Products January 29, 2013

Altegris Expands Commitment to Adviser Education

An alternative investment educational series begins in Los Angeles with a keynote address by Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital.
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The adviser education initiative from Altegris, a provider of alternative investments, is slated to take place in 10 cities in 2013. The summit is a series of day-long seminars designed to help advisers gain more insight into the role alternative investments can play in a well-diversified portfolio.

Although a growing number of advisers have begun using alternatives, many still need more information. Altegris will be taking its instructional efforts across the country to help the adviser community more effectively utilize liquid alternatives in client portfolios.  

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Altegris’ in-house experts will cover key facets of the investment decision-making process, from due diligence to identification and implementation of the appropriate blend of alternative strategies.

“Navigating the Alternatives Landscape” and “Allocating Alternatives to Your Clients’ Portfolios” are among the topics. A panel of alternative investment managers will provide an overview of their respective investment styles, including long/short equity, managed futures, global macro and long/short fixed income, as well as a keynote address from an industry leader.

“Altegris has a longstanding commitment to bridging the education gap so that advisers can better understand the role that alternatives can play in a truly diversified portfolio and how different alternative strategies can potentially benefit investors,” said Dick Pfister, managing director and global head of sales and consulting. “With this series, we hope to provide advisers with an invaluable experience that expands their understanding of this important and continually evolving asset class.”

The Altegris 2013 Investment Summit series begins on February 20 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

The remaining schedule for the series is: Boston and New York (March); Nashville, Tennessee (May); Denver (June); Baltimore (September); Chicago, Cincinnati  and Houston (October); and Seattle/Bellevue, Washington (December).

The Summit is supported by the Altegris Academy, a website launched last year with white papers, strategy pieces, video and interactive tools to empower advisers on all aspects of alternatives.

For more information visit the Altegris site. 

Products January 29, 2013

Russell Adds to Defensive Indexes

Russell Indexes introduced the Russell High Efficiency Defensive Indexes, an index series extending the Russell Defensive Index methodology.
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These indexes, similar to the Russell Defensive Indexes, combine various economic and market risk factors—creating a “stability score”—to help investors identify high-quality, low-volatility stocks. The firm says the indexes are the first and only series of low-volatility benchmarks to offer low-targeted tracking error to the Russell benchmarks, a key benefit to large pension plans, foundations and endowments. With more than $3.9 trillion benchmarked to Russell’s family of core indexes, Russell captures approximately 68% of the benchmark market share for all U.S. institutional equity products, more than all other U.S. indexes combined.   

The weighting approach of the Russell High Efficiency Defensive Indexes and their ability to provide low tracking error to a Russell benchmark index is made possible through collaboration with Westpeak Global Advisors, an independent research and investment management company.  Westpeak’s ActiveBeta portfolio construction methodology, utilized in the new High Efficiency Defensive Indexes, helps investors more efficiently capture targeted investment factors such as value, momentum and volatility. In this case the targeted factor is stability.   

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The Russell Defensive Index ranks constituents based on an assigned stability score and weights them according to market capitalization, creating a universe of higher quality, lower volatility stocks weighted in proportion to size. The Index weights constituents in proportion to their stability score. The indexes are rebalanced on a quarterly basis.  

The new Series initially consists of 22 separate Russell High Efficiency Defensive Indexes based on the Russell U.S. and Global Indexes.

More information is here.

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