Advisor Success Series

We are pleased to kick off our 2023 season of the Advisor Success Series Podcast with Dave Nadig and Todd Rosenbluth from VettaFi. Both Dave and Todd are veterans of the fund industry and share their perspectives on prevailing industry trends such as ETF adoption, active versus passive management, and how advisors are shifting their practices to an ever-changing landscape.

In this episode, we welcome Andrew back to our podcast series as we discuss the economic and investment landscape for 2023. We discuss why the U.S. economy will just skate by on real (inflation-adjusted) economic growth, why inflation will come down but not as fast as implicitly priced in by financial markets, and their preferences for how asset allocators should be positioned in a less certain environment for economic and earnings growth. 

In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Rahul Hemrajani, Product Manager at Fitch Group, Inc.  Over a short period of time, Rahul has established a prominent profile within the ‘FinTwit’ community serving as host to his popular Twitter Spaces forums discussing the latest market-moving headlines.  We also discuss the current investment landscape as asset allocators must contend with an uncertain environment replete with high global inflation and central bank tightening. 

In this episode, we take an opportunity to turn inward and discuss our recent acquisition by Freedom Advisors, the owner of EQIS Capital which runs an investment platform for independent financial advisors.  We discuss how our platforms complement one another to offer a wide breadth of services for advisors and reaffirm the importance of the independent advisory model. 

In this episode, we follow up with Wes Crill, Head of Investment Strategists at Dimensional Funds, from our May 2022 podcast episode in light of the continuing market volatility during the 1st half of 2022.  We address investor misconceptions and behavioral tendencies in the face of steep market sell-offs, both in equities and fixed income.  We caution investors to not react to short-term market volatility and evaluate how risk is being priced in equities and fixed income in the face of greater uncertainty on inflation and economic growth outlooks. 

In this episode, we are pleased to be joined by Tony Crescenzi, Market Strategist and Generalist Portfolio Manager at Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO).  In addition to providing an updated outlook on the fixed income market, Mr. Crescenzi helps our listeners get a more intuitive understanding of Quantitative Tightening (“QT”), or the Federal Reserve’s initiative to begin reducing its nearly $9 trillion balance sheet as part of a broader campaign to tighten monetary policy in the face of persistently high inflation.  How are we to understand both the impact of QT on capital markets functioning as well as on overall borrowing costs?  Have a listen to better understand the uncertainty that even financial professionals, let alone the layperson, struggle with in trying to gauge the potential impact of QT. 

In this episode, we catch up with Wes Crill, Head of Investment Strategists at Dimensional Funds, to discuss the client communication challenges financial advisors are facing in the wake of market volatility, especially in fixed income which has typically served as a ballast to equities, but not so much so far in 2022.  We also discuss how advisors might address client inquiries into cryptocurrency / digital asset investing when viewed within the context of expected risk/returns applied to traditional assets. 

In this episode, Bonnie Treichel, Chief Solutions Officer at Endeavor Retirement, joins us to discuss retirement plan compliance. Endeavour Retirement is a consulting firm dedicated to solving problems for plan sponsors, advisors, and service providers. Her background and experience give her a unique and informed perspective on the retirement plan industry. Our conversation covers timely topics such as PTE 2020-02, ESG Investing, and much more around the compliance landscape. 

In this episode, we have the opportunity to hear from American Century’s Joyce Huang, Portfolio Specialist on the Emerging Market Fixed Income Management team.  We discuss the current investment landscape for the emerging markets following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting spillover into other regions.  Joyce Huang shares with our listeners how the team has been able to navigate the market turmoil (hint: the team had hedged their Russian debt exposure prior to the invasion) and some of the opportunities they are finding following the broader sell-off in emerging market fixed income. 

We are pleased to be joined by Michael Green from Simplify ETFs to discuss the decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time following the March 2022 meeting.  We dig into the rationales for the course of action the Fed has committed itself to as it seeks to help restore price stability through tighter monetary policy actions without tipping the U.S. economy into recession.  We provide our views on the challenges the Fed faces given signs of an economic slowdown, largely a result of the higher prices feeding into a more expensive basic cost-of-living environment that many are struggling to keep up with.  What the Fed will do and what it ought to do is subject to much debate as we try to move past the 2020 pandemic shutdowns.