Savant Capital Brings Investment Advice Online

A new service from Savant Capital Management, eSavant Advisor, offers investment and planning advice to online investors. 

Among the first online financial planning, investment and wealth management firms, eSavant Advisor offers each client a dedicated team to help identify needs and construct a vision of the investor’s ideal financial future.

“eSavant Advisor’s goal is to enhance the quality of life for each of our clients, wherever they live,” said Brent Brodeski, chief executive of Savant Capital Management. 

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The platform, eSavant Advisor, can be accessed through www.esavantadvisor.com and applies Savant’s financial expertise with access to its investment solutions, integrated wealth management and planning philosophies.

The service lets clients take advantage of current technology to help them pursue financial goals without any geographic restrictions, Brodeski said. “We’ve been servicing clients remotely for years,” he noted. “eSavant officially launches our targeted approach to provide that robust, personal relationship and quality advisory services to others in a more efficient and effective manner by leveraging the latest technology.”

Savant Capital Management, a fee-only adviser with offices in Illinois, Wisconsin and Virginia, has more than $3 billion in assets under management. 

Fidelity Debuts Target Volatility Portfolio

The Fidelity VIP Target Volatility Portfolio is designed to deliver more consistent returns in guaranteed benefit products. 

Fidelity Investments’ portfolio is offered through variable annuity and variable life insurance products, and seeks to manage total return volatility within a target range.  

The VIP Target Volatility Portfolio primarily invests in U.S. equities, foreign developed market equities, U.S. investment grade bonds, and cash through a combination of underlying Fidelity mutual funds as well as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index futures. The investment team has the flexibility to invest in other asset classes, such as high-yield debt and emerging market equities and debt.  

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The managers seek a target portfolio volatility—defined as the measurement of the magnitude of up and down fluctuations of the fund’s return over a specified time period—of 10% over rolling one-year periods. The investment team develops volatility forecasts to adjust the portfolio’s asset allocation in response to periods of forecasted high or low market volatility. The portfolio’s strategy is implemented through a disciplined and integrated investment process that seeks to deliver a consistent risk and return profile, supported by Fidelity’s global research including an extensive asset-allocation research team.  

The VIP Target Volatility Portfolio uses a blended benchmark as an asset-allocation guide made up of the Dow Jones U.S. Stock Market Index (42%), MSCI EAFE Index (18%), Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (35%), and Barclays U.S. three-month Treasury Bellwether Index (5%).  

“Turbulent market swings like the ones we’ve witnessed over the past decade can far exceed the risk tolerance of many investors,” said Xuehai En, the lead portfolio manager for the fund. “We believe managing volatility provides the opportunity for more consistent returns over time.” 

Fidelity also said that Ohio National Financial Services and Jefferson National are the first insurance companies to package the portfolio in their annuity offerings, ONcore Individual & Group Variable Annuities (in New York, NScore variable annuities issued by National Security Life and Annuity Company) and Jefferson National’s flat-fee variable annuity, Monument Advisor.  

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