Fidelity Launches Advisors' Marketing Program
The toolkit offers a step-by-step process to help advisors evaluate and outline their firms' goals while they assess their current business development efforts so they can identify ways to attract new clients.
Fidelity Investments also is launching Fidelity Global High Income Fund with advisor share classes. The new fund, Fidelity's first in the global high-yield category, seeks diverse sources of income in global fixed-income markets.
The new fund allocates assets across four markets: U.S. high yield, European high yield, Asian high yield and emerging markets debt.
"Our clients have told us they are looking for more income-producing and global investments. We believe global high-yield and emerging markets continue to offer one of the most attractive long-term risk/reward profiles when compared to other asset classes," says Brian B. Hogan, president of Fidelity's Equity Group.
High-yield markets in Europe and Asia in particular have grown significantly during the past decade and offer varying performance drivers that could complement an allocation to the more established U.S. high-yield and emerging-market debt markets, Fidelity says.
Vanguard Reduces Investment Minimums
Vanguard, Valley Forge, Pa., is reducing the minimum investment requirement from $3,000 to $1,000 for the 12 funds in its index-based Target Retirement Fund series.
The company also is using social media to help educate novice investors on saving for retirement and standardizing the minimum investment requirement for investor shares of nearly all Vanguard funds at $3,000.
Wells Fargo Provides Consultation Services
Wells Fargo Funds Management LLC, San Francisco, will provide consultative guidance for registered investment advisors with programs focused on practice management and asset management. The new program will include an Internet resource, RIA Advantage.
The practice management tools help advisors build efficiency into their practices and find niche opportunities. Market and economic research, analytical papers, and an ongoing series called Investment Perspectives will be included. The new resources will be available through a team of regional consultants, as well as through the website, RIA Advantage.
Morningstar Offers Contrarian ETF Strategies
Morningstar Investment Services Inc. is launching Contrarian ETF strategies, a suite of three ETF portfolios that provide exposure to the "most unloved" mutual fund categories in Morningstar's database, as measured by asset outflow.
The Contrarian ETF portfolio is based on the Buy the Unloved study, which found that unpopular categories are more likely to outperform the broad stock market over subsequent periods than more popular categories, suggesting that outflows are a useful contrarian signal.
RBS Launches Exchange-Traded Notes
RBS Securities Inc. has launched three exchange-traded notes (ETNs) issued by The Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. to investors in the United States. The notes include the RBS U.S. large-cap, mid-cap and Gold Trendpilot ETNs.
Each provides access for U.S. investors to large-cap, mid-cap or gold indexes. The large-cap returns depend on the relative performance of the S&P 500 TR Index on a simple historical 200-day moving average basis. The mid-cap index depends on the relative performance for the S&P 400 TR Index on a simple historical 200-day moving average basis, and the gold index depends on the relative performance of the price of gold bullion on a simple historical 200-day moving average basis.
Van Eck Introduces Floating Rate ETF
Van Eck Global, a ew York-based asset manager, is launching Market Vectors Investment Grade Floating Rate ETF, an exchange-traded fund that seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Market Vectors Investment Grade Floating Rate Index. The index consists of a portfolio of corporate U.S. dollar-denominated investment grade floating rate notes.