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 the fund can track a specified basket of underlying investments. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes 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 allows 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 and exchange-traded product, meaning that that is traded on stock exchanges, much like other securities such as stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, and/or bonds and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value, although deviations can occasionally occur. Most ETFs are index funds, that is, they hold the same securities in the same proportions as a certain stock market index or bond market index. The most popular ETFs in the U.S. replicate the S&P 500 Index, the total market index, the NASDAQ-100 index, the price of gold, the "growth" stocks in the Russell 1000 Index, or the index of the largest technology companies. With the exception of non-transparent actively managed ETFs, in most cases, the list of stocks that each ETF owns, as well as their weightings, is posted daily on the website of the sponsor. The largest ETFs have annual fees of 0.03% of the amount invested, or even lower, although specialty ETFs can have annual fees well in excess of 1%. These fees are paid to the sponsor out of dividends received from the underlying holdings or from selling assets.
Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversification in investing, the idea that owning different kinds of financial assets is less risky than owning only one type. Its key insight is that an asset's risk and return should not be assessed by itself, but by how it contributes to a portfolio's overall risk and return. It uses the variance of asset prices as a proxy for risk.
Active management refers to a portfolio management strategy where the manager makes specific investments with the goal of outperforming an investment benchmark index or target return. In passive management, investors expect a return that closely replicates the investment weighting and returns of a benchmark index and will often invest in an index fund.
In finance, an investment strategy is a set of rules, behaviors or procedures, designed to guide an investor's selection of an investment portfolio. Individuals have different profit objectives, and their individual skills make different tactics and strategies appropriate. Some choices involve a tradeoff between risk and return. Most investors fall somewhere in between, accepting some risk for the expectation of higher returns.
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.
ETF Securities is an asset management firm focused on exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded commodities and exchange-traded currencies with offices in Jersey, London, New York, Sydney and Melbourne. The Company currently offers exchange-traded products listed or quoted on exchanges in Europe: London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse, Euronext, Swiss Exchange, Borsa Italiana and Euronext, in the Americas: NYSE and Bolsa Mexicana and Asia Pacific: ASX.
Core & Satellite Portfolio Management is an investment strategy that incorporates traditional fixed-income and equity-based securities known as the "core" portion of the portfolio, with a percentage of selected individual securities in the fixed-income and equity-based side of the portfolio known as the "satellite" portion.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:
Robert D. Arnott is an American entrepreneur, investor, editor and writer who focuses on articles about quantitative investing.
Fundamentally based indexes are indices in which stocks are weighted by one of many economic fundamental factors, especially accounting figures which are commonly used when performing corporate valuation, or by a composite of several fundamental factors. A potential benefit with composite fundamental indices is that they might average out specific sector biases which may be the case when only using one fundamental factor. A key belief behind the fundamental index methodology is that underlying corporate accounting/valuation figures are more accurate estimators of a company's intrinsic value, rather than the listed market value of the company, i.e. that one should buy and sell companies in line with their accounting figures rather than according to their current market prices. In this sense fundamental indexing is linked to so-called fundamental analysis.
Tactical asset allocation (TAA) is a dynamic investment strategy that actively adjusts a portfolio's asset allocation. The goal of a TAA strategy is to improve the risk-adjusted returns of passive management investing.
Post-modern portfolio theory is an extension of the traditional modern portfolio theory. Both theories propose how rational investors should use diversification to optimize their portfolios, and how a risky asset should be priced.
Louis G. Navellier is Chairman and Founder of Navellier & Associates in Reno, Nevada, which manages approximately $2.5 billion in assets. Navellier also writes four investment newsletters focused on growth investing: Emerging Growth, Blue Chip Growth, Quantum Growth and Global Growth, and can frequently be seen giving his market outlook and analysis on Bloomberg, Fox News, and CNBC.
A 130–30 fund or a ratio up to 150/50 is a type of collective investment vehicle, often a type of specialty mutual fund, but which allows the fund manager simultaneously to hold both long and short positions on different equities in the fund. Traditionally, mutual funds were long-only investments. 130–30 funds are a fast-growing segment of the financial industry; they should be available both as traditional mutual funds, and as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). While this type of investment has existed for a while in the hedge fund industry, its availability for retail investors is relatively new.
A stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current price levels with past prices to calculate market performance. It is computed from the prices of selected stocks.
BetaShares is an Australian provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other ASX-traded funds. The company introduced a range of products into the Australian ETF landscape, including Australia's first currency hedged ETF, Australia's first range of commodity ETFs, Australia's first range of currency ETFs, Australia's first ETF using Fundamentally based indexes and a range of short exchange traded products. BetaShares is based in Sydney, Australia with offices in Melbourne and Brisbane.
