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Best Blogs of the Week

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 13, 2014, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , ,

Three great posts all touching on investing. Many FAs receive the “what’s the plan for 2014?” call early in the year, so each of these posts provide input to consider in advance of those conversations.

  • BlackRock – Usually I steer clear of currency prognostication. Personally, I think the topic is too abstract and academic for most FA – client discussions. This post links (nicely) relates currency valuation to domestic equity valuations. Helpful.
  • Invesco – Nobody wants to talk healthcare right now. And when people do, the conversation becomes very personal, very quickly. This post suggests three sub-sectors for potential 2014 investment and common-sense logic/support.
  • Oppenheimer – Succinct post on their 60/40 allocation theory.

 

Best Blogs of the Week

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 08, 2014, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with ,

Happy new year. We hope the holidays were relaxing and delicious

In this week’s post, we did not include any year-end or forward-looking posts. Those posts provide a bit too much of the predictable. So this week we found two excellent posts that simplify complicated, important issues.

  • AllianceBernstein – This post makes a nice case for looking into Emerging Markets value stocks and that broad-based EM equity indexes may be tilted to high P/E stocks with limited upside. Interesting thought after the 2013 global bull market.
  • Columbia – This post explains the Volcker rule from creation to potential impact.

Best Blogs of the Week

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 23, 2013, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with ,

The onslaught of “what we saw in 2013” blog posts peaked this week. We included our favorite plus an interesting take from a visit to California.

  • AllianceBernstein – Nice post with 4 lessons equally important for FAs and their clients. I’m partial to lesson #3.
  • MFS – Interesting take on the US economy from a visit to the Bay Area.

Best Blogs of the Week

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 16, 2013, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with ,

We are starting to get the end of year posts that include topics such as tax harvesting, capital gains’ distributions, and the importance of financial planning. Interestingly, this week included additional posts related to the US equity markets. We’ve included one related to US equities and one on 2014 planning.

  • BlackRock – Helpful 5 considerations (for both FAs and investors) for 2014
  • Pioneer – Straightforward opinion on the US equity market

 

Q1 2014 – Big Opportunity for Many

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 10, 2013, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

Has sufficient time passed to merit investing in funds clobbered during 2008? That’s the primary thought occurring to me when I read this Morningstar article. 5-year returns starting in Q1 2014 will be completely devoid of 2008 performance. I think this situation will be extremely important to asset managers. Many financial advisors are sensitive to negative returns in the 1, 3, or 5 year periods. By that first 2014 fact sheet, many funds will have no negative performing periods.

Implications? Asset managers already free and clear of negative performance and leading with that message need to evolve to something different. Early next year, only positive performance can’t be the primary selling message, as many funds will also have only positive performance. Second, asset managers with newly all positive performance should resist leading with performance for the same reason: it isn’t differentiated.

I’d recommend asset managers consider using the unique time period to communicate changes to risk management practices and/or the underlying investment process to protect investors from the next market downturn. Our FA research aligns with the answers from this RIA (Ignites: subscription required) from Wescott: communicating process and underlying portfolio changes trumps boasting about performance.