According to Boston Consulting Group, among asset management products, passives were far and away the fastest growing category in 2017, with a record 25% increase in AUM over an already very sizable base.
Greg Hahn, founder and chief investment officer at Winthrop Capital Management, offers some timely analysis on the flattening of the yield curve and navigating a rising interest rate environment.
According to the Alight Solutions 401(k) Index, June was a slow month for trading in defined contribution plans; when 401(k) investors made trades, they tended to favor fixed income.
It would also be good for them to include emerging markets equities, target-date funds, alternatives, international bonds and specialty bonds.
When trades were made, there was a continued movement away from equities into fixed income.
Franklin Templeton Creates Additional Active Funds; Hartford Funds Presents ETF Focused on Fixed Income; First Trust Introduces Actively Managed ETF; and more.
The flows went primarily to bond, stable value and money market funds.
PLANADVISER presents an impromptu Q&A with John Diehl, senior vice president of strategic markets for Hartford Funds, on the subject of market volatility and keeping a long-term perspective amid big equity price swings.
The financial crisis resulted in severe declines in the funded status of most U.S. corporate pension funds resulting in almost universal pension deficits; companies’ various responses to the challenge offer some food for thought.
Adjustments made to the corporate tax rate, repatriation of offshore cash and interest rate deductibility all are likely to have immediate effects on the credit markets—and by extension, on institutional investors’ fixed-income portfolios.
Neuberger Berman Addresses Volatility with PutWrite Fund; PanAgora Adds ESG Alpha Factors; and Hartford Funds Expands ETF Roster.
The latest J.P. Morgan Asset Management Guide to the Markets publication asks the complex but crucial question, at what level of U.S. interest rates should we start to worry about a recession?
"In our experience, the way bond managers speak provides insight into their true thinking, underlying skills and biases," write Brett Wander and Jake Gilliam, two investing team leaders at Charles Schwab. "When we look for bond managers as sub-advisers, there are things we like to hear, but there are also things managers say that immediately trigger our alarms."
The Endowment Index calculated by Nasdaq has reconstituted and rebalanced its overall asset allocation for 2018, making some slight but telling adjustments.
The SEC’s new Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee aims to tackle difficult bond market liquidity challenges, with its first official meeting coming up this week.
“How can stocks continue to go up when the political situation in the country is such a mess? Easily, because they have little to do with one another in the short term.”
“As we enter 2018, the macro environment remains supportive for the fixed-income markets,” reports Voya Investment Management CIO of Fixed Income Matt Toms.
Year-end analysis shared by Charles Schwab suggests the appointment of Jerome Powell to be the new Federal Reserve leader likely means that interest rates will continue to move up slowly and cautiously.
A panel of MFS investment strategists and economists look back over 2017—and ahead to the global growth challenges and opportunities for the coming year.