News & press
AltaVista Research Launches Fixed Income ETF Coverage
NEW YORK, July 22, 2014 – AltaVista Research, a boutique research firm dedicated to the fundamentally-driven analysis of ETFs, today announces the expansion of its coverage universe to include Fixed Income ETFs. This new coverage will help investors compare bond funds as well as position their portfolios for potential increases in interest rates.
Beyond basic fund information such as issuer breakdown, credit quality, and performance, AltaVista's Fixed Income ETF coverage is the first and only analysis to include rate sensitivity analysis and default-adjusted yield to maturity, which helps investors determine whether they are being adequately compensated for higher risks of lower-credit quality issues.
Users can access this new analysis through the ETF Research Center, the online portal for financial advisors and individual investors to access AltaVista Research's ETF analysis. Click here for more information.
"As with equity ETFs, we conduct a fundamental analysis of each fund's underlying constituents. For fixed income funds, this allows us to estimate, for example, the likely change in a fund's price in response to changes in interest rates, based on the duration and convexity of each security in the fund. We think this information is quite useful to financial advisors trying to position clients' portfolios for an eventual increase in interest rates," explains Michael Krause, President and founder of AltaVista Research.
"AltaVista continues to innovate by creating tools that allow investors to evaluate ETFs for their actual credit and interest rate exposure. The new Fixed Income Evaluator has proven to be instrumental to our security selection process. The eloquent design and ease of use of this site allows Toroso to illustrate our opinions clearly to our clients," noted Michael Venuto, Chief Investment Officer of Toroso Investments and a frequent user of AltaVista's ETF analysis and portfolio building tools.
The launch of coverage includes 30 of the most widely held bond funds across 6 categories, accounting for about $195 billion in assets, or more than 75% of all fixed income ETF assets. Together with existing coverage of equity funds, subscribers can screen, analyze, and construct portfolios from among 835 ETFs with more than $1.5 trillion in assets.
About Toroso Investments™
Toroso, a combination of Toro and Oso ("bull" and "bear" in Spanish) are terms often used to describe the ups and downs of the market and economy. Toroso Investments is a research focused investment advisory firm designed for today's investor seeking core asset allocation and income strategies that are intended to perform well in all economic climates. Our portfolios are constructed primarily of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) to take advantage of the increased liquidity, transparency and lower costs over mutual funds. For more information, please visit www.torosoinv.com.
AltaVista's Model ETF Portfolios Celebrate Four Years of Outperformance
NEW YORK, July 28, 2011 – AltaVista’s model ETF portfolios celebrated their fourth anniversary posting solid track records. The U.S. Equity model has returned a cumulative 3.5 percentage points over the S&P500 index since inception on June 15, 2008, while the International model, a non-US equity portfolio, enjoyed cumulative excess returns of 11.3 percentage points versus its benchmark over the same period. A third model, Global Fundamentals, which includes both U.S. and foreign equity ETFs, is 47 months old and has bested its benchmark by 7.4 percentage points since inception.
The model portfolios are constructed using AltaVista’s proprietary research, including the ALTAR Score™ rating, under a relative value strategy. ATLAR Score™ is short for AltaVista Long Term Annual Return forecast (details here).
“Most fund ratings simply tell you what has performed well until now, encouraging investors to allocate assets to areas that have already increased in price and away from those that have declined—in essence a buy high, sell low strategy,” explains Michael Krause, President and founder of AltaVista Research. “The ALTAR Score™ works differently by encouraging investors to dynamically allocate assets away from areas that may be overheated and into areas of more value going forward.”
Krause continues, “While a lengthy back test of the ALTAR Score™ has even more impressive returns, results from the model ETF portfolios are an important validation that the concept works in the real world, helping investors make better index selections.”
Currently the model ETF portfolios are available only in Australia, but considering the track records that now exist AltaVista is exploring options for introducing them to the U.S. market. Model portfolios provide investors with expert fund selection and monitoring, but give them ultimate control over how and when their money is invested.
Michael Krause Discusses the Tech Sector SPDR on CNBC
MIAMI, July 8, 2011 – AltaVista President and founder Michael Krause discusses the prospect for the Technology Sector SPDR (XLK) with CNBC hosts Melissa Lee, Simon Hobbs and Herb Greenberg. Watch the video.
Free Guidebook Helps Advisors Tackle Indexing Trend
NEW YORK, January 25, 2011 – ETF Research Center, the online portal for financial advisors to access AltaVista’s analysis of exchange traded funds, has published a free guide titled Research of ETFs. The report discusses challenges and opportunities for financial advisors who adopt ETFs for widespread use in clients’ portfolios.
“Index funds have grown from 3% to 26% of all equity funds over the past 16 years, challenging the advisor’s role in building and monitoring client portfolios. This report explains how advisors can utilize research to provide highly tailored, more effective financial planning services with ETFs and hopefully build better, more enduring relationships in the process,” explains Michael Krause, President and founder of AltaVista Research.
After surveying the marketplace for ETF research, the guide argues why a fundamentally-driven approach offers some significant benefits over other methodologies, and how investors and their advisors can use this information in selecting and monitoring a disciplined ETF portfolio.
John Heneghan, President of Servant Financial, a registered investment advisor firm in the Chicago area, adds, “AltaVista’s fundamentally-driven ETF research is an essential portfolio risk management tool for today’s global, dynamic investment environment. The robust analysis and research provides a distinct, competitive advantage in ETF selection for broad strategic portfolio construction and to implement more active tactical selections in specific asset classes, sectors and macro themes.”
The guidebook is available for download free to financial advisors who register here. Users of the Bloomberg Professional service (type ALTA <GO>) and FactSet Research Systems can also download the report.
About Servant Financial:
Servant Financial, Ltd. is a registered investment advisor providing investment advisory and related consulting services. Servant's mission is to provide good and faithful investment advisory services that enable our clients to achieve their financial and life goals.
ETF Research Center Launches Portfolio Builder Tool to Assist Financial Advisors
NEW YORK, September 13, 2010 – ETF Research Center, the online portal for financial advisors and individual investors to access AltaVista’s analysis of exchange traded funds, launched Portfolio Builder as part of its research offering. The new tool completes the product suite by allowing users to screen, analyze and now build portfolios using ETFs in a disciplined, forward-looking manner.
Like the other tools on ETF Research Center, Portfolio Builder takes a forward-looking view based on a fundamental analysis of the underlying constituents in an ETF, rather than relying primarily on past price returns, the most widely-used approach to ETF analysis.
“Financial advisors are increasingly adopting ETFs for use in clients’ portfolios but also have greater responsibility selecting and monitoring ETFs compared with traditional mutual funds, where there is a manager making day-to-day decisions on investors’ behalf. Portfolio Builder puts advisors back in the driver’s seat by helping them construct custom portfolios tailored to whatever investment strategy meets their clients’ particular needs,” notes Michael Krause, President and founder of AltaVista Research.
Portfolio Builder is now available as part of a Professional level subscription to the ETF Research Center for $99 per month after a one-month free trial, and includes full access to all other tools on the site.