Category: Investment Methodology
188 posts categorized as "Investment Methodology"
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…
The Importance of Accessibility
January 2, 2014
Content provided by Case Eichenberger, CLS Internal Wholesaler I hit the road this last week to work with, and meet, some of our advisors in the southeast. One of the points I picked up on and that came up in each meeting was: How accessible is your company to help me? What can your firm…
Fixed Income for Higher Rates
December 31, 2013
Content provided by Marc Pfeffer, CLS Senior Portfolio Manager Now that the Federal Reserve has begun to taper, investors are looking for ways to invest in fixed income without losing money. That is nearly impossible, unless you are in a money market fund which yields next to nothing. However, there are several fixed income investments…
Get Real
December 18, 2013
Content provided by Grant Engelbart, CLS Portfolio Manager Real assets are generally defined as “physical or tangible assets that have value due to their substance and properties,” which may include commodities, real estate, and land. Real assets can be produced and/or sold by a variety of companies such as natural resource and real estate companies….
Q & A with CLS Portfolio Managers
December 13, 2013
What particular client is a fit for CLS’s Master Manager, and when they are a fit, how do we balance in our ETF expertise with other separate account securities like common stocks and individual bonds? J.J. Schenkelberg, CFA, CLS Master Manager Portfolio Manager A master manager client is someone who has an account over $500,000,…
The “Great Rotation” Flow
December 2, 2013
Content provided by Rusty Vanneman, CLS Chief Investment Officer There is a popular notion that money flowing out of bonds and into stocks will significantly propel the stock market higher in the year(s) ahead. This is called the “Great Rotation,” a term first introduced by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts back in 2011. How…
The Benefits of Bonds
November 22, 2013
Content provided by Paula Wieck, CLS Portfolio Manager How many people have you talked to lately that still feel weary of bonds? Many of us on the portfolio management and investment research teams have found that the number one concern among investors is why we are still investing in bonds. We’ve written a decent amount…
Discretionary Discretion
November 7, 2013
Content provided by Grant Engelbart, CLS Investment Research Analyst Spoiler alert…. Our upcoming equity sector commentary for October will reveal that our funds are largely underweight the Consumer Discretionary sector. Naturally, you must be asking yourself, “well why is that?!” There are a variety of reasons that we have been avoiding discretionary stocks as a…
Ignore Short-Term Noise
November 5, 2013
Content provided by Kostya Etus, CLS Research Analyst At CLS, we tend to focus more on long term trends and ignore much of the short-term noise that can cloud investment decisions. In general, markets go up more than they go down, and over the long term, there is a positive risk premium for investments. A…