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Are Your Clients Ready for US Tax Day? 

Given the complexity of U.S. tax regulation, wealth advisers continue to grapple with how to build tax-efficient portfolios while balancing clients’ other objectives. We propose a rules-based way of doing so and analyze its benefits and trade-offs.

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Can diversification help weather the coronavirus storm? 

Whether investors include a tactical approach or invest strategically for the long term, diversifying across factors, sectors and geographies has historically played an important role in portfolio construction. 

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Quantifying ESG fund performance 

One challenge facing investors is how to quantify the impact ESG has had on their investment process. We analyzed top ESG funds to better understand the contribution of the ESG factor to their performance.

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Evaluating Emerging-Market Stocks through a Governance Lens 

Emerging-market stocks generally are perceived to have lower governance standards than their developed-market counterparts. Less transparency is one factor behind this view. Some emerging-market companies may also disadvantage minority shareholders. How can active and index-based investors address these issues?

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What Fed monetary policy has meant for factors 

As interest rates in the U.S. started increasing in late 2015, many investors expressed concerns over the impact that rising rates could have on their investments. However, the tone of the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) shifted from “we’re a long way from neutral” in October last year to a more accommodative stance of “we will be patient” early this year, re-emphasizing that expression at the January 2019 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

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Why Are Small Caps Different? 

A lot has been written about the persistence of the global small-cap premium. But what, apart from size, distinguishes small-cap stocks from their large- and mid-cap counterparts, and how can these distinctions help institutional investors?

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Global small-cap fund capacity: no small matter 

In recent years, pension funds around the world increasingly have shed their home bias and made global small-cap allocations.

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Why global small-cap stocks are becoming an important part of institutional portfolios 

Institutional investors worldwide traditionally have tended to focus on the stocks of larger companies, finding them less risky, more liquid and offering greater investment capacity than small-cap stocks. But asset owners and managers increasingly are allocating strategically to the small-cap equity segment as part of their global equity portfolios i.e., via an “all-cap” approach.