Direct indexing is in its infancy in UK and Euro area, whereas across the pond it has taken off quickly. Driving the growth in the U.S. is the ability for direct and custom indexing to accommodate the US tax system and those benefits just aren’t present in Europe. However, ESG is a well-developed market and direct indexing is turning the heads of many ESG investors for its custom approach. Experts say the institutional knowledge in Europe could make it a haven for direct indexing because larger ETFs take too simple of an approach. Morgan Stanley’s Paramterics sees a natural marriage of these industries because experts can develop more robust indices or individual investors can drop the greenwashers from the indices they are tracking.

Finsum: ESG could vault direct indexing to the investing frontier in the way that tax-loss harvesting has in the U.S.

Annuities have had rapidly growing interest in the post covid era, and this has been especially true for variable annuities. What makes variable annuities attractive is inflation and interest rate risk which will elevate their value, however, for annuities providers and insurers, this is represented as risk. In an action to mitigate those risks Aegon, the parent company to Transamerica, engaged in a buyout program that ended in January. In total 18% of annuity holders capitalized on buybacks to settle their portfolio. Transamerica also expanded its hedging strategies to ensure against interest rate and equity risk for the remaining balance of its variable annuity portfolio.

Finsum: Recent legal changes have drastically affected the insurance and annuity industry which has been key to their growing demand, in addition to the covid-19 pandemic and rising subsequent unemployment.

Active management seems to be making a comeback, and adding to that rising rates have many investors eyeing fixed income. For overall active funds in 2020 and 2021, it was a nearly a 50/50 shot that they would outperform similar passive counterparts; in other words virtually no advantage. However, research shows that passive equity has an advantage but over the past 10-years active fixed income leads the way over passive funds. In the last decade, the average bond manager beat the Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index nearly three-fifths of the time. However, fixed incomes risk mitigation isn’t captured here, and active funds have the advantage to adjust the risk factor over passive funds, carrying an additional advantage.

Finsum: The ultra-low interest rate environment has been the difference-maker for fixed income managers who have just capitalized better than passive funds.

Inflation surged to a nearly 40-year record high as the CPI index annual inflation pushed to 7.5%. This number was well above expectations and even core inflations 6% posting came in higher than consensus. In response, the Fed is going to tighten and do so significantly as regional Fed Presidents are expecting a 1% rise in the Fed Funds rate. This is a seriously hawkish turn and given there are only 3 more FOMC meetings with projections that would imply a 50-basis point rate hike possibility. The fed hasn’t hiked rates that quickly since the turn of the century. Investors are saying the Fed will want to hike by 50-basis points to keep its credibility.

Finsum: Hikes that steep could destroy the record recovery the US has had, it could lead to major windfalls in equities markets.

Technology stocks ticked up late this week which was refreshing as they have suffered since November when the Nasdaq crept to an all-time high. Rising bond yields fueled the devaluation in technology stocks because as the yield curve steepened this lowers the relative value of future cash flows which are the foundation of growth stocks. Additionally higher inflation also devalues those future earnings. However, the yield curve stagnating was enough to boost the Nasdaq by 3%. Additionally, most tech companies have surpassed expectations on earnings despite headline numbers from Meta.

Finsum: It might not take too many rate hikes to put inflation back in its place which means tech could be undervalued!