Build Client Portfolios the Easy Way
Great news… your firm has landed new clients and is growing fast. The papers are signed, the money is in place, and now, all that you need to do is seamlessly deliver flawless, individualized portfolios for each of them that can weather the current tumultuous economy. No problem, right? If you have the right technology, it’s no problem at all.
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What Investors Need to Know About Buffer ETFs
Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are a type of investment vehicle that offer access to different themes and industries, and they’re one of the most popular asset classes available today. In 2019, ETF inflows totaled $326 billion, and that figure has already been surpassed as of September 2020. In fact, ETF inflows right now are only $144 billion short of 2017's record $476.1 billion.
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An Investors Guide to Yield
The greater the risk, the greater the reward, as the old adage goes. When it comes to yield funds, that’s mostly true. High-yield assets are for investors looking to make income from buying and holding their investments. While investor taste for risk has mostly declined with the market’s volatility, high-yield funds remain an option for those investors steadfast enough to weather the market swings.
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Defensive Investing in a Pandemic
None of us have ever lived through anything like this before. The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every corner of the globe, sickening nearly 45 million and killing more than a million worldwide. It truly is the defining story of our time and a great human tragedy.
Yet, as we all work to protect those most at risk and get through this together, savvy investors are finding novel ways to, not profit off the pandemic, but uncover new opportunities as a result of COVID-19. This is being driven by everything from increased spending on sweatpants and leisure wear, to reduced gasoline sales as commutes faded into memory, to new opportunities for the grocery sector thanks to at-home food prep. These trends and others have formed the foundation of new defensive investment plays.Read more
Everything Investors Need to Know About Actively Managed ETFs
Over the past 20 years, ETFs have become an increasingly popular alternative to traditional mutual funds. They’re easy to access, trade like stocks and available to all investors no matter how much they want to invest at any one time. And, while passively managed ETFs have become increasingly popular as an investment tool, there’s more to the ETF asset class than just passive funds.
ETFs simply aren’t one-size-fits-all.
FINSUM + Magnifi: Vanguard Launches New Bond ETF with Custom ESG Strategy
(September 2020)
ESG has been flourishing since COVID began. ESG and COVID era investing naturally align—at their core, both are about risk mitigation. However, the challenge is figuring out the best way to invest in ESG. The whole area is vague. There are many funds to choose from, but the way fund providers separate good companies from bad is complicated and often opaque. To this environment, enter a new fund from Vanguard, the Vanguard ESG U.S. Corporate Bond ETF. The fund covers the broad corporate bond space with an ESG lens, but does so with a very well-defined methodology. The fund is using an ESG index specially developed by MSCI and Bloomberg. The index uses a “exclusionary screening process” which filters out companies involved in various vice industries, gas, GMOs, oil, thermal coal, firearms, and anything nuclear-related.
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How to Build Client Portfolios in a Time of Uncertainty
One by one over the years you met new clients, shook their hands, and they entrusted your firm with their investments. Slowly, word got around and your portfolio grew. In January of 2020, before the world was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, years of progress and growth seemed like the norm.
All was well.
Building a Reliable Retirement Income Stream
What will life be like in the days, months, and years after you retire? A lot of that depends on the income that you have after you stop working. That’s right, there’s more than one income stream that all near and far future retirees should cultivate, starting now.
What Investors Need to Know About Minimum Volatility Funds
When the economy tanks, most people don’t rush to spend the cash left in their wallets on lottery tickets. So, why is “more risk equals more return” still such a common investing misconception?
FINSUM + Magnifi: How to Separate Good ESG Investments from Bad Ones
(September 2020)
Anyone who has invested in ESG will be well aware that under the surface, things can get quite murky. Most ESG funds—especially ETFs—hold stocks that many would never consider to be “green”. For example, oil and utilities companies. Therefore, it is important to understand that ESG ratings vary widely and are provided by a number of companies. This means that even funds who don’t advertise as being ESG-focused often have high scores (for example, see XLU, the popular utilities sector SPDR). Generally, there are three types of ESG funds: ESG-focused funds which use ESG as part of their security selection, impact funds that invest with a certain ESG goal in mind, and ESG sector funds. The first group is the largest by far.
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