Monetary policy is diverging in emerging markets with some countries keeping policy rates low and others beginning to tighten, and investors are beginning to make a ruling. Countries like Russia, Columbia and South Korea all experienced currency appreciation due to tighter policy, and certain investment classes are being rewarded. Bond markets are signaling a yield curve inversion in Russia, pricing in future rate hikes, but this has been okay for oil exports. While at the other end, Turkey saw its yield curve climb and its currency—the lira—perform poorly in October. There were mixed signals from Brazil, where the fiscal policy signaled lots of public spending. The monetary policy started to tighten to curb inflation, and as a result, markets punished the Brazilian real.

FINSUM: There are diverging schools of thought globally as to how to respond to the combination of the world’s energy crisis and the lingering Covid-19 pandemic.

Strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co see a weak market in traditional stocks and bonds coming in 2022. They say the remedy for your portfolio is in alternatives like hedge funds and real estate. It's not a small margin of victory either, JPMorgan is predicting a 6% gain in hedge funds and real estate over the traditional composition of stock and bonds. However, they are recommending investors be weary of crypto as they do expect gains but they will be too rocky to ride. In fact, volatility almost halves the value in the investment firm’s mind. JPMorgan sees macro trends dominating the funds because of a variety of factors like inflation and Fed tapering.

FINSUM: Macro hedge funds have struggled in leading up and going through Covid, but with inflation moving, the tide could be turning.

ESG has been for 2021 what the dotcom expansion was for the year 2000, but maybe that growth will fall off like tech did in the early 2000s. This month was startling for the ESG investors as debt issuance took a dive. Green bond issuance slumped 28% and other categories like social bond sales and sustainability loan offerings were down 54% and 49% (respectively) month-to-month. Annually ESG is still in a wonderful place in comparison to last year as the cumulative bonds are over $500 billion ahead when compared through the first 10 months. This volume is concerning still as investors had higher projections for 2021 than are currently being met.

FINSUM: ESG is nowhere near over but ‘faux’ green bonds could be catching enough attention to slow the ESG trend.

Earlier today, the first U.S. bitcoin ETF — the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ticker: BITO) — began trading on the New York Stock Exchange...see the full story on our partner's site

2021 has posed its fair share of risks to the average portfolio: emerging market disruption, Covid-19 resurgence, slowing economic growth, and rising inflation. However, model portfolios are the solution advisors can utilize to mitigate this risk. Often sought after for their ability for advisors to utilize in order to spend time deepening relationships with clients, a suite of model portfolios have popped up targeted to mitigate risks. For example, EQM Capital launched a variety of modular model portfolios that are risk-based ETFs to better suit clients’ portfolio objectives and preferences.

FINSUM: Model portfolios are expanding and changing in a variety of ways, and this means they can better suit their clients whether that's for their risk level or ESG expansion.