Best- and worst-performing fixed-income funds

October 20, 2018

CORE BOND Top 10 1-year return 3-year return 5-year return Expense ratio* Portfolio net assets ($M)** River Canyon Total Return Bond Fund;Institutional (RCTIX) 5.00% 5.31% N/A 0.72% $26.30 Anfield Universal Fixed Income Fund;I (AFLIX) 3.71%...

Investors, don't lose sleep over the midterm elections

October 20, 2018

The early October jolt of stock market volatility seemed to awaken investors briefly from a relative sense of calm and reminded us that pullbacks and downside risk are part of the price to be paid for upside performance. Despite just about every...

Best- and worst-performing international funds

October 20, 2018

EQUITY INTERNATIONAL MULTI-CAP CORE Top 10 1-year return 3-year return 5-year return Expense ratio* Portfolio net assets ($M)** PIMCO StocksPLUS International Fd (DH);Inst (PISIX) 7.45% 12.82% 8.74% 0.84% $1,791.40 State Street Hedged Internatl...

Market volatility brings alternative investments back into focus

October 19, 2018

At least on paper, it should be easy to make the case for allocating portfolio assets toward more alternative strategies designed to reduce some of the risk imbedded in a 10-year bull market for stocks. Reality, however, shows that investors...

Understanding the costs of ETF selection

October 18, 2018

When you shop for a car, you probably have a budget in mind. You likely also consider more than the sticker price, including implicit costs like reliability, fuel economy and how much it will cost to insure and repair. And you may consider opportunity...

Sponsored by American Century Investments

Paul Allen's $26 billion estate could take years to unravel

October 18, 2018

Paul Allen's family office will live long and prosper. The billionaire's vast holdings at Vulcan Inc. -- with real estate, art, sports teams and venture capital stakes -- would take years to unravel, if that's even what he wanted. Mr. Allen,...

RIA consolidation on pace for sixth straight record year

October 18, 2018

The pace of consolidation among registered investment advisers slowed slightly during the third quarter but remains on track for a sixth consecutive record year. The latest report from Echelon Partners counted 43 RIA acquisitions during the...

Tech turnaround might seem familiar to whipsawed investors

October 17, 2018

If the rebound in U.S. technology stocks from their jarring recent declines isn't giving investors a sense of deja vu, it probably should be. The biggest exchange-traded fund tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index has taken back almost half...

New ETF team at Bank of America picks funds

October 17, 2018

Mary Ann Bartels knew there'd be pushback. "We're like Einstein," she nervously joked to a colleague at Bank of America Corp. in the months before they unveiled their latest research, alluding to the deeply skeptical reaction that greeted the...

Investors increasingly bearish on global growth

October 16, 2018

Pessimism on the global economy is piling up amid rising trade tensions and expectations the U.S. central bank will carry on tightening despite the tumult in equity markets. Fund managers surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch this month...

Small-cap funds take a beating

October 16, 2018

Small-cap companies and funds have been buoyed for much of this year by the view that smaller, domestically focused companies were safe from the negative consequences of a trade war. But last week, as the stock market focused on rising interest...

ETF investors are rewriting the rules on hedging risk

October 16, 2018

Investors are coming up with new ways to hedge credit risk as interest rates rise and the Federal Reserve appears to be on course for further tightening, with minutes from its last meeting scheduled to be released Wednesday. Amid a steep run-up...

Largest financials ETF sees outflows

October 15, 2018

Bank bears are back. Investors yanked more than $1 billion from the $29 billion Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLF) Friday, the largest outflow in more than a decade. In addition, trading in the fund hit $3.6 billion, more than double its...

How to survive the crash

October 15, 2018

Let's prepare for The Inevitable. One of the quirks of human nature is that upbeat investment books offering strategies to make money are routinely outsold by doomsday titles like "How to Survive the Coming Stock Market Crash." For most people,...

Earnings fail to rescue equity bulls

October 15, 2018

Equity bulls counting on strong earnings to arrest the steep decline in U.S. stocks have something to worry about: These days, nothing news has been good enough to please financial markets. "Early in the season, any news is bad news," writes...

How markets will likely react to a change in congressional power

October 13, 2018

With the midterm elections approaching, financial markets have already priced in a scenario in which Republicans cough up enough seats to lose their majority in the House of Representatives but maintain a majority in the Senate. "In a divided...

Wealthfront risk parity fund accused of underperforming

October 12, 2018

Wealthfront's risk parity strategy has been controversial since launching in February, but now it is facing accusations that the fund underperforms. The Wealthfront Risk Parity Fund (WFRPX) is underperforming similar risk parity funds like the...

Market forecasters dissect the sell-off

October 11, 2018

Wednesday's market moves were enough to induce motion sickness, as the S&P 500 index fell 3.3%, the Dow down 832 points and the Nasdaq dropped more than 4.4%. But investment strategists note that this week's slide follows a very subdued third...