Most fixed income ETFs used to be linked to passive tracking products in the bond market, that is until more recently. Rules Adopted by the US SEC have steered many investors to active fixed income by making it easier to launch new active ETFs. Active funds are attractive for ETF producers because they draw higher fees (about .2 percent) than active funds. This has led to an explosion in active fixed income. Active bond fund creation is growing at nearly double the rate of the rest of the ETF market, and investors are ready as well as 2021 saw a record pace of inflows. One big factor in shifting more investors into active fixed income is aging global demographics which are still searching for yield and income.

Finsum: The world’s aging population is creating a safe asset shortage and pushing bond prices higher.

One of the biggest criticisms of model portfolios is that they are opaque black boxes that investors are worried about, but BlackRock could be shaking things up. A new suite of actively managed model portfolios will be registered on the Nasdaq Fund Network. The models will be available across a variety of ‘themes’ and will be registered with six-character symbols. NFN will dismantle statistics and strategy to increase transparency for the Models. Model portfolios were once an obscure investment but they are growing in popularity and hopefully building a better bridge to advisors and portfolio managers.

Finsum: This is a big step for models and will hopefully increase confidence in them as a product with investors.

Crypto could be a stress inducer when it comes to managing their tax solutions. However, a variety of portfolio products help investors navigate their digital wallets, track crypto investments, and manage their tax solutions. These portfolio trackers can help investors navigate the nuanced complexities in capital gains taxes that are constantly evolving. CoinTracker, TokenTax, and CoinLedger are all great crypto portfolio managers. TakenTax really lets investors take advantage of tax loss harvesting to optimize their crypto portfolio.

Finsum: Cryptos wash rule differences should incentivize investors to take advantage of tax loss harvesting.

Direct indexing is one of the fastest growing market segments and investors surveys confirm that customization is king of the modern landscape. Curulli Associates forecasts that direct indexing will grow faster than ETFs and mutual funds. Custom indexing has a legg up on traditional ETFs when it comes to volatility because investors can harvest losses as the market takes dips. With traditional ETFs investors have to just eat the losses as they slow the long run growth of the fund, but micro dips can be maximized by taking advantage for tax purposes, say industry quants.

Finsum: It's clear that direct indexing has advantages over traditional ETFs, but even when compared with their fees the tax savings is worth it for direct indexing strategies.

The mainstream financial world is all over the place when it comes to crypto however, Bridgewater Associates is planning on increasing their exposure to digital assets. The firm has made it clear they have some small investments in crypto, Dalio himself advises investors to allocate a small portion of their portfolios into crypto. It will most likely only be a small portion of their $150 billion portfolio but it is in phase 1 of 2. Marshall Wace, Point72 and Brevan Howard have all made crypto investments in the last year.

Finsum: Biden’s most recent crypto executive order legitimizes crypto in many investors eyes because it brings it into the traditional realm.