Daniel Prince

Key Takeaways: As the S&P 500® soared 17.88% in 2025, Aperio Direct Indexing harvested approximately $3B in losses across all tax-managed accounts.1 Scale and speed, dispersion, and long/short extensions are the elements of a successful loss harvesting program. With a systematic approach, tax-loss harvesting can be a year-round opportunity regardless of market conditions.

If the last few years felt a bit like walking through a casino where almost every table was paying out, 2025 has been the point in the night when the lights come up a bit and you notice the house edge again. From 2020 through 2024, the equity market rewarded almost any risk you took. In that period, more than half of S&P 500 companies delivered annualized returns above 15%, and about 90% had positive annualized returns. In other words, simply “putting chips on the table” worked unusually well.

How today’s market conditions may create tax opportunities in muni bonds Investors have long turned to municipal bonds for the potential benefit of tax-exempt income. Yet many investors may be surprised to learn they could also present one of the most overlooked opportunities for tax loss harvesting this year. Rising interest rates and persistent inflation have created favorable conditions to consider harvesting losses.