Bonds: Total Market
Vanguard's ETFs offer excellent options for investors seeking both passive income and diversification. The Vanguard Value ETF, one of the largest value-oriented funds, holds mainly large-cap stocks with solid dividend payouts, keeping its top 10 holdings at around 21% of the portfolio.
For a more concentrated approach, the Vanguard Mega Cap Value ETF focuses on mega-cap companies, leaning toward value-heavy sectors like healthcare and energy, which tend to fare well in economic downturns. Investors aiming for higher yield might consider the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF, which offers broad exposure to 537 holdings and a nearly 3% yield without overemphasizing any single sector.
Although these funds have lagged the tech-driven S&P 500 recently, they have shown significant long-term growth, nearly tripling in value over the last decade.
Finsum: These ETFs suit different needs, whether one prefers a focus on industry giants or broader diversification for consistent passive income.
Switching to a new broker-dealer is often a complicated process, but finding the right partner can significantly improve your business and client service. Legal guidance is essential to avoid potential pitfalls, such as contractual issues or ownership disputes over client relationships.
Developing a comprehensive transition plan will help organize client accounts and ensure the process runs smoothly. Engaging your team early allows for shared responsibility and clear goals throughout the transition.
It’s also a good time to reassess your client base, streamlining relationships and services to align with your current practice. Finally, preparing client data properly and crafting a clear communication plan can help ensure a smooth and positive transition for everyone involved.
Finsum: Data, in particular, can be critical with the advances in information and technology.
Around two-thirds of active bond funds outperformed their average passive peers during the 12-month period ending June 30, according to Morningstar's latest Active/Passive Barometer. The report, which examines the performance of over 8,000 funds across various categories, highlighted that intermediate core bond funds led the way, beating passive funds 72% of the time.
These active bond funds benefitted from narrowing credit spreads and inflation that kept interest rate cuts on hold. However, over a 10- and 15-year horizon, only 45.5% and 15.9% of these funds outperformed, respectively.
Additionally, actively managed real estate funds outperformed their passive counterparts 66% of the time over the same 12 months, with U.S. and global real estate funds seeing strong short-term success.
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As the Federal Reserve signals more rate cuts, long-term municipal bonds (munis) are becoming increasingly attractive due to their competitive yields, tax benefits, and potential for price appreciation. Historically, long-term munis tend to outperform when the Fed shifts from a hawkish to a dovish stance, benefiting from falling interest rates.
These bonds also offer superior credit quality and often deliver higher tax-equivalent yields compared to taxable bonds, making them a strong alternative to Treasuries. With their longer durations, munis are particularly sensitive to rate changes, allowing for significant price gains in a falling rate environment.
Moreover, the increased issuance of municipal bonds this year has created a favorable buying opportunity, especially as tax reforms and higher marginal rates could further boost demand for tax-exempt investments.
Finsum: For investors looking to capitalize on rate cuts, long-term munis offer a compelling mix of yield, tax advantages, and credit stability
Advisors today face increasing challenges in helping clients achieve and maintain financial independence. With high U.S. stock valuations predicting lower future returns, and bond yields offering minimal real returns, portfolio strategies need to evolve.
Clients are also grappling with rising living costs, longer life spans, and elevated housing prices, creating greater financial strain. Factor investing offers a solution, selecting securities based on traits like momentum, quality, and low volatility, which have historically outperformed.
These strategies can be implemented cost-effectively through ETFs and optimized for tax efficiency within households. Although no factor guarantees success in every market, a diversified approach to factor investing provides a long-term opportunity for outperformance.
Finsum: Factor investing is robust proven strategy that can bring legitacy to new advisors or those looking to expand client adoption.
Goldman Sachs projects that the stock market could see a 15% rise by year-end if mega-cap tech stocks continue their strong performance. The bank argues that tech stocks are not currently in a bubble, as investors are focused on companies with profitable growth rather than speculative ones.
Goldman’s David Kostin notes that while long-term growth expectations for the S&P 500 are slightly above average, they remain well below levels seen during previous market bubbles. Despite concerns about the high concentration in a few tech giants, Goldman believes this is justified given their rapid growth compared to other S&P 500 companies.
The valuation spread between market-cap-weighted and equal-weighted S&P 500 indexes does not suggest bubble conditions, staying below historical extremes.
Finsum: We would look into more traditional measures like price to earning ratios if we are concerned about a bubble forming, rather than just long run growth.