New products introduced over the last week include a frontier markets fund from Wasatch and a short-duration, high-yield fund from Westwood.
In addition, Russell introduced a series of indices aimed at volatility control and Nasdaq OMX and Axioma brought out a series of equity-commodity indices.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) Wasatch Introduces a Frontier Markets Fund
Wasatch Funds announced the launch on Jan. 31 of the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund (WAFMX), a no-load open-end mutual fund focused exclusively on frontier and smaller emerging market countries. The fund was scheduled for broader rollout March 5 on the Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade platforms. It is managed by Laura Geritz, who is also a portfolio manager of the Wasatch Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund with Roger Edgley, director of international research.
Wasatch considers a "small emerging market country" to be any country that individually constitutes no more than 7% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index or the S&P Emerging Markets Broad Market Index.
2) Westwood Introduces Short-Duration, High-Yield Fund
Westwood Holdings Group Inc. announced March 1 the availability of the Westwood Short Duration High Yield Fund (WHGHX), which is designed to provide investors the opportunity to potentially capture high current income by investing principally in non-investment grade debt with expected maturities of three years or less. The primary goal of the strategy is to generate a high level of current income while also experiencing lower volatility than the broader high-yield market. The fund is subadvised by Greenwich, Conn.-based SKY Harbor Capital Management.
