Grant Engelbart
There’s Still Time to Avoid Capital Gains
Another strong year for stocks means a lot of happy investors, at least until their 1099s are distributed! Higher equity prices and continued outflows from traditional mutual funds spells trouble for impending capital gains payouts. This may be best illustrated by this figure: of the legacy mutual funds at Carson, there are 10 “tax managed” …
Grant Engelbart
December 16, 2024
Enhancing Portfolio Management
Factors The world of investment product has evolved in many ways over the years, and that evolution has seemingly accelerated more recently. There are nearly 4,000 U.S. exchange-traded products, each with their own index or objective (for better or worse), this is on top of tens of thousands of traditional mutual funds. It can be …
Grant Engelbart
December 4, 2024
Valuation Fixation Despite Market Rotation
The third quarter was a very strong one for markets, but in a different way than we have seen in recent periods. Leadership changed, often catching some managers off guard, but showing the broadening strength of this bull market. The chart below shows this simplistically, with the returns from Q3 in light blue, compared with …
Grant Engelbart
October 17, 2024
The Year of the Active ETF
United States Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) assets just hit $10 Trillion for the first time. That is still around half of the assets in traditional open-end mutual funds but the gap is closing quickly. An increasingly larger part of this growth is coming from active ETFs, which have accounted for roughly a third of ETF inflows …
Grant Engelbart
October 3, 2024
Is It Too Late to Buy Bonds?
The Federal Reserve has done all but carve in stone a September interest rate cut – market expectations are at 100% (70% for 25bps and 30% for 50bps). The broad bond market has been higher four months in a row as investors pile in ahead of cuts, pushing interest rates below 4% across maturities from …
Grant Engelbart
September 10, 2024
Factor Investing in 2024
Investment factors are characteristics of securities that explain their risk and return profiles over time. Factors such as value (buying inexpensive stocks), momentum (systematically owning recent outperformers), quality (high margin, low debt, high return on capital businesses), minimum/low volatility (stocks exhibiting lower beta or standard deviation), and size (small caps- lower market cap stocks), have …
Grant Engelbart
August 22, 2024
Out of the Ether and into an ETF
The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, has now made its way into US-listed exchange-traded funds. Last Tuesday, the SEC greenlit 9 products (one conversion) to begin trading in a quiet and almost unexpected launch, especially relative to the craze seen earlier in the year surrounding Bitcoin ETFs. Ethereum was the logical approval after …
Grant Engelbart
August 2, 2024
The Labor Market is Ready for Rate Cuts
Well, that didn’t take long. Since the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday- presumably waiting on continued solid data supporting their case – the data confirmed otherwise. Thursday’s set of economic data saw initial jobless claims rise to their highest level in a year, alongside a weak manufacturing ISM number. Stocks fell …
Grant Engelbart
August 2, 2024
The Fed Opens the Door (Wide)
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meeting concluded Wednesday, leaving target interest rates unchanged, almost exactly a year after raising rates to their current level. In their statement and press conference, the committee acknowledged moderation of the labor market and the move higher in the unemployment rate. Chair Powell went beyond hinting when referring to …
Grant Engelbart
August 1, 2024
Global Investing in the Second Half
We cover a lot of ground in our 2024 Midyear Outlook, but one area worth diving into more is non-US equities. Over the past 15 years, international stocks have only outperformed the U.S. stock market in 12.5% of rolling 12-month periods, not exactly compelling! This year has not started off any different, with the S&P …
Grant Engelbart
July 16, 2024