Co-investing is gaining popularity and theoretically offers investors cost advantages and higher return potential. This report discusses the opportunities and common pitfalls of co-investing, leveraging our aggregated data on co-investments and funds generating co-investment.
Advisors and consumers often think of variable universal life (VUL) as just an equity-linked product. But for many, VUL is much more than that.This article seeks to encourage a rethinking of VUL as a unique life insurance product that provides control, flexibility and transparency in a low cost product chassis, while providing the potential for enhanced returns through access to equity investment allocations.
Since their introduction only two decades ago, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have been undeniably successful. Growing far beyond their initial function of tracking large liquid indices in developed markets, ETFs now hold over $2.6 trillion of assets globally. In fact, the proliferation of ETFs was identified as one of the six game changers in the asset management (AM) industry in 2013. New investor segments continue to integrate ETFs into their portfolios and fund sponsors continue to introduce new products.
This report provides a historical review of past economic conditions for 2013 and 2014, and illustrates what might be in store for investors in 2015 by asking five key questions. Those questions include: Will US equities continue to outperform? Is the macro environment in Europe getting worse? What impact will diverging monetary policy have on currencies and bonds?
Micro cap stocks are among the investment world’s worst-kept secrets. They have been around as an asset class category since the 1980s, and research has repeatedly confirmed the advantages they offer to investors – most notably a chance to exploit numerous opportunities for greater excess returns.
The desire to integrate values and investment decisions has long been important to investors and is a movement that has gained permanency. Research shows that when implemented thoughtfully with active management, impact investing can achieve social goals, as well as produce competitive and even excess returns over a benchmark. A deep and growing field, impact investing cannot be generalized. While significant activity occurs within private investments, this paper focuses on opportunities in the public markets.
The US energy renaissance may be taking a breather, exasperated from ten years of mind boggling growth, but unquestionably it is not over. Global energy demand is expected to grow well into the future and the US is poised to take advantage of the trend to become the world’s marginal producer. At current oil prices, US energy producers will (and have already) cut back their capital expenditures for 2015-16, which should slow production growth and allow demand to catch up.
The foreign exchange market is widely appreciated to be the largest and most liquid market of all global financial markets. However, it is susceptible to shocks which can cause significant unexpected volatility, such as the timing of the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) decision to remove its 1.20 floor on the Swiss Franc versus the Euro on 15th January 2015. The article examines the effects of this volatility on investors with long USDCHF FX Forward exposure compared to those with long USDCHF FX Options exposure.
Farmland is increasingly gaining traction as an attractive long-term investment option for sophisticated and capital rich investors. Direct investments in farmland have historically provided a healthy and relatively stable level of current income, a compelling risk-adjusted rate of capital appreciation, an effective inflation hedge, and a material diversification benefit resulting from very low or negative correlations to traditional asset classes.
To date, the slow national recovery in the office sector has been driven largely by negative forces such as high unemployment rates and owner desires to reduce operating costs.