Research
- Our team analyzes factors such as global economic conditions, political developments, currency trends and global investor sentiment to identify opportunities and areas of increasing risk. We publish a subset of our research and analysis in our monthly economic and investment outlook newsletter.
- We consider the best types of investments for accessing each asset class. For example, we believe that in the most efficient markets, such as the large cap U.S. equities markets, passive index funds or low cost exchange traded index funds (ETFs) are often a good option. The more efficient the market, the more difficult it is for an active manager to generate sufficient additional returns to justify their fees.
- Due to the lack of real time quotes in many bond markets, we believe this imperfect pricing information allows more room for an active bond manager to add value in the fixed income asset class.
- Due to a smaller number of market participants, less liquid markets, and far less sell side research in the small cap markets, this imperfect information leads to market inefficiencies that a talented active manager can capitalize on for the benefit of investors.
- Additional situations where we find value in using active managers include some foreign markets and currency markets where we can access a manager’s deep, specialized expertise.
- We also find that skilled managers of specialty funds, such as long/short funds, and multi-asset funds, have the potential to add value both by overweighting and underweighting different countries, regions, industry sectors, company sizes, asset classes and specific securities to take advantage of trends that their large, experienced research teams have identified.
- Before we add an actively managed fund to our list of funds that we are comfortable having available for use in client portfolios, we first decide what role we need the fund to fill in the portfolio. We then run quantitative screens to find the best managers for the role we are looking to fill. Once we have a short list of candidates, we perform rigorous due diligence by reviewing fund management, strategy, and operations, as well as current and historical holdings in order to select the best available fund.
- We also evaluate the correlations between our fund choices and make adjustments as necessary. Too much correlation in a portfolio reduces the benefits of diversification.
- We monitor all of the investments in your portfolio and on our watch list on an ongoing basis, and make refinements and adjustments as conditions change.
