some investors are also diversifying by flirting with non-capitalization-weighting strategies.

With the VIX sitting near 19 after a sharp pullback from a March spike above 31, and the Fed holding rates steady at 3.75% after cutting 75 basis points over the prior year, the equity market backdrop in April 2026 sits in ambiguous territory. That makes the question of where to put $1,000 more interesting ... Energy and International ETFs Offer the Diversification Your $1,000 Deserves in 2026