FINSUM
Cerulli Research highlights how the growing wealth of retail investors is pushing advisors to prioritize tax efficiency, with ETFs becoming an increasingly attractive structure. ETFs offer significant tax advantages, such as low turnover and minimized capital gains distributions, making them particularly appealing in today’s uncertain economic climate.
As a result, Cerulli expects more separately managed account (SMA) assets to shift into ETFs, driven by both tax benefits and operational efficiencies. High net worth advisors are also focusing more heavily on tax planning, with the percentage offering tax guidance rising sharply in recent years.
Despite the $2.7 trillion currently held in SMAs, advisors are steadily increasing their ETF allocations, especially at larger practices. However, barriers like the high cost of launching ETFs mean wealth management firms will need scale — and may increasingly turn to white-label providers for help — to fully capitalize on this shift.
Finsum: Separately managed accounts could definitely see a spike in popularity in the coming years given technological ease.
American Energy Fund (AEF) has broadened its asset-backed investment lineup, opening access to domestic oil and gas projects for qualified investors. The new opportunities include ventures in the Permian Basin and North Texas, featuring on-site briefings and a focus on operational transparency.
AEF believes that in today’s turbulent markets, energy investments are regaining appeal as a reliable asset class. These offerings are limited to accredited investors, meaning participants must meet specific wealth, income, or professional standards set by financial regulators.
By tailoring these opportunities to sophisticated investors, AEF aims to blend performance, visibility, and compliance into its energy investment strategy.
Finsum: The current administration is no doubt making it friendlier for the energy sector, but will tariffs hinder any regulatory ease.
The rapid growth of open-end funds investing in illiquid assets—like real estate, private equity, and credit—has introduced both opportunity and fragility, particularly due to stale pricing risks that can lead to wealth transfers between investors.
Research shows that these funds often experience artificially smooth and lagged returns, which can mislead investors about actual performance and risk, enabling NAV-timing strategies that exploit predictable price movements. Spencer Couts and colleagues developed a more advanced return unsmoothing method to correct for spurious autocorrelation and better measure fund risk and performance, especially in highly illiquid private credit funds.
However, interval and tender-offer funds help manage these risks by limiting capital flows and allowing managers to avoid forced sales or purchases of illiquid assets.
Finsum: Pooling capital through regulated open-end structures with controlled liquidity offers a more stable way to invest in illiquid markets.
Blackstone beat first-quarter profit expectations, with distributable earnings rising 11% to $1.41 billion, or $1.09 per share, fueled by strong private equity and credit business performance. Despite the earnings beat, CEO Stephen Schwarzman cautioned that rising market volatility—driven largely by tariff uncertainty—may slow down asset sales in the near term.
The firm brought in $61.64 billion in inflows, with nearly half directed toward its credit and insurance segment, pushing assets under management to $1.17 trillion. While the private equity division posted a 13% increase in earnings thanks to $6.5 billion in asset sales, the real estate unit remained a drag with a 6% decline in AUM.
Schwarzman emphasized that a swift resolution to tariff disputes is vital to sustaining economic growth, echoing broader recession concerns from the business community. Despite turbulent markets, Blackstone sees potential in deploying its $177 billion in dry powder amid growing investor caution.
Finsum: Some alts will prove more fruitful in the face of tariffs but fund composition will matter greatly in the P/E space.
CAIS has launched a dedicated capital markets division to unify and expand its offerings in defined-outcome strategies, responding to heightened advisor demand for portfolio tools that balance risk and return in volatile markets.
The new CAIS Capital Markets unit consolidates the firm’s capabilities in structured notes, hedging solutions, managed referrals, and trade execution—all within its existing platform. Advisors now gain streamlined access to customized structured investments, underwritten by leading bank issuers, tailored for yield, growth, or capital preservation objectives.
The platform has seen robust growth, with a 46% year-over-year increase in advisor allocations to structured notes as of Q1 2024 and 38% of advisors planning to further increase exposure, per a joint CAIS-Mercer survey. The expansion also deepens CAIS's relationships with major partners like Focus Financial and Osaic, both tapping into the new offering to better serve advisors and clients.
Finsum; The technological advancements are really aiding in the popularity of structured notes and other less liquid products
Despite the sharp market sell-off, financial advisors say the downturn could present timely tax planning opportunities. Tax-loss harvesting—selling underperforming assets to offset capital gains or reduce taxable income—has become a key strategy as investors navigate recent volatility.
Certified financial planner Sean Lovison emphasizes this as a way to find a “silver lining” amid losses, especially since excess losses can be carried forward into future tax years. Roth IRA conversions are also gaining attention; converting traditional IRA funds during a dip allows for potential tax-free growth once markets rebound, though timing and tax implications must be carefully considered.
Additionally, the window to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2024 remains open until April 15, offering a chance to buy in at lower asset prices while securing future tax-free retirement growth.
While losses sting, this environment may reward those who act decisively on smart financial strategies.
PortfolioGPT is an AI-powered platform that rapidly constructs diversified investment portfolios tailored to an individual’s financial goals and risk tolerance. It simplifies the traditionally complex portfolio-building process, offering instant, customized solutions for both novice and experienced investors.
The platform also allows users to analyze and fine-tune their strategies, encouraging smarter, more proactive financial planning. PortfolioGPT exemplifies the growing trend of AI-driven investment platforms that automate portfolio optimization through intelligent algorithms.
Its rise reflects broader shifts in fintech and wealth management, where personalized, tech-enabled solutions are making sophisticated investment tools more accessible.
Finsum: As AI continues to evolve, tools like PortfolioGPT are poised to redefine how people approach investing and financial decision-making.
When evaluating a potential move to a new broker-dealer, it’s important to clarify key factors that will impact your control, income stability, and long-term success.
- For instance, understanding who owns the client relationships affects your future ability to manage your book of business.
- Frequent changes to the financial advisor compensation plan may signal instability, so reviewing their track record can help protect your income.
- Investigate how many practices the broker-dealer has attracted recently and why, as this reflects both its appeal and integration support.
- Assess how successful previous advisors have been at transferring their assets, since this can impact your business continuity.
- Leadership matters too—long-tenured CEOs often point to organizational stability and a consistent vision.
Finsum: Also, recent enhancements to the advisor platform to see whether the broker-dealer is investing in tools that will genuinely support and grow your practice.
When evaluating new forms of digital money, it’s essential to clarify what problems they solve and how effectively they do so. The new USDi stablecoin aims to serve as an inflation-protected form of cash by tying its value to changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) since December 2024.
Unlike traditional inflation-protected securities like TIPS, which can lose value when interest rates rise, USDi offers a form of cash that maintains its purchasing power without interest rate risk. Michael Ashton likens USDi to an inflation-linked savings account, calling it a potential “end of the risk line” for holding cash.
The coin is designed to be minted and burned based on daily CPI updates, anchoring it to real-world inflation data. However, for stablecoins like USDi to achieve mainstream use, they must overcome key challenges like merchant adoption, user-friendly wallets, and seamless onboarding to compete with familiar payment systems.
Finsum: This is a leg up in the crypto world, and a sign that creators are thinking about the relationship with traditional macro pressures.
In early 2025, target date fund (TDF) investors experienced a setback as U.S. stock markets declined sharply, with a 12% year-to-date loss driven by tariffs and fears of a market correction. For years, diversification beyond U.S. equities hurt performance, but that trend reversed as global factors began to weigh on domestic markets.
The SMART TDF Index, which models ideal TDF allocations with better risk management, has outperformed the industry standard, revealing that most TDFs are overexposed to risky U.S. assets. April’s turbulence, sparked by the April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs and further losses in the S&P 500, has intensified concerns about sequence-of-return risk, especially for those nearing retirement.
Despite historical lessons and available low-risk alternatives like the SMART Index and TSP, most TDFs remain unprepared for prolonged downturns.
Finsum: With fear dominating investor sentiment, now may be the time to rethink how TDFs protect retirement savers.