Displaying items by tag: Blackrock

(New York)

Firstly, some good news for advisors, Morningstar has announced it is doubling its analyst coverage of models next year from a current 250. Within that coverage, advisors can also find the top 15 models according to Morningstar. Here are those ranked 15-11. Number 15: T. Rowe Price Active, number 14: Dimensional Tax-Sensitive, number 13: Dimensional Core Wealth, number 12: Fidelity Target Allocation Index-Focused, number 11: BlackRock Target Allocation Tax-Aware ETF.

FINSUM: A nice diverse group of models with a lot of different focus areas. Great start for further research.

(New York)

Morningstar has added a lot of coverage to their model portfolio universe this year. Earlier in 2021 they expanded their coverage of ratings to 1500 model portfolios, an increase of 50%. Of all those funds reported on, only two of them took home their coveted gold rating: the Vanguard CORE series and the BlackRock Target Allocation ETF. Vanguard was noted as having highly diversified index funds and rarely making portfolio changes. Other funds that got acclaim, such as their silver rating, include American Funds Growth & Income and the American Funds Tax Aware Growth & Income series.

FINSUM: The world of model portfolios has grown nearly as dizzying as that of ETFs so these Morningstar guides are a big help.

(New York)

In an eye-opening “expose” type article, for CIO of Blackrock’s ESG division went on the record saying that ESG was largely just hype and had little substance behind it. According to former CIO Tariq Fancy, “In truth, sustainable investing boils down to little more than marketing hype, PR spin and disingenuous promises from the investment community”. The comments ran in USA Today on March 16th.

FINSUM: The reality is a little more complicated. ESG does suffer from a great deal of greenwashing, and firms—at first—did little to genuinely integrate ESG into their decision-making. Over time, they have taken greater account of real ESG factors in investment selection, but at the same time much of what constitutes “ESG” and “green investment” is muddled and unclear. There is a reporting issue that the whole industry suffers from—there is not enough data to separate good from bad companies—and thus much of the investment selection gets generalized according to industries (e.g. tech is good, energy is bad), which is so broad as to be almost useless.

(San Francisco)

For a lot of people, BlackRock brings two things to mind: fixed income and ETFs. Therefore, the firm making a bold call about a handful of single name stocks comes as somewhat of a surprise. However, BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world and is also a leader in equities. The call they are making today is that big tech companies are looking strong and likely to keep seeing price expansion. On the one hand, this is a very easy call to make given tech stocks have been soaring, but on the other, it is somewhat of an interesting and risky call because many fear FAANGs can really only go down in the short-term. BlackRock says that the cash flow producing abilities of tech companies (a factor proven to be vital in this downturn) will be critical to their continued success.

FINSUM: There might be some short-term tailwinds, but in our view, big tech companies are going to keep moving higher because this crisis has created a huge opportunity to grab market share as more of life moves online.

(New York)

Despite all the worries that plagued the market this year, things have actually been very strong. Exceedingly so. But don’t expect that any longer, says Blackrock. The world’s largest asset manager expects returns in 2020 to come way down. The firm says that the big changes in monetary policy this year outweighed the geopolitical issues and caused huge returns, which won’t happen next year. Blackrock thinks returns in the mid single digits in 2020 seem realistic.

FINSUM: This is sort of a middle of the road call in terms of forecasted numbers, but we like the summary of what happened this year and how next year’s performance is not likely to be duplicated.