Research Affiliates launched Smart Beta Interactive, a new website that provides investors information on factors and smart beta strategies including past performance history, relative valuations, estimates of prospective alpha, and liquidity and risk attributions as well as other implementation characteristics.
This interactive website spans factors, such as value, income, low volatility, quality, momentum, multi-factor, and size, plus an array of widely used "smart beta" strategies.
According to Rob Arnott, chairman and CEO of Research Affiliates, the Smart Beta Interactive website is the culmination of years of research around smart beta and factor valuations.
"We believe investors should not focus on strategies and factors with brilliant recent results," Arnott said in a statement. "We all fare much better when we emphasize factors or strategies that are trading cheap relative to their own historical norms and deemphasize the more expensive factors or strategies. Now all investors have access to an online tool that will help them make this determination for themselves."
By going beyond historical returns, Smart Beta Interactive is meant to benefit the investment community by providing a richer toolkit, emphasizing future return expectations anchored on relative valuations and transaction costs.
The new tool aims to provide investors the information they need to make informed decisions: clear methodology descriptions, historical risks and returns, turnover, transaction costs, capacity, current valuations and even robust forecasts of future returns.
"How do we make smart beta provide the greatest investor benefit? Hint: It's not choosing the best 'backtest alpha' and the inherent returns chasing it produces," John West, head of client strategies at Research Affiliates, said in a statement. "Instead, our new tool helps investors focus on what matters for their own journey forward by setting reasonable forward expectations and understanding the transaction costs embedded in the various strategies, particularly as they gain larger scale."
Hartford Funds Launches Global Impact Fund
Hartford Funds expanded its socially responsible investing lineup with the Hartford Global Impact Fund (HGXAX).
Sub-advised by Wellington Management, the Hartford Global Impact Fund seeks seek long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies that focus their operations in areas that the fund believes are likely to address the world's major social and environmental challenges.
The fund will seek long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies likely to address major social and environmental challenges including, but not limited to, health, clean water and sanitation, financial inclusion, alternative energy and resource efficiency.
First Eagle Investment Management Adds Suite of Retirement Share Classes
First Eagle Investment Management launched a suite of retirement share classes for its mutual fund lineup.
The new R3, R4, R5 and R6 shares are available without investment minimums or front-end sales charges and offer varying levels of intermediary compensation, including 12b-1 and sub-TA fees. The R6 shares do not include any form of intermediary compensation and represent the lowest-cost offering among the newly launched shares.
Natixis Global Asset Management Launches Industry's First ESG Target-Date Funds
Natixis Global Asset Management launched the industry's first target-date retirement savings solution that focuses on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing.
The Natixis Sustainable Future Funds include ten funds with vintages ranging every five years from 2015 to 2060.
(Related on ThinkAdvisor: Natixis Plans First Target-Date Suite Focused on ESG: Top Portfolio Products)
The funds select securities based on ESG criteria with respect to issues such as fair labor, anti-corruption, human rights, fair business practices and mitigation of environmental impact and seeks a diversified portfolio of investments that contribute to a more sustainable future.
The funds are advised by NGAM Advisors, L.P. and su-advised by Natixis Asset Management U.S., LLC. Among other investment constituents, the funds will incorporate equity and fixed-income allocations that leverage the ESG expertise of Mirova, an affiliate of Natixis AM U.S., which has managed responsible investment solutions for almost 30 years.
