Author: Anu Heda

Best Blogs of the Week #216

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 26, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with ,

Many asset managers are starting to acknowledge and blog about a potential global recession. Here are two of the better posts related to a global recession.

M & G – What’s all this fuss about a recession? – If we’re sticking to the facts, this sell-off is way over-done. To make us worry that we are about to plunge into global recession we would have to hear more convincing explanations as to how the factors impacting asset prices are going to become net negatives for global growth.

Wells Fargo – Worried about the market? These charts can help – So far in 2016, the daily return on the S&P 500 Index has been -2% or worse three times in the span of 12 days. For perspective, the stock market dropped that many times plus one for all of 2012. The average number of days the market drops 2% or more is five times per year.

Best Blogs of the Week #214

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 11, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , , ,

Welcome to 2016. We saw decent activity over the holidays with some very well-written year in review and 2016 forecasts throughout the asset management industry.

BlackRock – What I Got Right (and Wrong) in 2015 – I didn’t consider that investors would have to pay Germany for the privilege of loaning it money for five years.

JPMorgan – 5 Realistic Surprise Predictions for 2016 – Brazilian local debt returns 40+%

WisdomTree – Major Central Banks Policy Implications for 2016 – … in assessing China’s growth potential, many focus on old economy indicators and miss out on newer economy signals.

Two other posts were excellent in supporting intermediary and institutional investors.

BlackRock – A Strategy for Managing Volatile Markets –  … we like it or not, emotions tend to drive many investment decisions and this often causes investors to buy high and sell low, which is the very opposite that we need to be doing.

Russell – Exploring the risks and challenges of generating yield – When evaluating strategies, it’s essential to consider where yield is coming from and ensure that potential risks are managed appropriately.

A Digital Commitment Within Channel

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 01, 2016, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

When you look at sites like this, what do you think? I see a firm highly engaged in selling and servicing US plan sponsors seeking input beyond their recordkeepers. I think this raises the bar for everyone else.

Why?

  1. The thought leadership throughout is expertly curated for the audience.
  2. That thought leadership comes in multiple formats: video, product materials, whitepapers and blog posts.
  3. Access to product information is visible but not overbearing.
  4. The site renders quickly and uniformly on my laptop and mobile phone.

The missing component is straightforward access to contacting the US DC team. Make no mistake, this is not unique to AB (see BlackRock and SSgA for examples). Yet, I suspect we will a proliferation of similar DC sites in 2016. Stay tuned as we’ll update the blog as we find other firms’ competing efforts.

2015 – A Year for the Content Juggernauts

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 31, 2015, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

In 2015 we saw many firms accelerate their content production. Firms like BlackRock, JPMorgan, SSgA, even WisdomTree, produced more thought leadership more frequently than in previous years. So do all firms need to produce volume like the aforementioned? No but there is some baseline of “enough” required to ensure relevancy. I’d set that bar at 10 unique pieces (inclusive of whitepapers, market commentaries, blogs, etc.) per month for a credible US retail-oriented asset manager. (Contact us and I can tell you why 10).

After reaching that level, an intriguing question to consider: what do we want our content convey? I believe high-quality content conveys a firm’s investment process and philosophy contextually relative to current global market events, in a tone and style resonant with the primary target audience. Firms focused on RIAs will want their content to convey something very different than firms primarily different channels. The first step towards designing conveyance is to understand current state. Ask does today’s content convey our process and philosophy via a unified tone and do we believe that resonates with our primary target?