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Tag Archives: Financial Advisor

Nov 4, 2016

Advisors Managing Interest Rate Risk With Municipal Bond Indices and ETFS

Given that our crystal balls are opaque for predicting interest rates, I thought it would be interesting to continue my interview with two financial advisors about managing interest rate risk in the municipal bond asset class. Matt Papazian is founding partner and CIO at Cardan Capital Partners of Denver, Colorado, and Tom Cartee is a…

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Feb 24, 2016

Watch Your Weight: How a Few Stocks Can Tilt the Scales

Not all indexes are created equal. That’s because they weight the individual holdings differently. Market-cap indexes provide the largest weighting to the largest holdings regardless of fundamental characteristics, whereas fundamental indexes break the link between price and weight. With the proliferation of smart beta strategies, investors have more access and choice to select alternative weighting…

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Jun 19, 2015

The Small Respect it Deserves

Some indices are favorites of mine.  It might be better for me to be agnostic and dispassionate.  But I can’t help myself when it comes to the S&P SmallCap 600.  As far as indices go, size does matter, and in the case of this index, being small comes with quite a bit of swagger. I…

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May 29, 2015

So Alpha is a Myth? A Mix of Skepticism and Conviction on our Passive vs Active Research

I recently moderated a global webinar for financial advisors on the topic of S&P DJI research on passive versus active investing.  Presenters on the webinar included Aye Soe, our Head of Global Research & Design, Rick Ferri, Founder and Managing Partner of Portfolio Solutions, and Antoine Lesne, Head of ETF Sales Strategy in EMEA for…

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Apr 20, 2015

The Empowering Ability to be Selective in Emerging Markets

With a recent webinar on China, an ETF.COM article titled “Global Investors Plan To Shun Emerging Markets” caught my eye.  The article, written by Rachael Ravesz, noted that 29% of the 4,208 investors surveyed by asset manager Legg Mason planned to move money from Emerging Markets into Developed Markets.  The article shared a few reasons…

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Mar 23, 2015

Is Diversification Insufficient?

Oil price shocks and a revisit of deflationary concerns in Europe are just some of the “gifts” the New Year has brought in 2015 to increase volatility in global financial markets.  The concern for financial advisors is that loss of invested capital may come with volatility if there is a need or a client decision…

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Mar 13, 2015

How Some Financial Advisors Embrace SPIVA®

When we began our Financial Advisor Channel initiative 5 years ago we had doubts about how some advisors would take to SPIVA.  SPIVA is our index vs active research and stands for S&P Indices Versus Active.  Published every six months, SPIVA compares S&P index benchmarks against all mutual funds of the same size and style…

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Mar 5, 2015

Don’t Lose Sight Of Sector Exposures Within Factor Indices

Broadly speaking, stocks within the same sector are often exposed to similar risk factors.  Investors with large energy sector exposures have certainly been reminded of this over the last six months.  This is precisely why segregating the U.S. equity universe by sector has been so appealing to investors over the years.  Over the last 16…

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Dec 10, 2014

How Do You Communicate Risk Management in a Year When it Doesn’t Matter?

The S&P Dow Jones Indices Financial Advisor Channel has followed the progress of Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) Strategists with interest for over four years. In fact, we have developed close working relationships with many of those firms. They are often champions of indexing; power-users of ETF use in portfolio management. Whether one tracks ETF strategists…

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Oct 7, 2014

What is risk anyway?

Through some simplifying assumptions, modern portfolio theory equates risk with volatility. In many cases, it is a “good enough” approximation: higher volatility indicates a greater probability of larger realized losses. But it also indicates a greater probability of larger realized gains. Most investors, however, are risk averse, meaning they are willing to give up some…

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