Wealth Management Blog | WrapManager | Money Manager Research (2)

New eBook! Guide to Researching Money Managers

Posted by WrapManager's Investment Policy Committee

December 2, 2015

New eBook! Guide to Researching Money Managers

Money managers and the underlying investments can act as the fuel for your investment plan, propelling you toward your retirement goals and the future you’ve planned for yourself. Therefore, it’s important to choose your money manager carefully. There are some general rules of thumb that will help you to find the right strategy mix to help make your goals a reality.

Finding a money manager can be time-consuming, however, and there are many other things you would rather be doing. Fortunately, financial advisors can serve two functions: they can create and monitor your investment plan, and they can also research money managers for you.

Our new eBook, Guide to Researching Money Managers, will discuss the following topics that can help you better understand steps you can take when researching money managers:

What's the Difference Between a Money Manager and a Financial Advisor?

In short, money managers manage and financial advisors advise. Financial advisors understand individuals’ financial situations and create unique investment plans while money managers spend their time managing portfolio strategies. This section will go into more detail about the differences.

Eagle Asset Management - Volatility Examined

November 23, 2015

Richard Skeppstrom, of Eagle Asset Management's Strategic Return Portfolio, analyzes recent market volatility in Eagle's November Market Perspective. "As the third quarter came to a close, equity markets were a stumble away from panic. Bankruptcy concerns were playing havoc in the commodity space while technicians nervously watched for a Dow sell signal. If the Dow had closed below the August trough of 15666: a blood bath. I wrote that I was comfortable with my equity allocation and would just wait and see, ignoble action possibly resembling chicken excrement. Of course, my reluctance to do anything was a reliable buy signal. Don Hayes, the longstanding strategist at fondly remembered Wheat First Securities, used to say the markets will do whatever they can to confound the most. The rebound this month certainly qualifies. Not only has the market staged a striking rebound, but also sector leadership completely reversed. Energy and commodities – hated a few weeks ago – have led while healthcare has lagged. [+] Read More

ClearBridge Advisors - Market Risk and Opportunity

November 10, 2015

ClearBridge Investments, a Legg Mason company, provides their Q3 commentary with discussion of the challenges and opportunities that exist within such a volatile market. "Market Commentary “Nothing any good isn’t hard.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald Memories of painful experiences are often a critical and adaptive part of living, in that painful memories can keep you out of harm’s way by minimizing repeat mistakes. The challenge, however, is that memories are highly subjective, and with the passage of time you often forget how intense something felt at the time. In the realm of physical pain, my biggest outlet for stress is training and competing in triathlons with my wife and several colleagues from ClearBridge. They are all better than me, which is painful enough, but I often don’t have enough time to fully prepare for the longer events. This inevitably leads me to swear off competing again, until I ultimately find myself standing in a cold body of water at the beginning of another grueling physical experience. In all seriousness, I love competing, and the rewards of doing so from a health and emotional perspective far outweigh short bouts of physical pain that are soon enough forgotten. [+] Read More

Cambiar Investors International ADR

November 9, 2015

While market concerns had investors scrambling for the exists, Cambiar Investors took advantage of the market weakness in Q3 to deploy capital into a number of new investments. Read their Q3 2015 commentary below. "Market Review After fairly muted performance for the first half of 2015, global equities sold off in the third quarter. In contrast to prior pullbacks that were often met with buyers stepping in to buy the dips, investor sentiment towards stocks deteriorated considerably in the quarter. A popular Wall Street phrase is “stocks climb a wall of worry” – referring to the tendency for equity markets to overcome a host of negative factors and move higher. Yet is seems the wall got too high in the quarter. Global growth fears (led by China), increasing uncertainty of U.S. monetary policy, and continued pressure in Emerging Markets were just some of the concerns that had investors scrambling for the exits. While all of these factors warrant careful consideration, it is Cambiar’s view that the correction in the quarter was of the “shoot first/ask questions later” variety, vs. fundamentally driven. Given our value orientation, such reflexive selling can provide attractive entry points; to that extent, Cambiar used the market weakness to deploy capital into a number of new investments during the quarter. [+] Read More

Clearbridge Investments - Multi Cap Growth Q2

August 4, 2015

Clearbridge's Richard Freeman and Evan Bauman, provide their perspective on the second quarter discussing views on market volatility, focus sectors, and interest rates. "Market overview and outlook U.S. stocks traded in a tight range during the second quarter, with the major indexes ending largely unchanged. The large cap S&P 500 Index gained 0.28% for the quarter, the small cap Russell 2000 Index added 0.42%, while the broad market Russell 3000 Index gained 0.14%. Volatility remained low as investors awaited a clear signal from the Federal Reserve on when it will commence raising short-term interest rates. The S&P 500 sustained its longest stretch without a 2% daily move up or down since 2007. That more than six-month stint was snapped on June 29 when the index fell 2.09% following the breakdown of talks between Greece and its creditors. The sharp drop – the largest for the S&P 500 since April 2014 – pared gains for most equity benchmarks. [+] Read More

Top Equity Money Manager Picks - Q3 2015

July 22, 2015

To help investors discover and evaluate money manager strategies, WrapManager’s Investment Policy Committee highlights certain strategies each quarter. These encompass a wide range of asset classes and investment disciplines. Here are this quarter’s strategies: [+] Read More

JP Morgan - Q1 2015 Earnings Recap

June 2, 2015

JP Morgan's First Quarter Market Bulletin for 2015 provides a recap of the earnings season. "In Brief • We estimate that first quarter 2015 earnings-per-share (EPS) declined by 5.0% on a year-over-year (y/y) basis. Similar to the prior quarter, this was primarily due to lower oil prices and the stronger U.S. dollar (USD). • Excluding the energy sector, S&P 500 EPS grew by 9.1%, in-line with historical trends. We also estimate that the stronger U.S. dollar resulted in an average EPS decline of 5% for the most multinational non-energy companies. [+] Read More

Geneva Advisors - Q1 2015 Market Perspective

May 27, 2015

Geneva Advisors provides their First Quarter Perspectives on the market. "The relative strength of the U.S. dollar has been an important force for the market in recent periods. Stock prices are near record highs and valuations of many companies are extended. A disciplined investment process, an active investment approach and a long‐term focus will continue to be critical to achieving investment objectives. [+] Read More

Brookmont - Reducing Exposure to Mid-Cap Stocks

May 20, 2015

Brookmont has made the decision to reduce mid-cap stock exposure for their Dividend Equity Strategy. "Dating back to March 2009, the Brookmont Dividend Equity Strategy has always maintained a 30%- 35% weighting in small and mid-cap stocks. It is an area of the market that includes attractive dividend-paying stocks that are often overlooked by our peers. Knowing that mid-cap stocks often lead a market recovery, we rebalanced the portfolio in February 2009 and were active buyers in mid-cap names such as Packaging Corporation of America, Tupperware, Hubbell, Heinz, and Lubrizol (the latter two stocks were eventually acquired by Warren Buffett). From 2009 through 2013, it was not uncommon for our mid-cap holdings to produce one-year returns as high as 115%. Knowing that these type of gains are not common, we rebalanced the portfolio on several occasions to realize these significant profits. [+] Read More

Will International Outperform US Stocks in 2015? - Cambiar Investors

May 6, 2015

Cambiar's commentary highlights a cautious view on energy and reviews the strategy's international approach following Japan's surge in Q1. [+] Read More