Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.
An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that it can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indices like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, debts, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor founded on May 1, 1975 and based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $9.3 trillion in global assets under management as of May 2024. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world after BlackRock's iShares. In addition to mutual funds and ETFs, Vanguard offers brokerage services, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services. Several mutual funds managed by Vanguard are ranked at the top of the list of US mutual funds by assets under management. Along with BlackRock and State Street, Vanguard is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers that play a dominant role in corporate America.
Franklin Resources, Inc. is an American multinational holding company that, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as Franklin Templeton; it is a global investment firm founded in New York City in 1947 as Franklin Distributors, Inc. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BEN, in honor of Benjamin Franklin, for whom the company is named, and who was admired by founder Rupert Johnson Sr. In 1973, the company's headquarters moved from New York to San Mateo, California.
Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC is an American investment management firm focusing on active fixed income management worldwide. PIMCO manages investments in many asset classes such as fixed income, equities and other financial assets across public and private markets. PIMCO is one of the largest investment managers, actively managing more than $2 trillion in assets for central banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, corporations, foundations and endowments, and individual investors around the world. According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, PIMCO is the 6th-largest asset manager in the world by managed AUM.
Wilshire Associates, Inc. is an American independent investment management firm that offers consulting services and analytical products and manages fund of funds investment vehicles for a global client base. Wilshire manages capital for more than 600 institutional investors globally representing more than $8 trillion of capital. Wilshire is also known for the creation of the Wilshire 5000 stock index in 1974 and more recently the Wilshire 4500 stock index.
iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009. The first iShares ETFs were known as World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) but have since been rebranded.
ETF Securities is an asset management firm that issues exchange-traded funds (ETFs) primarily in Australia.
SPDR funds are a family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) traded in the United States, Europe, Mexico and Asia-Pacific and managed by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA). Informally, they are also known as Spyders or Spiders. SPDR is a trademark of Standard and Poor's Financial Services LLC, a subsidiary of S&P Global. The name is an acronym for the first member of the family, the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts, now the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF, which is designed to track the S&P 500 stock market index.
TrimTabs Investment Research, Inc. is a leading independent institutional research firm focused on equity market liquidity based in Sausalito, California.
An inverse exchange-traded fund is an exchange-traded fund (ETF), traded on a public stock market, which is designed to perform as the inverse of whatever index or benchmark it is designed to track. These funds work by using short selling, trading derivatives such as futures contracts, and other leveraged investment techniques.
AdvisorShares Investments is a US-based investment management firm based in Bethesda, Maryland which offers actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through the AdvisorShares Trust. AdvisorShares partners with third party financial advisers who already manage clients’ assets to package their investment strategy using exchange-traded funds. As part of promoting its funds it also provides educational support to help financial advisors and investors understand actively managed ETFs and their underlying investment strategies.
A quantitative fund is an investment fund that uses quantitative investment management instead of fundamental human analysis.
Amundi is a French asset management company. With €2 trillion of assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2021, it is the largest asset manager in Europe and one of the 10 biggest investment managers in the world.
Stockspot is an online investment adviser and fund manager based in Sydney, Australia. It is the first fully paperless digital investment advice platform in Australia and provides consumers with access to professional investment services for less than the typical cost of a traditional financial adviser or wealth manager.
Janus Henderson is a British-American global asset management group headquartered in the City of London, United Kingdom. It offers a range of financial products to individuals, intermediary advisors and institutional investors globally under the trade name Janus Henderson Investors.
