Investment Consulting Archives — Page 22 of 37

2020 Halftime Market Insights Video

This video features an in-depth analysis of the second quarter’s performance and coincides with our 2Q Asset Allocation Update newsletter, reviewing risks and opportunities heading into the second half of the year.

Our Market Insights series examines the primary asset classes we cover for clients including the U.S. economy, fixed income, U.S. and non-U.S. equities, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure, private equity, and private credit, with presentations by our research analysts and directors.

Sign up for research alerts to be notified when we publish new videos here. For more information, questions, or feedback, please send us an email.

2019 Investment Symposium

Friday, October 4, 2019
8:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Marquette clients – Please join us at our annual Investment Symposium to discuss the current market environment, emerging investment themes, and investment stewardship challenges in the year ahead. In addition to our keynote, the event will feature a panel of portfolio managers and six flash talks by our research team that will brief attendees on popular topics and encourage timely conversations with our investment consultants.

Agenda

8:00 – Registration Open/Breakfast
8:45 – Welcome and Opening Remarks by Brian Wrubel
9:00 – A Prism of Capital Market Views: Portfolio Manager Panel featuring:

John W. Rogers, Jr., Chairman, Co-CEO & Chief Investment Officer at Ariel Investments
Olga Bitel, Partner and Global Strategist at William Blair
Matthew J. Eagan, CFA, Executive Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Loomis, Sayles & Company

10:00 – Break
10:15 – Flash Talks: Session 1

The Investment Case Behind ESG Investing and Implementation in Practice
Nat Kellogg, CFA, Director of Manager Search

Beyond Traditional Real Estate: Exploring Opportunities in Non-Core Real Estate
Jeremy Zirin, CAIA, Senior Research Analyst, Real Assets

So Many Risks, So Little Time: What’s Next in Global Risk?
Nicole Johnson-Barnes, Research Analyst

11:00 – Break
11:15 – Flash Talks: Session 2

U.S. Against the World: Should Investors Still Own International Stocks?
David Hernandez, CFA, Senior Research Analyst, Non-U.S. Equities
Samantha T. Grant, CFA, CAIA, Senior Research Analyst, U.S. Equities

Machine Learning for Investing: How is Artificial Intelligence Being Used in Asset Management?
Ben Mohr, CFA, Director of Fixed Income

Pick Your Portfolio Poison: Recession or Inflation?
Greg Leonberger, FSA, EA, MAAA, Director of Research

12:00 – Keynote Presentation by Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, author of two New York Times bestsellers, and former CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO

2:00 – Adjourn

Please note our new location:

The Standard Club
320 S. Plymouth Court
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Tel: (312) 427-9100
Business casual attire required.

Second Quarter Review of Asset Allocation: Risks and Opportunities

The second quarter of 2020 proved to be as eventful as the first, with slow economic results being largely ignored as markets rallied. GDP growth for the quarter is expected to come in at -35.5% YoY, though 3Q GDP projections indicate a significant rebound is expected as the country begins to reopen to “the new normal.” In addition, the unemployment rate came in at 11.1%, down from the April peak above 14%. Below are some highlights from the quarter:

Countries around the globe began reopening businesses amid fears of a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
Daily infections reached a new high in the United States at more than 50,000 per day, causing some states to roll back their reopening plans.
Weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance have continued to trend downwards.
Additional fiscal and monetary stimulus are expected in the second half of the year, bolstering markets.

COVID-19 has proven to be a potentially long-lasting concern as it remains to be seen whether we are in for a V-shaped or U-shaped recovery. Economic data is improving slowly, though markets have seemed to shrug off some of the negative news as the S&P 500 moved into positive territory over the one-year period. Though it may have fallen into the background due to COVID-19, 2020 is a presidential election year. Uncertainty surrounding the election will undoubtedly have an impact on forward-looking expectations. In this newsletter, we analyze what all of this means for each asset class.

Read > Second Quarter Review of Asset Allocation: Risks and Opportunities

The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.

Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments Proposed Rule

On June 23rd, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor released a proposal to amend certain fiduciary regulation around the consideration of economically targeted investments, or those that incorporate environmental, social, and governance factors.

The purpose of this legislative update is to provide some background on ESG integration and the subsequent DOL guidance on these issues as well as a summary of the Proposed Rule and its impact on ERISA plans.

Read > Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments Legislative Update

For additional Marquette coverage on sustainable investing, reference our recent newsletter, Sustainable Investing in a Post-COVID World, and white paper, The Future of Investing: Sustainability and ESG Integration.

The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.

Kweku Obed Speaking at NCPERS Chief Officers Summit 6/13

On Thursday, June 13, Kweku Obed, CFA, CAIA will be speaking at the NCPERS 2019 Chief Officers Summit: Where Leaders Engage in Chicago.

The Chief Officers Summit is designed to prepare CEOs and CIOs to drive their organizations forward in the face of constantly evolving opportunities and challenges. Kweku will be participating in a “Pros & Cons of Portfolio Complexity” panel with several other consulting and asset management professionals and plan sponsors. Additionally, on June 14, Kweku will be a panelist on the session entitled, “Getting More Value from Your Investment Consultants.”

Founded in 1941, the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) is the principal trade association working to promote and protect pensions by focusing on advocacy, research, and education for the benefit of public sector pension stakeholders.

For additional information, please refer to the NCPERS event page.

Don’t Mind the Gap

On the surface it looks disjointed. We are in the midst of what is likely the worst recession since the Great Depression, but the stock market has rallied back in a matter of weeks and currently sits just 10% off all-time highs. Treasury yields appear to be pricing in an extended period of softness, and high yield spreads have only started to show signs of recovery. While the future is always an unknown, it feels as if we are facing a new level of uncertainty with many more moving parts.

In this newsletter, we explore equity market dynamics to help reconcile the apparent gap between the recent good news from equity markets and overwhelmingly negative news from the economy and bond markets.

Read > Don’t Mind the Gap

The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.

Brighter Lights at the End of a Shorter Tunnel

Biotech company Moderna’s announcement earlier this week that its coronavirus vaccine successfully helped healthy adults produce antibodies against COVID-19 sent the S&P 500 up 3% and the 10-year Treasury yield rebounding from 0.64% to 0.73% on Monday. In this pandemic, the last week of March marked a pivotal turning point when investors started seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. That week was when new infections and hospitalizations started peaking and declining in Italy and Japan, soon to be joined by New York and Washington state. That week also coincided with the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Treasury’s — later followed by Congress’s — announcement of their substantial stimulus. Credit spreads have gradually been tightening ever since as stimulus ramped up, a number of vaccines and treatments reached Phase I and Phase II clinical trial milestones, and more recently, various states have started to reopen. Moderna’s favorable results added fuel to this positive sentiment and the market’s upswing.

In this newsletter, we examine the evolution of credit spreads and yields in 2020 to gauge the attractiveness of holding investment grade and sub-investment grade credit. Vaccine development is central to assessing the markets today as it is the ultimate permanent solution, and we detail the prospects of various vaccine candidates as well as discuss how investors should allocate to credit in light of vaccine progress in conjunction with key market metrics. Although the vaccine is a permanent solution, fiscal and monetary stimulus have proven to be critical for mitigating damage to the economy and markets in the interim and are still integral to assessing the markets today. We take a closer look at these lifelines from the U.S. government in an attempt to answer the all-important question: how much runway is there with this stimulus? The hope is that current programs coupled with any future policies will be sufficient to sustain and ultimately revive the economy until a vaccine allows for complete resumption of economic activity. Lastly, we dive into the fallen angels (bonds downgraded from investment grade to sub-investment grade), defaults, and bankruptcies that are threatening the credit markets right now and how to address these as investors. Throughout this discussion, we highlight three perspectives that are critical to measuring the attractiveness of an investment or an asset class: valuations, technical factors, and fundamentals.

Read > Brighter Lights at the End of a Shorter Tunnel

The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.

Is It Game Over for Value Stocks?

Over the last ten years, growth stocks have outperformed value stocks by an average 5.3% per year, and the differential is even greater for shorter time periods. As this differential widened in recent years, the expectation was that value stocks would provide greater protection in a market downturn as the market should theoretically place a greater emphasis on quality and stability, attributes typically found in value stocks. However, as the market rapidly fell into bear market territory in February and has whipsawed back and forth since doing so, growth stocks have continued to outperform value stocks, a trend which has been surprising to investors. At this point, those who have maintained a value bias in their portfolios are undoubtedly frustrated as the paradigm has failed to play out through this market correction and has likely left market participants debating the merits of value stocks altogether.

To help answer these questions, we have enlisted two of our senior research analysts, Samantha Grant (“SG”) and Jessica Noviskis (“JN”), to discuss the value vs. growth dynamics we have seen over the last decade, and to assess the future performance outlooks for each over the next market cycle. In the following conversation, Jessica covers the topics from a growth perspective while Samantha tackles the questions from the value side. Collectively, their answers should help investors decide if it is finally time to abandon value stocks, or if this is just another long-dated cycle in the equity market.

Read > Is It Game Over for Value Stocks?

The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.

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