Best Blogs of the Week
In a week that began with a new French leader and ended with a $2B headlines, the industry blogs covered a numerous topics. We thought two blogs were particularly interesting.
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Best Blogs of the Week
This week we have three posts from two firms.
- BlackRock – Think you can isolate from China, think again. This post discusses who an improving Chinese economy is good for the entire world.
- BlackRock – This interesting post is a Q&A on the affect gender has on selecting and working with financial advisors.
- Wells Fargo – Also a Q&A, this post shares some of the underlying drivers to today’s fixed income market.
Best Blogs of the Week
From last week’s blogs, I gleaned very interesting posts in different areas of asset management
BlackRock – In this post, Sue continues the walk-through of her FA search. I think understanding her process can be exceptionally helpful to any FA looking to increase their client base.
Russell – This post walks through investing with respect to political change. I feel like I’ve already read too many posts about the upcoming election and dramatic impact everyone should expect. Natalie does an excellent job of calming the waters and maintaining a longer time horizon.
Best Blogs of the Week
on Apr 23, 2012,
in Best Blogs of the Week
, tagged with Columbia Threadneedle, Pioneer, Russell, Wells Fargo
Four interesting blogs taken from the 80+ blog entries posted over the last two weeks.
- Columbia -This post supports the idea that the best-rewarded investors are the ones that avoid timing investments. From our FA proprietary research, we hear FAs say this theme comes up time and again.
- Pioneer – We all like to know “worst case” scenarios. Well this post provides a succinct list of potential worst cases for the US economy. It’s such a strong post because the author reminds and enables advisors to discuss these topics with their clients. And those clients will appreciate knowing “worst case.”
- Russell – This time of year, there’s a lot of tax-related blogging. This post provides a helpful chart and investing tie-in when contemplating the potential tax changes.
- Wells Fargo – Gasoline. The TV talking heads, politicians, and economic pundits talk about gasoline prices too much. But this post provides logic (and two charts!) around what to consider if prices increase.
Marketing Alternatives: The Importance of Education (Part II)
Second in a series of posts about marketing alternative investment vehicles to financial advisors. Check out the first post here.
Last week I made the case for why educating advisors needs to be a focus for any investment manager attempting to market alternative investments.
Today I’ll make the case that I was wrong. And I’ll start, again, with a graphic:
from Rydex | SGI via getalts.com
The above is from Rydex | SGI’s getalts.com, and it communicates a nearly-identical message to the one from Natixis I referenced last week. Namely, that alternatives can enhance portfolio returns while reducing volatility.
This story sheds light on a major reason not to expend a lot of effort on educating advisors about alternatives: everyone is broadcasting a similar message. While often viewed as table stakes in messaging alternatives, the fact is that it’s very tough to stand out when it comes to the basic “Why Alternatives?” conversation.
Besides sameness, two other reasons support focusing efforts away from education:
- Distribution partners will get more picky. Yes, distributors need help educating their FAs, but they’re also seeing an influx of similar materials. We’ve had a few managers tell us they’ve gotten lukewarm responses to educational offerings. I think that’s in part because there are many already out there. Not every firm can be a go-to resource for informing advisors.
- Usage of alternatives is concentrated. This is the exact same statement I used to justify including education as a core marketing component – because so many FAs are dabblers. The converse, and also valid, view holds that there’s no point in focusing on the dabblers. Instead, flows to alternatives will come primarily from the 10-20% of FAs who are heavy users, at least for a while. And they are the ones that don’t need the education.
Given that most firms have limited marketing resources and a finite slice of advisors’ attention, it’s perfectly justifiable to focus on the proprietary aspects (e.g., firm, strategy specifics) of the alternative story at the expense of educational content.
Ultimately the importance of education when it comes to marketing alternative vehicles presents a tricky situation for firms. In the next post, I’ll address the mixed messages being provided on how alternatives should be used in clients’ portfolios.