News Mentions & Press Releases
If the historic pattern continues following midterm elections, which have typically seen markets performing well right into the new year, many clients, and the advisors who put them into equities, could be dancing on New Year’s Eve. But whether that trend repeats or not, the happy folks on Dec. 31 will also include clients counting their losses. We’re talking about advisors and clients who were able to harvest losses during this year’s selloffs. It turns out that what used to be largely an end-of-the-year affair is now a year-round practice of aggressively looking for losses in a portfolio and harvesting them right away, not just to avoid short-term capital gains taxes in other parts of the same portfolio, but to also enhance performance. Tax-loss harvesting has become a tried-and-true process for balancing losses against gains.
Brokers with lots of black marks on their records tend to be concentrated in certain areas, and these are often the same places where you find lots of moneyed retirees. Florida’s Palm Beach County has one of the highest rates of troubled brokers, according to The Wall Street Journal, which analyzed the records of about 550,000 stockbrokers and identified 16 U.S. “hot spots.” One tactic seen in these hot spots has raised regulators’ concerns: “plate-licker” seminars to woo customers. MANAGING THE MONEY: Pimco Total Return replaced by target-date funds. Some target-date funds that had Pimco Total Return Fund among their holdings are swapping it out for other fixed-income mutual funds. According to Morningstar, among those that have chosen to replace the fund are Schwab Target mutual funds, MassMutual RetireSMART funds and Voya Solution funds. Some other target-date series are choosing to keep Pimco Total Return in their holdings, including John Hancock Retirement Living, Principal LifeTime and–naturally enough–Pimco RealRetirement. Conflicting advice creates IRA mess. On advice from another broker, a client of Tennessee-based adviser Joe Franklin transferred $765,000 from his 401(k) to a traditional IRA. That created a huge tax liability, because of a Roth IRA conversion the client had carried out months earlier, Mr. Franklin tells Wealth Adviser at WSJ.com. It required some special measures, including creation of a new Solo 401(k), to resolve the problem.
The day when financial advisers send each client a quarterly video of their updated financial performance may not be very far away. Some investment companies already are offering the technology that allows for this capability, and some are offering to do it for advisers. Chris Roberts, an adviser with United Planners Financial, over the past year has been sending about half his clients video statements provided by money manager CLS Investments, which manages most of his clients’ assets.
(Reuters) – U.S. investors who believe the dollar’s 2014 surge will continue are pouring money into exchange-traded funds that invest in foreign markets but hedge the currency part of the bet. BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), WisdomTree Investments Inc (WETF.O) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) are among the companies starting new currency-hedged funds this year to take advantage of a flow of some $3.9 billion into currency-hedged ETFs so far this year. There are now 35 U.S. listed currency-hedging ETFs managing $19.3 billion in assets, compared with only about $6.7 billion in assets in 2011, meaning total assets in currency hedged ETFs have nearly tripled over the past three years, according data from Lipper and ETF.com.
While the economy was one of the central issues that propelled Republicans to a major victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections, many financial advisors told WealthManagement.com that the GOP majority in Congress would have little, if any, direct impact on the market. “Politics has only a marginal impact at best on the financial markets, our industry, or the economy in general,” said John Kleponis, CIO of Yosemite Capital Management. “Usually the markets and the economy affect politics, not the other way around.” While admitting that there would be little direct effect of a new Congress, some advisors were cautiously optimistic that Republican economic policies could usher in a new, business-friendly climate in the U.S.
Scott Kubie has been using dividend-focused exchange-traded funds for several years. But recently he thinks these vehicles, which focus on dividend-rich pockets such as U.S. utilities, have become over-mined territory. “Investors have been buying high-dividend stocks as a substitute for bonds, even though they’re clearly not,” says Kubie, the chief investment strategist of CLS Investments. “The big question is whether or not people are overpaying for high dividends. And in a lot of cases the answer is yes.” Because dividends have historically accounted for about 40% of total stock market returns, they’re still an important part of his investment strategy. But there’s a difference between funds that simply offer the highest yielders and those whose companies can show dividend growth at a healthy clip. Kubie is now focused on the latter.
CLS Investments, LLC (“CLS”), a third party money manager and a leading manager of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), has unveiled video statements as a new client-facing tool for financial advisors. By developing a new, personalized video statement format, CLS aims to position at the forefront of what will certainly be the norm for how investors expect to receive information.
CLS Investments, LLC (“CLS”), a third party money manager and a leading manager of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), has unveiled video statements as a new client-facing tool for financial advisors. By developing a new, personalized video statement format, CLS aims to position at the forefront of what will certainly be the norm for how investors expect to receive information.
CLS Investments, LLC (“CLS”), a third party money manager and a leading manager of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), has unveiled video statements as a new client-facing tool for financial advisors. By developing a new, personalized video statement format, CLS aims to position at the forefront of what will certainly be the norm for how investors expect to receive information.
CLS Investments, LLC (“CLS”), a third party money manager and a leading manager of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), has unveiled video statements as a new client-facing tool for financial advisors. By developing a new, personalized video statement format, CLS aims to position at the forefront of what will certainly be the norm for how investors expect to receive information.