New products introduced over the last week include a new education program from Commonwealth Financial; new fixed income derived analytics from Thomson Reuters and BlackRock; and an absolute return hedge fund ETF from IndexIQ.
In addition, the Phoenix Companies updated its CommandMark single-premium fixed indexed annuity series; MainStay offered a new fund; and DDJ Capital Management was named a subadvisor to the Principal Global Diversified Income Fund.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) Commonwealth Financial Network Debuts Education Program
Commonwealth Financial Network recently introduced RetireReady, a customizable, turnkey participant education program designed to help independent advisors deliver differentiating value to retirement plan sponsor clients.
RetireReady is the latest addition to a suite of marketing programs that includes presentations, articles, worksheets, and more on topics in the retirement plan arena. Solutions are grouped into three areas. Encourage Enrollment outlines the basics of a workplace retirement plan to inspire employees to get started or participate more. Educate About Saving & Investing covers ways to find extra dollars to put toward retirement savings; also discusses dollar-cost averaging and asset allocation. Prepare Participants for Retiring gets preretirees thinking about creating a retirement income plan.
2) Thomson Reuters, BlackRock Launch New Fixed Income Derived Analytics
Thomson Reuters and BlackRock Inc., recently announced an agreement to create and distribute a set of fixed income derived analytics from BlackRock Solutions, to be made available to institutional clients via Thomson Reuters DataScope Select and Thomson Reuters DataScope Onsite.
The new analytics are designed to help institutional asset managers, hedge funds, banks, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, corporate treasuries and family offices better validate and manage their fixed income portfolios to mitigate portfolio risk. They are based on Thomson Reuters security indicative data and prices and leverage BlackRock Solutions' proprietary fixed-income models. Sourced using Thomson Reuters DataScope data and pricing, these analytics are created via BlackRock Solutions analytics infrastructure.
3) IndexIQ Launches QmnAs, Absolute Return Hedge Fund ETF
IndexIQ announced recently that it has launched the IQ Hedge Market Neutral Tracker ETF (QMN). QMN is designed to offer investors liquid, transparent market-neutral hedge fund exposure.
