AB

Best Blogs of the Week #231

Posted by Anu Heda on May 31, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , ,

Three posts make it into this week’s industry review. I’m noticing a trend across investment-oriented blog posts: stay invested in the equity market. There’s broad consensus across PM teams within asset managers to remain in equities and that no sharp decline looms. Time will tell.

AB – Dizzy over Dividends – US companies that offer high dividends are very popular among equity investors today. Shares of these companies are trading near record high valuations…

PIMCO – How to Play the Brexit Blues – Although our base case is that the UK votes to remain, we devote much time to thinking about the implications of a vote to leave. Of the two competing views on this ‒ that it will be a globally systemic event or that, while important for the UK, its impact on global markets will be contained ‒ we side with the latter.

WisdomTree – Increasing Net Buybacks with a Quality Approach –  Assuming no growth and no change in valuations going forward, an investor could expect to earn the combined dividend and net buyback yield, currently higher than the zero some prognosticators are predicting.

WisdomTree. Invested.

 

blog posts

Best Blogs of the Week #222

Posted by Anu Heda on Mar 14, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , ,

Three blog posts this week including big data, intergenerational wealth transfer, and high yield. All three are critically important for financial advisors today and thus important for the companies serving them.

AB – Tuning Out the White Noise in High Yield – This isn’t 2008 all over again. The recent sell-off looks a lot more like what the market endured in 2002.

BlackRock – What Big Data Can Tell us about the Economy– Rather than relying on a few anecdotal bits of evidence, big data allows us to measure exactly how much more frequently words like “recession” have crept back into use.

Putnam – Making inroads with the next generation – The biggest obstacle to retaining assets passed to heirs is a lack of relationship.

(Image from aforementioned BlackRock blog post)

Best Blogs of the Week #220

Posted by Anu Heda on Feb 29, 2016, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , ,

Three posts in our 220th edition related to industry blogs. Two viewpoints on a similar topic; which is very exciting (to us).

AB – High Yield: Could the 2008 Crisis Repeat Itself? – We understand why investors are concerned. Memories of the global financial crisis are still fresh in all of our minds, and sharp sell-offs like the one high yield has endured are never pleasant. But in our view, the recent turmoil simply doesn’t compare to what happened in 2008.

Franklin Templeton – This is Not 2008 – In our assessment, market fears of deflation are unwarranted. The decline in headline inflation has been driven by the collapse in oil prices, yet core inflation has been positive and stable.

Invesco – President’s budget retirement proposals: Few new, many repeats – While most ideas are repeats from past budgets, some of which have been slightly tweaked, several new provisions debuted this year.

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.

Publishing Your Consultant Relations Teams

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 30, 2015, in Thoughts , tagged with , , ,

A recent conversation with a client sparked me to look into consultant relations. And out of these six firms, I was surprised to see only JPMorgan puts faces and names for their consultant relations teams onto a public Web page. For this important constituency, I would consider making an inbound connection easier and more personable.

 Firm Consultant Relations Page # of People
T. Rowe Price Yes Unknown
Vanguard No Unknown
 AB  No Unknown
Wellington No Unknown
Northern Trust No No unified page
JPMorgan Yes 5 people