Author: Anu Heda

Best Blogs of the Week #244

Posted by Anu Heda on Sep 06, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with Invesco, State Street, Vanguard

Three excellent posts this week including a one-year post-mortem on the flash crash (Feels like many years ago).

Invesco – One Year Later– In the wake of last year’s volatility, many market participants pinned the blame on ill-conceived regulations and a lack of price visibility. Most agreed that something needed to be done to prevent another meltdown. One year later, has anything changed?

SSgA – 3 Reasons to Take a Look at Emerging Market Debt– But it’s important to understand that EM debt and EM equity are not the same. Over the past ten years, EM debt has more than doubled the return of EM equity, but with only one third the amount of volatility

Vanguard – 40 years of innovations in indexing – And the pitch for indexing wasn’t outperformance; it was to help investors minimize the cost of investing in a broad sense. If you think about it, not being broadly diversified has a cost, portfolio turnover generates transaction and tax costs, and, of course, active management advisory fees are a cost. Indexing hits at those headwinds straight on.

Dispersion for EM Debt via SSgA (not Flash Crash)

Best Blogs of the Week #243

Posted by Anu Heda on Aug 29, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with BlackRock, Invesco, Loomis Sayles

Negative interest rates? It’s been in the news quite frequently, but the Blackrock post here explains the topic better than I’ve seen elsewhere. Along with that post, three others worth highlighting this week as we approach summer’s end.

BlackRock – How do negative interest rates work? – who would buy a negative yielding security? Obviously not investors looking for income. However, there are institutions like some insurance companies and banks who hold government bonds for specific reasons, such as to meet regulatory requirements. These investors need to hold bonds for safety, no matter what the yield is.

BlackRock – Warming up to emerging markets – Within EM equities we prefer countries showing economic improvement or having clear reform catalysts, including India and ASEAN countries.

Loomis Sayles – The Connected Consumer: 3 Key Themes – I believe the future of the automotive industry will be defined by the ‘connected car’ – vehicles as an extension of our lives.

Invesco – What will real estate’s new sector status mean for investors? – Potential benefits include increased visibility, a larger investor base and a reduction in long-term volatility. We will closely monitor the REIT market for relative value opportunities that may arise from index and ETF changes, essentially nonfundamental drivers of performance, over the short term.

What NBC (Olympics Coverage) Can Learn From Asset Managers?

Posted by Anu Heda on Aug 23, 2016, in Thoughts , tagged with Lord Abbett, Web sites

The Rio 2016 Olympics captivated my family from the opening night to the closing ceremonies. We cheered Team USA from our little corner of Brooklyn whenever possible; that’s usually after dinner. From relishing the Team USA soccer victory over France to lamenting Mara Abbot’s cruel loss cycling (my 11-year old actually began crying), we took in more than our fair share. But it’s been a struggle in some ways.

I know NBC is streaming everything and that works pretty well (though the west coast – east coast tape delay issue seems so odd to me). My biggest complaint is an inability to see a schedule per sport, per nation. This use case seems so straightforward I’ve started questioning my frame of reference. Aren’t others frustrated? For instance, my son has some interest in rugby (presumably from Cal’s annually dominant performance each May). So on day 1, I went to NBCOlympics.com looking to answer when will Team USA men’s rugby play? In my mind, this is akin to where is your mid-cap growth fund’s fact sheet? It’s a typical use case in the asset management industry. Persevering for a few minutes, I found a way, through the Rugby feed to TV listings, but that requires scrolling through days and days of matches to find Team USA’s 3 preliminary matches.

When I visit the Lord Abbett home page (click image below), I’m immediately greeted with “Documents & Forms” to the right-hand side. Two clicks later, I’m downloading that fact sheet. Why can’t I have that experience for the Olympics? Is NBCOlympics.com designed for the Millennial consumer, not a Gen X dad?

Best Blogs of the Week #242

Posted by Anu Heda on Aug 22, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with Russell

Russell – Year of the Comeback? Portfolio Diversifiers Rally in first half of 2016 – The last few years have been difficult from a return perspective, but commodities tend to run in cycles and this year’s strong start may be the beginning of a new, more positive cycle for the asset class. Even if not, it is very likely to expect that they will still deliver diversification benefits to the rest of the portfolio.

Via Russell Investments

Best Blogs of the Week #241

Posted by Anu Heda on Aug 10, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with BlackRock, Russell

The industry’s blog rate continues to slow as the summer temperatures rise. This week had multiple posts on FinTech and we included the most interesting related post, from BlackRock. That along with an interesting examination of the broad U.S. equity market (Russell) round out our best posts.

BlackRock – The expanding role of technology in financial advice – The process will be far more dynamic and interactive. We’ll be sitting in the pockets of our clients, in their phones, and ready to answer questions, all day every day.

Russell – Go where most passive investors don’t: The “left over” 77% of the U.S. stock market – Russell Investments believes that U.S. equities (represented by Russell 1000® Index) are currently overvalued – and that’s been the case for some time.