According to a recent survey of active retail investors conducted by Opinium on behalf of Lansons, educating affluent investors on alternatives could lead to huge inflows. Lansons, a leading independent reputation management consultancy, partnered with strategic insights agency Opinium to conduct a nationally representative survey of 1,832 Americans. The survey found that a majority of Americans are unfamiliar with digital platforms that offer access to alternatives. Eighty percent have either never heard of these platforms or don’t know much about them. However, educating these investors could be the key to unlocking massive inflows as investors are certainly open to investing in them. Based on the results of the survey, 20% of Americans would strongly consider investing in alternatives and 7 percent are already planning to do so. In addition, active investors would be willing to allocate 25% of their portfolios, on average, to alternatives. These figures represent more than $1.3 trillion in potential investment. In addition, the current market conditions could provide an opportunity for the industry to educate investors about alternatives as nearly half (47%) of the survey respondents expressed extreme concern about the impact of inflation on their investments. Alternatives such as gold and real estate are generally considered hedges against inflation.

Finsum:If a lack of knowledge on alternative investing could be remedied, alternatives could see massive inflows. 

Wells Fargo continues to bolster its recruiting efforts with the addition of four Morgan Stanley advisors generating close to $5.6 million in annual revenue. The largest of the hires is Steven Esposito from Lake Forest, Illinois, who moved to Wells Fargo Advisors’ independent Financial Network channel. He managed $435 million in client assets and generated $2.8 million in annual production at Morgan. Esposito, a 39-year industry veteran, has worked at six firms, including Morgan Stanley for the past 14 years. Roni Murshad, a 20-year-industry veteran from Gaithersburg, Maryland, also made the move from Morgan to Wells FiNet. The advisor managed $79 million and generated $860,000 in annual production. Murshad, who began his career at Morgan Stanley in 2001, left after five years, and spent six years at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, before returning to Morgan in 2012. In addition, two advisors from Westlake Village, California moved their team from Morgan to Wells Fargo. Howard Lee and Terri Lane managed $400 million and generated $2.1 million in annual production at Morgan. Lee started his career at Lehman Brothers in 1964, while Lane worked at six firms with stints at UBS and Bear Stearns, before joining Morgan Stanley.

Finsum:Wells Fargo bolsters its ranks with four Morgan Stanley advisors generating close to $5.6 million in annual production.

Asset managers and retirement plan advisers should be aware of how they are managing and presenting ESG funds. According to analysts at Fitch Ratings, recent regulatory actions are likely to continue into 2023. For instance, last week, Goldman Sachs paid the Securities and Exchange Commission $4 million to settle charges of failing to correctly incorporate ESG research into investment procedures and branding. In another example, on May 23, a BNY Mellon Investment Adviser paid a $1.5 million penalty for misstatements and omissions about ESG representation in mutual funds. In a press release on Tuesday, Fitch said “These types of charges are likely to continue as the SEC looks to crack down on greenwashing.” Fitch also noted that these types of charges can “lead to reputational damage that can weaken franchises, particularly if they occur repeatedly.” Earlier in the year, the SEC proposed updates to fund naming rules and a new mandatory disclosure related to ESG investment practices. Fitch said the agency’s actions have resulted in asset managers being more conservative regarding their ESG messaging.

Finsum:With regulatory actions on ESG greenwashing expected to continue, asset managers need to be more conservative with their ESG credentials.

According to data from the financial technology platform 55ip, a record number of financial advisors are taking advantage of tax-loss harvesting opportunities for their clients. Data from its platform revealed that across client portfolios through Q3, the 2022 YTD tax savings benefit for model portfolios of ETF and mutual funds was 2.99%. Going back to 2020, the annualized tax savings across clients in model portfolios on their platform was 2.82%. The tax savings illustrates the value of ongoing tax loss harvesting within client portfolios throughout the year, compared to those not harvested for tax losses. 55ip, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, offers advisors trading and rebalancing capabilities, in addition to automated, personalized, and optimized tax outcomes. Paul Gamble, Chief Executive Officer of 55ip stated “The growth of model portfolios is one of the fastest growing trends in asset and wealth management, but concerns about the tax implication of transitioning and managing client accounts have been a major barrier to broad use by advisors. Volatile markets can be emotionally and financially challenging for investors, but our data indicates they can also present potential opportunities for meaningful benefits from a tax perspective.”

Finsum:Based on data from 55ip’s platform, a record number of advisors are implementing tax loss harvesting in their clients’ model portfolios.

CEOs of top U.S. energy companies are speaking less about climate and carbon emissions, according to a Bloomberg analysis of quarterly conference calls held by 172 American oil and gas companies. The data showed how terms such as “climate change”, “energy transition” and “net zero” have been coming up with less frequency in recent conversations with analysts and investors. For instance, in fossil fuel suppliers’ conference calls this quarter, the use of language that alludes to environmental, social, and governance topics was down by more than 40% from peak levels in 2021. In fact, mentions of the terms “climate change,” “energy transition,” “emissions,” and “renewables” have all decreased. The analysis was based on an automated search of terms related to ESG issues in transcripts of quarterly earnings calls from publicly traded energy companies that hold calls in English. Prior to this year, energy companies were under pressure to slash greenhouse gas emissions, which led to a spike in discussions about ESG. But with fossil-fuel profits now soaring, ESG mentions have fallen, signaling that the industry’s focus on ESG might be fading.

Finsum:With fossil-fuel profits soaring, U.S. energy CEOs are speaking less and less about ESG.

According to the Wall Street Journal, investor home buying has fallen 30% over the past year due to high prices and rising interest rates. The Journal cited Redfin data that showed companies bought 66,000 homes across 40 markets in the third quarter of 2022, a 29% drop from the 94,000 homes bought during the same period last year. The declines come after a two-year period in which investors piled into the US housing market as the demand for suburban properties rose. While investors were buying one in every five homes at the start of the year, a combination of rising rates and elevated prices is driving the slowdown. The Federal Reserve tightened rates from near zero in March to a current range of 3.75% to 4%, which pushed mortgage rates higher and curbed demand. The interest rate hikes were in response to escalating inflation. In addition, house prices have remained the same in many areas of the market despite the fall in sales.

Finsum:Investor homebuying dropped 30% year over year due to a combination of rising rates and high home prices.

According to Bloomberg data, the iShares iBoxx $Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD) saw $3 billion in outflows on Monday, its largest one-day outflow since the fund’s inception twenty years ago. The exodus was quite the reversal for LCD as the ETF saw six straight weeks of inflows. The fund was up 9% between October 20th and Friday, with investors pouring money back into credit with the hope that the Fed might slow down the pace of rate hikes. However, those hopes fell as St Louis Fed President James Bullard warned that “markets are underpricing the risk that the central bank will have to be more aggressive rather than less aggressive.” In response, LQD dropped 0.7% on Monday, its worst performance in over a month. As of Monday’s close, the ETF was down 19% for the year, its biggest loss ever. Peter Chatwell, head of global macro strategies trading at Mizuho International told Business Insider that “The fund’s recent rebound likely exacerbated the withdrawals as year-end approaches. Clearly, at this time of year, some money gets taken out of the market, particularly if performance has recently been strong, which with LQD it has.”

Finsum:LQD saw its largest one-day outflow ever as St Louis Fed President James Bullard warned that the Fed will need to become more aggressive, not less aggressive.

China has more than protests on its place these days; it’s also ratcheted up its standards on requirements for ESG disclosure, according to linkedin.com.

The country’s banking and insurance regulators sent its most powerful signal to date that supporting the green economy also should be on the plates of banks insurers. New guidelines were introduced by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission making it incumbent upon on banking insurance entities to set forth strategies, processes and capacity to abet the transition to a sustainable future.

Typically, these measures change the duties of investors to blend ESG factors into investment decisions and stewardship and keep in mind beneficiary or client sustainability preferences. What’s more, they must report to their beneficiaries or clients.  

Since the growth of China’s ESG market works in conjunction with the development of the country’s green finance market, when it comes to ESG policy, it’s a no no to talk it over if the evolution of the country’s green finance policies aren’t kept in mind, according to sixthone.com.

Any luck, model portfolios aren’t especially attention adverse. It would help since they, along with technology upgrades and direct indexing increasingly are the cat’s meow among a growing battalion of advisor practices, a recent report found, reported pegasus-one.org.

And, hey, when it comes to model portfolios, take time to peruse the instructions. That’s because, the portfolios, when used the right way, can do a good job freeing up the time of advisory firms, allowing them to dig in more on other responsibilities, according to the findings of “The Cerulli Edge ― US Advisor Edition.”

Model portfolios should give advisors more time to devote to other advanced and financial planning capabilities, Cerulli said.

Among larger advisory firms, model portfolios probably will be adopted for small client accounts with assets on the lower end of the spectrum. That way, the report said, advisors will be able to focus on clients generating nose bleed level numbers. 

A strong catalyst for model portfolio adoption will emerge from the industry’s gradual segue in the direction of a financial planning oriented service, the report stated, according to napa-net.org.

Holly Framsted, ETF director at Capital Group, home of the American Funds, thinks that advisors and tax professionals shouldn’t overlook the role that actively managed fixed-income ETFs can play in tax loss harvesting. Tax loss harvesting is a strategy that involves selling investment securities at a loss to reduce federal capital gains taxes. Framstead notes that typically, investors will turn to the equity markets for tax loss harvesting, but with the bond markets also experiencing losses this year, fixed income should be considered part of the strategy. In an article for Bloomberg Tax, she wrote, “To realize capital losses through tax loss harvesting, investors must not purchase the same or a substantially identical fund or security for 30 days after the sale. During this time, cash raised from the sale of securities can be reinvested in strategies that are different from those that generated the loss.” She believes that the differentiation that active ETF strategies provide relative to other funds “may make them a compelling investment during the wash sale period as a way for investors to maintain exposure to a changing market while still booking losses.”

Finsum:Capital Group’s ETF director recommends incorporating active fixed-income ETFs into a tax loss harvesting strategy to take advantage of the differentiation that they provide.

Category: Bonds: Total Market

Keywords: active etfs, ETFs, fixed income, tax loss harvesting