Volatility is pervading markets and many advisors may have new clients or millennial investors who haven’t experienced this volatility before. A study from McKinsey showed that trust with an advisor is highly correlated with the amount of communication with advisors. Outsourcing financial news, posts, and blogs are a way to not burn clients out. Also, you can give different avenues to communication such as emails as well as social media. Themes can also help concentrate your message and lead to better takeaways. Managing expectations in uncertainty and making sure your clients feel their goals are being addressed are crucial.

Finsum: A little communication goes a long way and investors need to understand how their portfolio is adapting and performing in high volatility. 

The ETF sell-off is rampant as a response to the wild and sudden market volatility, but its time to get rid of your fixed income funds? Some experts are saying there is a breakdown in the traditional 60-40 portfolio, but outflows aren’t present yet at the rate in bond funds. This is despite funds like AGG being down over 10% YTD. One possible reason for this is that investors are more worried about macro factors than most other factors. Over a third of advisors are worried about inflation, rates, and geopolitics whereas only one in ten are as concerned with volatility. This is could cause a shifting of flows into more stable macro flavored products like bond funds.

Finsum: We’ve said it once we can say it again, bond fund holders aren’t eyeballing returns like equity ETFs they are holding for security. 

JPMorgan is one of the few bulls it seems on Wall Street as Kolanovic says markets are just pricing in too much risk, but three stocks could be in the best position to rally. ACV Auctions is first which is a wholesale auto dealer. The revenues and the price are just a mismatch accordinding to JPMorgan. Boot Barn Holding is next with a rise in consumer spending as well as resilient profits are moving the EBITA nail for BOOT. Finally, there is Springworks Therapeutics which is a clinical research company for rare diseases. They have two prime candidates in different stages which could mean big things for their future moving forward.

Finsum: If the Fed steers its way around a recession then markets have definitely overreacted to tightening and equities could have a high upside. 

There has been a sharp uptick in the high-value bond ETF trades in the last 12-months which most investors are attributing to activity from large institutional investors. Transactions are up as much as 36% on some platforms from the previous year. This has been part of a longer more ongoing trend that has been successful for many bond funds. Since the GFC, investors have questioned the resiliency of these funds to economic downturns, but regulators and investors alike are pleased with their performance in the covid pandemic. Just as important to this is the support from the Fed and Fiscal policy to the economy. Stepping in with bond relief has helped these ETFs. Finally, the increase in investment in bond ETFs has actually led to tighter underlying spreads in bond markets themselves and reflects better liquidity.

Finsum: Many believe that over-investment in index funds could be disruptive to equity volatility over time, but it appears to be stabilizing bond spreads.

Charles Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and others are all launching direct indexing products and trying to rapidly spread the word, but are they actually right for as many people as they are targeting? They promise to be customizable, generate tax alpha, and are professionally managed. The most significant edge is definitely tax advantage, but its benefits hardly offset the energy and expense for the average consumer. However, for more wealthy individuals with large amounts of capital gains, it could be worth it. Specifically for very high short-term gains which are generated from hedge funds as an example. Here direct indexing has its most significant benefit.

Finsum: While companies are racing to create smaller minimums chances are the tax effect might not matter for those individuals, particularly with their lower flexibility, but for higher net worth clients it could be worth it.