Author: Anu Heda

Best Blogs of the Week #252

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 05, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with Wells Fargo

Nearly a month after the election, the industry continues evaluating potential changes forthcoming from the President-Elect (Trumpflation) amongst over traditional blog topics.

AB – Trumpflation Risk: What You Need to Know – For anyone who is either investing or evaluating investment managers, the information ratio is a powerful key to successfully understanding manager performance. It’s powerful because it gets to the heart of measuring an investment manager’s skill.

Wells Fargo – What the information ratio tells bond investors – For anyone who is either investing or evaluating investment managers, the information ratio is a powerful key to successfully understanding manager performance. It’s powerful because it gets to the heart of measuring an investment manager’s skill.

5 Biggest Topics from Marketers at MFEA

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 04, 2016, in Thoughts , tagged with MFEA

In late October, I attended the Mutual Fund Education Alliance (MFEA) Annual Marketing Council event (Nothing better than Chicago during the Cubs run towards greatness). Over a month later, five topics have remained in my mind. If you have thoughts or questions on them, please let us know. We’d love to discuss them.

Topic 1 – DOL regulatory changes – This topic seemed most prominent as all marketers I spoke with mentioned thinking about how marketing will change as many advisors change their business models. Many discussed an inclination to begin 2017 with a renewed investment in Marketing towards platform creators and home offices in lieu of efforts in the field. Others were contemplating value-add programs as advisors become responsible for the “best interests” of clients. Nobody is taking an ostrich approach.

Topic 2 – Behavioral finance continues to mystify – Through the best-selling efforts of Dan Ariely, Richard Thaler, and the Freakonomics team, behavioral economics has become increasingly mainstream. Many were familiar with the concepts discussed during an engaging presentation by Stephen Wendel. Yet, maybe 2 – 3 attendees had any plans to use the concepts in their Marketing plans. Everyone else found the topics and accompanying anecdotes simply amusing.

Topic 3 – Measurement – This is a tough one for me to observe. We’ve discussed Marketing measurement for over a decade with no de rigeur KPIs rising to the surface. One firm may resign itself to measuring client digital activity, while another uses sophisticated longitudinal brand surveys. This one seems to be a function of budget and senior management’s mandate.

Topic 4 – Customer journey mapping – A technique long used by marketers to connect information across siloes by gaining a comprehensive view of the complete journey across communication channels has come to asset management. Presentations by Lazard Asset Management and OppenheimerFunds were received with a lot of nodding heads, note-taking and practical questions. Afterwards, I received multiple questions on the nuances of creating a journey map, leading me to believe many organizations are beyond the “should we?” and are now at the “how?” step.

Topic 5 – Technology – Seemingly everyone has invested in automation software from companies such as Marketo and Eloqua. Attendees noted paying prices and experiencing highly different implementation timeframes from one another, for the same software.

Overall, MFEA events are very worthwhile. If you have not attended, consider the events forthcoming in 2017.

Favorite Beers of Fall 2016

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 04, 2016, in Thoughts

Beers! As we head into winter, we thought to each share our three favorite beers of the fall. Let us know if you have others to add or follow either of us on untappd.

Top 3 Beers: Anu

Transmitter – PH1 Dry Hopped Sour – From a very young Queens brewery, this is an acerbic delight. It’s a sour ale but not fruity with characteristics of a malty pale ale.

Folksbier – Echo Maker – From an even younger Brooklyn brewery, I enjoy the rye bread and slightly spicy parts of this beer. It has a sufficient hop profile to sort of wash away the immediate rye flavors and ready you for the next sip.

Beers via Lost Abbey Brasserie Dupont / Lost Abbey – Deux Amis – Saison is my favorite beer style. It’s a farmhouse ale categorized with a low-hop profile (not bitter) and highly malty. This is my favorite saison for 2016; maybe my favorite new beer of 2016. Deux Amis is simultaneously a beer geek’s beer and great for new craft beer explorers.

Top 3 Beers: Mike

I’m going to cheat slightly here in that most of the fall beers I had were either forgettable or ones I’ve been enjoying for years. I also need to figure out how to make my lesser palette sound interesting compared to Anu’s notes.

Off Color– Sibling Rivalry – Let’s start with my home state and the style that got me excited about beer (tripel). One BeerAdvocate review somehow includes 14 different elements in describing the aroma and taste. I’ll just say this is an “American” tripel, which means you get a little less of the traditional sweetness, a little more hops, and still a very nice beer.

Boulevard – Bourbon Barrel Quad – Cheat #1 here, as I’ve loved this beer for years. However, I only sporadically see it in large format, 25 oz. bottles. Until now! Boulevard, an excellent Kansas City brewery, now sells the BBQ in 4-packs. The bourbon is lighter than other barrel-aged beers but a great domestic quad is a very hard beer to find.

The Bruery – 9 Ladies Dancing – Cheat #2 here, as this is sitting unopened in my fridge. On the plus side this is one of my two or three favorite breweries and is part of their awesome 12 Days of Christmas series. On the downside there is a coffee element since this beer is modeled after tiramisu. It promises to be interesting in either a very good or very bad way.

Best Blogs of the Week #251

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 21, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Wells Fargo

Favorite post of the week covers reflation (Act of stimulating the economy by increasing the money supply or by reducing taxes, seeking to bring the economy back up to the long-term trend, following a dip in the business cycle. It is the opposite of disinflation, which seeks to return the economy back down to the long-term trend.) . Less than two weeks since the election and most industry blog posts continue to describe potential changes and situations across regions and asset classes. I tend to like posts with a clear viewpoint on 1 – 2 issues.

BlackRock – Welcome to the new world of reflation – Besides the impact of aggressive fiscal stimulus that President-elect Trump has proposed, inflation expectations are rising on the back of fundamental developments that preceded the election.

BlackRock – What a Trump presidency could mean for bond markets long term – We see a potential headwind for municipal bonds.

Franklin Templeton – A Fresh Look at DOL and Retirement Issues Under Trump – Trump has a very limited, if any, agenda on retirement issues that we can determine. His advisors have been quoted as calling for the repeal of the DOL fiduciary rule, but his populist rhetoric has been largely adversarial toward Wall Street.

Wells Fargo – The investment landscape after the election – After a brief hiccup, I think the market has it right: Trump will be pro-growth. This should be good for stocks and not good for high-quality bonds.

Best Blogs of the Week #250

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 14, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with Loomis Sayles, MandG, Putnam, Russell

POTUS 45. There’s not much for me to say that hasn’t been written all over the Internet. From reading 50+ blog posts related to the election, I can affirm asset managers tread lightly with opinion. Asset managers are more comfortable with sharing the news. With that in mind, four excellent posts. POTUS

Loomis Sayles – A Trump White House: Potential Market Impacts of the US Election – Trump’s proposals are structurally inflationary, but which measures will get passed and implemented is a large unknown.

M&G – President-elect Trump. 5 predictions on what happens next in the global economy and markets – Trump may not build a wall. But even if he does, it won’t keep the robots out.

Putnam – What we might expect with a Trump administration agenda – Trump does not have any specific plans to change Social Security or Medicare. He opposes any increase in the retirement age and would oppose raising the wage base for the Social Security payroll tax.

Russell – U.S. elections 2016: Trump wins White House. Markets react. – So we don’t see this election as having a lasting impact on markets.