Displaying items by tag: ETFs

Fintech firm WBI and ETF provider Pacer recently announced a strategic partnership to transform how financial advisors interact with clients to personalize and implement model portfolios. WBI offers investment technology that optimizes multi-manager portfolios that target loss or return. The platform’s interactive toolkit takes inputs from the client and assistance from an advisor and establishes client benchmarks for loss and return. The imbedded invest-tech then optimizes a portfolio to meet the client’s targets. Advisors can instantly customize the portfolio to position the client for success. Pacer is a well-known ETF firm that focuses on strategy-driven, rules-based ETFs. The two firms will work together to promote the targeted loss portfolios of WBI’s technology platform. WBI and Pacer will also look for other opportunities to partner on model construction. Matt Schreiber, Co-CEO at WBI had this to say about the partnership, "WBI is excited to work with Pacer. Their rules-based ETF offerings seek to produce strong risk-adjusted returns which are favored by the platform’s optimization engine. This partnership allows both parties to build on the momentum around our innovative products and shared mission to help improve investor outcomes."

Finsum:Fintech firm WBI and ETF provider Pacer are joining forces to promote WBI’s targeted loss portfolios that advisers can construct for clients. 

Fixed income ETFs – and non core fixed income, especially? You go. According to a survey by State Street Global Advisors, they “play an expanded role in portfolio construction” for institutional investors, stated etftrends.com.

As reported in last month, over the next 12 months, the 700 global institutional investors surveyed by SSGA plan to up their exposure to high yield corporate debt; in all likelihood, 62% will do it through ETFs, per “The Role of ETFs in a New Fixed Income Landscape.” Last year was a different story. Just 27% of investors were significantly using ETFs to expand their allocation of to non core fixed income, according to the last year’s fixed income survey.

“Our conversations with investors have reinforced what we already knew – there is significant demand for more targeted fixed income products,” said Tom Kelly, an ETF industry leader co founder. “Our initial product suites aim to create a full toolkit for high-yield investors looking to implement their specific views on the market, and we anticipate extending this approach to other fixed income asset classes.”

Now, with minds of their own, bless ‘em, younger investors are more inclined to place emphasis on total returns over income potential, according to usnews.com.

Almost on the dime, they reinvest dividends – any dividends, while investors who’ve been around the block oh, say, a time or two, might place greater importance on the possibility of greater income. For a steady income to accommodate living expenses, they could lean on their portfolios.

T. Rowe Price added to its active ETF lineup with the launch of the T. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETF (TFLR). This follows the firm’s launch of the T. Rowe Price High Yield ETF last month. TFLR invests primarily in floating-rate loans and other floating-rate debt securities. The manager, Paul Massaro, will focus on investing in BB and B-rated loans, which he believes are likely to keep volatility at below-market rates over time. He will take a disciplined approach to credit selection, featuring rigorous proprietary research and strict risk control, similar to the mutual fund version of the fund. Massaro had this to say about the launch, "Floating rate bank loans hold a unique position across the broad fixed income landscape given their combination of a floating rate coupon and elevated placement in a company's capital structure – an important risk management attribute. Historically, bank loans have provided a partial hedge against rising rates as well as low return correlations with other asset classes, making them a solid portfolio diversifier.” TFLR trades on the NYSE Arca and has an expense ratio of 0.61%.

Finsum:T. Rowe Price brings its active ETF stable to ten with the recent launch of the T. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETF. 

After listing three new equity sustainability ETFs earlier this month, Dimensional Fund Advisors launched a new bond sustainability fund, the Dimensional Global Sustainability Fixed Income ETF (DFSB). The fund, which trades on the NYSE Arca, invests in a broad portfolio of investment-grade debt securities of U.S. and non-U.S. corporate and government issuers, including mortgage-backed securities. DFSB will also take into account the impact that companies may have on environmental and sustainability considerations to lower carbon footprint exposure. More specifically, the fund will exclude companies that the manager considers to have high greenhouse gas emissions intensity or fossil fuel reserves relative to other issuers. DFSB has an expense ratio of 0.24% and is benchmarked against the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Bond Index. The new fund brings DFA’s ETF lineup to 28 with over $64 billion in assets.

Finsum:DFA adds to its ETF lineup with a bond sustainability fund that aims to lower carbon footprint exposure.

According to Pensions & Investments' annual survey of index managers, worldwide indexes managed in exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded notes have fared much better than index assets in other wrappers. Worldwide index assets managed in ETFs and ETNs totaled $6.51 trillion as of June 30th, down 4.8% from $6.84 trillion last year. Worldwide index assets overall fell 12.7% to $18.23 trillion. Exchange-traded products continued to see strong inflows despite headwinds such as inflation, rate hikes, and stock and bond losses. In fact, the global ETF industry saw its 40th straight month of net inflows during September and is on pace for annual net inflows that will be second to only last year's record of $1.29 trillion according to research and consultancy firm ETFGI LLP. Emily Foote McKinley, Head of Institutional Specialists for ETFs and Indexed Strategies at Invesco Ltd explained why ETFs continue to see strong inflows this year. She told Pensions & Investments, "I think that we've always seen the biggest pickups in institutional usage of ETFs around and after times of severe market volatility. That's because the ETF wrapper is able to prove itself as a provider of liquidity and access and transparency to underlying markets in times of crisis."

Finsum:ETFs continue to see massive inflows this year despite market volatility due to the wrapper’s ability to provide institutional investors with liquidity and transparency.