Investment Strategies
Get the latest market outlook, as well as news and analysis on mutual funds, ETFs and alternative investments, all designed to help you construct a well-balanced portfolio for your clients
Catching up with...
By James J. GreenThe search for investments that consistently produce above-market returns, aren't correlated to the overall markets, and carry a relatively low minimum may have become a...
April 25, 2007
UBS Goes GreenUBS will launch the first Global Warming index (UBS-GWI), a tradable benchmark for global investments in the weather derivatives market that is created using liquid, actively traded heating degree day (HDD) and cooling degree day (CDD) weather futures contracts, which settle on the difference between the average daily temperature and...
April 18, 2007
Tax Holiday Over for Fund ShareholdersA study from Lipper released April 17 says that buy-and-hold shareholders paid $23.8 billion in taxes on a record high $418.5 billion in distributions in 2006; that's a big bite out of total returns.
April 09, 2007
Streak StymiedAn 18-quarter run of double-digit earnings growth came to an end in the fourth quarter of 2006, thanks to tough year-over-year comparisons in energy, information...
April 02, 2007
A Better Mousetrap?Charles Schwab launched three new index funds April 2 that are based on fundamental indexes rather than cap-weighted indexes such as the S&P 500. Fundamentally weighted indexes base inclusion in the index on a company's sales, cash flow, dividends, and book value, rather than on market cap, P/E, or valuation,...
April 02, 2007
Deal or No Deal?There tends to be a financial crisis every ten years or so, and subprime loans seem to be the current one. As nearly everyone knows,...
April 01, 2007
Par ExcellenceWhile there are some 5,000 separately managed account products in the market, not all are "considered legitimate SMA management firms for managing an advisor's client...
April 01, 2007
Behind the CurtainRIAs and their high-net-worth clients have dramatically increased the use of alternative investments in their portfolios in recent years, and are on track to continue...