CLS Blog
New Active Methodology
February 14, 2014
Q: What is CLS’s active methodology? Pure, focused, global portfolios dedicated to a particular asset class segment, risk, or theme. These portfolios are concentrated; they will take active tilts relative to their benchmarks, and likely have higher turnover than our conventional Risk-Budgeted portfolios over time. Q: What are the differences between the active strategies and…
New Strategic Methodology Q&A
February 13, 2014
Q: What is CLS’s strategic methodology? In short, we emphasize high quality stocks and bonds. High quality stocks are those companies that tend to have higher profitability, stronger balance sheets, and higher dividend growth. High quality bonds meanwhile, are essentially Treasury bonds, including Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). Once the portfolio is established, we will not…
The Power of Delegation
February 12, 2014
Content provided by J.J. Schenkelberg Sometimes I’m a little embarrassed by this fact, I know I’m spoiled and I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to enjoy this luxury, but I’ll admit it. . . I have someone who comes and cleans our house every two weeks. Actually, we’ve had this luxury since I…
New Strategies: Q&A
February 11, 2014
Q: CLS has developed 10 new strategies, what was the driving force behind the expansion? When you walk into our building, the first thing you see on the wall is the saying “We empower investment advisors.” In short, these new strategies will help us reach out and empower more advisors to help more investors. One…
VBC’s “Always Be…”
February 7, 2014
Content provided by Rusty Vanneman, CLS Chief Investment Officer My son and I started a club a few years ago called the Vanneman Boys’ Club. It has a bunch of cool stuff, including secret handshakes, codes, and sayings. It’s all quite top-secret, of course, but I think I can share one story from a few…
A Fleeting Glimpse at Risk
February 6, 2014
Content provided by Matt Santini, CLS Portfolio Manager The Waters and Gilmour masterpiece has a very well-known lyric about a fleeting glimpse. What many people don’t know is that song, Comfortably Numb, had the working title during production of “The Doctor.” Sometimes you need a doctor to distinguish for you the difference between a cold…
Capex Outlook
February 5, 2014
Content provided by Kostya Etus, CLS Investment Research Analyst January 2014 marked the fifth year of the U.S. Capital Expenditure (capex) cycle. The cycle generally lasts four to seven years, so we are on the back end of it. Let’s look at a recap of 2013. Expected expiration of bonus depreciation (additional amount of deductible…
A New 40(bama)1(k) Plan
January 31, 2014
Content provided by Nate Wattier, Client Services Manager Despite the overabundance of parentheses in the name, the new MyRA President Obama signed into creation in January seems (for now) to be fairly simple. Who can participate? The new retirement plan accounts are designed for low- to middle-income full and part time workers that do not…
New Year, Same Plan
January 29, 2014
Content provided by Grant Engelbart, CLS Portfolio Manager I love to dig deep into the weeds and analyze industry sub-sectors, individual commodities, you name it. But sometimes it is important to “zoom out” and look at the big picture, especially when starting off a new year. There are many lessons to keep in mind for…
Top and Bottom ETFs
January 27, 2014
Content provided by Rui Wang, CLS Research Analyst 2013 was a great year for equity market in general, with the price return of the S&P 500 up 29 percent and the Russell 2000 up 36 percent. However, the MSCI ACWI ex-US index only rose 12 percent. Compared to the broad market indices, there was a…