Altair Advisers

Using short-term underperformance as a value opportunity can work in selecting money managers. The qualitative portion of the manager due diligence process is still the key to success. All great managers experience periods of underperformance; patience with them is rewarded. There is little basis in manager performance data for persistence in manager returns. Manager performance cycles either outperformance or underperformance often last 3-5 years. Short-term periods of underperformance by top managers may present an opportunity to allocate to managers at attractive entry point

Enrolling in a 529 college savings plan is one of the shrewdest financial moves that parents or grandparents can make. These plans offer significant federal income tax breaks, some- times state tax benefits as well and a low-maintenance, largely self-controlled way to save for college.

Benchmarks are fundamental measuring tools that gauge the relative performance of securities, investment managers and portfolios. They help answer the question, How are my investments performing? Yet despite their importance, they often have inherent shortcomings that can make them less than optimal for evaluating performance.

Investable benchmarks enable clients to see what their returns would have been had they invested in a passive alternative to any actively managed recommendations. They answer the question, How are my investments performing?, with far greater clarity, yet they are still a rarity in the investment world. We believe that is changing.