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Advisor Perspectives
Insights into the world of high- and ultra-high net worth investing
May 19, 2009- Vol 3, Issue 20
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TIPS offer a perfect hedge against
inflation for US investors, but advisors need to understand their risks. We look
at the history of TIPS prices and
explain why this asset class is more
volatile than you might think.
Credit analysis is
multifaceted, blending fundamental and
quantitative processes, incorporating historical and
market-based forward-looking models to complete the full credit review. Calamos Advisors
discusses their process and how they monitor
companies on an ongoing basis. We thank them for their
sponsorship.
Mebane Faber provides an
excerpt from his new book, The Ivy
Portfolio, on the ascent of David
Swensen and the development of the tools employed to manage Yale's endowment. Faber
shows the data Swensen used to determine Yale's aggressive allocation to alternative asset classes.
In response to skepticism we've expressed in the past about technical analysis, one of our readers
invited us to attend the Market
Technicians Association symposium in New York last week. Our skepticism remains, but it was
an enjoyable event and we report on the forecasts
of Elliot Wave theorist Robert Prechter.
Optimists in the investment business claim "Crisis breeds opportunity." Dan Richards looks at the worst
consequence of the current crisis - corporate
downsizing - and shows how advisors used five different approaches to create opportunities
while helping those faced with job losses.
When it comes to selecting a money
manager, many clients today are casualties of the same opaqueness the Japanese face in arranged marriages.
Hiring a money manager does not include the same solemn, lifelong
commitment as choosing a spouse, according to fund manager Mariko Gordon. But, in this guest
contribution, she argues that the hiring
process, if not handled well, can also lead to disappointment.
If you are looking to make professional
referrals a key strategy for your business, you will want to
develop dozens of relationships. Kristen
Luke shows how to efficiently nurture these relationships with
an action plan to touch your centers of
influence throughout the year, just as you would your
clients.
Lastly, we highlight submissions to Advisor
Market Commentaries.
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Opportunities and Risks in TIPS
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TIPS have gained a lot of attention, as those who forecast higher inflation
see an opportunity for outsized returns. We explain the sources of
risk in TIPS, the difference between individual bonds and ETFs, and dispel
the popular misconception that TIPS are tax disadvantaged.
Opportunities and Risks in TIPS
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How
Multifaceted Credit Research Can Enhance Returns and Effectively Price Risk
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Credit analysis
requires a firm understanding of the strength and quality of a company's cash
flows as well as a thorough review of its capital structure. We take an
in-depth look at the Calamos credit research process, which has been in
place for more than 30 years. We highlight the fundamental and qualitative
processes that are incorporated, including historical-based models,
forward-looking models and the fundamental analysis that all contribute to
the pricing of risk.
How Multifaceted Credit Research Can
Enhance Returns and Effectively Price Risk
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The Yale portfolio
reaches for high returns, thus the endowment is biased towards equity, and
equity-like asset classes, which total 96% of the endowment. Bonds, due to
their vulnerability to inflation, are in the portfolio only as a hedge
against deflation. Yale has a large allocation to real assets and
nontraditional asset classes due to their return potential and diversifying
power.
David Swensen's Ascent
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Waiting for the Fifth Wave
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If there is an equivalent to a Star Trek convention for the investment
industry, it would be a gathering of market technicians. Like
"Trekkies," technicians are an obscure minority, viewed with
curiosity by some and disdain by many, mostly because of their Klingon-like
language for the financial markets, which include terms like "musical
polarity" and "vibrational energy."
Waiting for the Fifth Wave
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Turning Corporate Downsizing into Prospecting Success
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If your target market is people worried about being laid off or prospects
with other concerns, Dan Richards shows the lessons from five advisors on
what it takes to attract clients. Position yourself as offering credible
solutions to prospects' hot button concerns and you too can build
prospecting momentum in your practice.
Turning Corporate Downsizing into
Prospecting Success
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Having a transparent, thorough, and thoughtful hiring process upfront will save
you disappointment later, writes Mariko Gordon. You may not be able to know
all there is to know about your "new bride" before you move in
together, but as her sure grandmother would surely agree, it's a whole lot
better than just a fuzzy photograph.
Here Come the Brides
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Five Ways to Cultivate Professional Referral
Relationships
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Integrating a professional referral program into your marketing plan
requires relatively little effort and opens up a new channel for
clients. The keys to success are using your CRM system to ensure no
one falls through the cracks and creating an action plan to regularly reach
your centers of influence (COIs). Properly nurturing your COI
relationships will successfully create another source of clients, to
supplement referrals and your other marketing efforts.
Five Ways to Cultivate Professional
Referral Relationships
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Highlights from Advisor Market Commentaries
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Vitaliy Katsenelson and Chris Whalen took aim at the government's handling
of the Chrysler bankruptcy, and the consensus is that things are headed in
the wrong direction.
How Stealing Chrysler Threatens Our
Markets
Chrysler, GM and the New Industrial
Policy
Anyone who trades on government statistics as being anywhere close to
accurate in real time deserves any losses they get, according to John
Mauldin. They are at best a foggy window through which we peer into the
future. Taken together, and with some seasoning of time, they can be rather
useful; but to pin hopes of a recovery or a bull-market run on one week's
data is hazardous to one's wealth.
Read the commentary
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