Recent Articles
How to Identify and Overcome the Limits to Your Success
by Bob Veres
Confronted by a client who balks at a high fee or by a team member whose performance is imperfect, many advisors react by assuming that the problem is their own. One’s fees are lowered and the employee’s job description is remade. But this mindset exposes a lack of self-awareness, according to Stephanie Bogan. Instead, she says that by recognizing your inherent predispositions you can be on a “limitless” path to success.
Using Fixed SPIAs and Investments to Create an Inflation-Adjusted Income Stream
by Luke F. Delorme
I consider various return and inflation assumptions to determine an appropriate allocation between bonds and stocks that would enable annual inflation adjustments for fixed SPIAs.
The Assumption that Costs You Clients
by Dan Solin
As advisors, we’ve been trained to understand how incorrect assumptions can devastate one’s chances of achieving a successful retirement. That’s true in financial planning – and it’s even more important in your interactions with clients. Indeed, there’s one assumption that can instantly cost you a client relationship.
A Value Fund with a Long-Term Success Record
by Robert Huebscher
Tim Hartch has been a co-manager of the BBH Global Core Select fund (BBGRX) since inception and has also co-managed the BBH Core Select fund (BBTEX) since October 2005. I spoke with Tim about his management philosophy and how he has been able to outperform his benchmark over a long time period.
Managing a Stressed Out Team
by Beverly Flaxington
Our advisory firm is booming, and we are benefiting from the market ups and downs in a big way. Our strategies are perfect for what’s happening. But my team is stressed. People are working 14-hour days. We can’t keep up. Everyone is jumping down one another’s throats.
Six Ways a Marketing Consultant Can Help You
by Crystal Butler
Rather than just “getting it done” or pushing your marketing efforts to the bottom of the to-do list, you might hire a consultant to help you do what you set out to do: keep your current clients happy and get new ones. Here are six reasons why.
Recruiter Spotlight
by Various
Visit our recruiter spotlight to hear from our monthly sponsors about opportunities available for advisors in the industry.
Data-Driven Marketing Breaks through the Online Crowd
by Mandy Fisher
It is tough for advisors to be heard and it takes more than a platform to rise above the noise. With 90% of businesses marketing online today, the solution is to use data-driven marketing to break-through the crowd.
Inside Information - March 2016
by Bob Veres
This is a complimentary issue of Bob Veres' Inside Information. The lead article defines the robo-advisor challenge as nothing more than the next evolution of professional software—I call it Software 2.0—with intelligent built-in capabilities. The article looks at how the venture capitalists who funded the robo-platforms identified three significant weaknesses in the advisor profession they hoped to disrupt. As it turns out, instead of disrupting us, they did us all a big favor. By exposing certain weaknesses, the venture capitalists showed us several ways to increase your top-line revenues without any additional labor from you or your staff.
Are DIAs Better Than SPIAs – Maybe Not?
by Joe Tomlinson
Deferred-income annuities (DIAs) have been receiving favorable press based on claims that they generate greater retirement income than traditional single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs). DIAs have also been promoted by the Treasury Department, which has introduced new rules to facilitate their use. But I’ll present a contrarian view and demonstrate that retirement strategies built on SPIAs can outperform those that utilize DIAs.
Recent Commentaries
Another Macro Reason To Expect More Cyclical Underperformance
by Eric Bush of GaveKal Capital
Yesterday, Bryce correctly pointed out the tight relationship between interest rates and stock market leadership that has persisted for the past decade. As interest rates fall, cyclical stocks have tended to underperform while counter-cyclical stocks have tended to outperform. We would like to add another macro data point that has had a very close correlation to stock market leadership over the past decade: changes in China’s Forex reserves.
Rounding the Bubble's Edge
by John Hussman of Hussman Funds
The single most important quality that investors can have, at present, is the ability to maintain a historically-informed perspective amid countless voices chanting “this time is different” and arguing that long-term investment returns have no relationship to the price that one pays.
Open Letter to the President, Part Five
by John Mauldin of Mauldin Economics
Without significant changes in tax and incentive structures, the US will almost assuredly enter a recession within the next few years. Then, if we lose tax revenues only to the extent we did in the last couple of recessions, we’ll be saddled with a deficit of over $1.3 trillion, and the deficit won’t fall below $1 trillion as far out as the eye can see, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Mile-High Merger: Alaska Airlines Buys Virgin America, Expanding Market Reach
by Frank Holmes of U.S. Global Investors
The $2.6 billion deal, awaiting shareholder approval in June, would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline by traffic and result in a much more competitive player, especially on the West Coast. (Alaska is based in Seattle, Virgin in San Francisco.) According to the Wall Street Journal, Alaska’s annual revenue could grow 27 percent because of the deal.
Should Central Banks Call in the Helicopters?
by Carl Tannenbaum of Northern Trust
For the past eight years, major central banks used unconventional monetary policies to promote economic growth and lift inflation. But success is incomplete on these fronts, and there is an active debate about whether forward guidance, negative interest rates and quantitative easing (QE) remain potent. It may be time for “helicopter money.”
Five Unique Themes
by Richard Bernstein of Richard Bernstein Advisors
RBA’s disciplined investment process tends to lead to differentiated positioning within our portfolios. Our focus on profit cycles, liquidity, and sentiment has once again led us to some distinctive investment themes.
Not Your Father's Dividend Stocks
by Edward Perkin of Eaton Vance
Dividend investing ain’t what it used to be. What’s the best approach in today’s market?
ECRI Weekly Leading Index: WLI Up 0.2 From Last Week, Still Positive
by JIll Mislinski of Advisor Perspectives (dshort.com)
The WLI annualized growth indicator (WLIg) is at 1.6, an increase of 0.9 from the previous week, and well off its interim low of -4.7 last February. The YoY is now at 0.42%, an increase of 0.27, and in positive territory for the second consecutive week.
On Interest Rates and Stock Market Leadership
by Bryce Coward of GaveKal Capital
One of the biggest questions equity investors are facing right now is whether to stay defensive or to turn up the cyclical heat on any pullback.
Recent dshort Posts
World Markets Weekend Update: The Selloff Continues
Last weekend we saw that the week-over-week average of the eight indexes on our watch list was -0.14%. Over the past five sessions that average has dropped to -1.10%. The UK's FTSE 100 posted the only weekly gain, up 0.95%. Three of the indexes — Japan's Nikkei, Germany's DAXK and India's SENSEX — declined by over two percent.
S&P 500 Snapshot: A Dramatic Close to the Week
From a global standpoint, the big news today was the rally in oil. with West Texas Intermediate Crude Futures up over 6% for the day. European equity index traded higher on oil price optimism with the Euro STOXX 50 gaining 1.41%. US indexes appeared to follow the global trend, The S&P 500 rallied at the open and hit its 0.91% intraday high about 45 minutes into the session. But the 10 AM release of disappointing Wholesale Inventories for February took its toll. The Atlanta Fed trimmed its Q1 GDP forecast to 0.1%, and the S&P 500 gave back its gains in a couple of waves
Best Stock Market Indicator Update
We continue to receive requests for updates to the "Best Stock Market Indicator", which used to be a regular guest post from John Carlucci. Here is an update of the "Carlucci" indicator along with a summary of John's explanation on how he uses it.
ECRI Weekly Leading Index: WLI Up 0.2 From Last Week, Still Positive
The WLI annualized growth indicator (WLIg) is at 1.6, an increase of 0.9 from the previous week, and well off its interim low of -4.7 last February. The YoY is now at 0.42%, an increase of 0.27, and in positive territory for the second consecutive week.
The Philly Fed ADS Business Conditions Index Update
The Philly Fed's Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index (hereafter the ADS index) is a fascinating but relatively little known real-time indicator of business conditions for the U.S. economy, not just the Third Federal Reserve District, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Thus it is comparable to the better-known Chicago Fed's National Activity Index.
RecessionAlert Weekly Leading Index: A New Recession Indicator
RecessionAlert has recently launched an alternative to ECRI's Weekly Leading Index Growth indicator (WLIg). The Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) uses fifty different time series from these categories: Corporate Bond Composite, Treasury Bond Composite, Stock Market Composite, Labor Market Composite, Credit Market Composite.
New Jobless Claims: 57 Consecutive Weeks Below 300K, Longest Since 1973
Today's seasonally adjusted 267K new claims, down 9K from last week's 276K, was slightly better than the Investing.com forecast of 270K. The four-week moving average is at 266,750, up from last week's 263,250.
