Ellevest Enters the Impact Investing Space: Portfolio Products

News April 02, 2018 at 10:49 AM
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Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck.

Ellevest is entering the impact investing market with its new Ellevest Impact Portfolios.

Available to all clients, the Impact Portfolios embody a gender-lens investment theme to drive positive social and economic change by advancing women globally. A suite of additional gender-lens impact investing options will be available for Ellevest Private Wealth Management clients.

While many gender-lens investment offerings focus on driving capital to companies that advance women, Ellevest's approach also includes investments that drive capital more directly into the hands of women and the organizations that support their economic advancement.

Examples include investments that provide small business loans to women owners, trade finance loans that help companies with social mandates in emerging economies and sustainable housing for workforce tenants and their families.

With Ellevest clients citing the ability to make a positive impact through their investments as one of the top items on their client "wish list," company co-founder and CEO Sallie Krawcheck said she believes investor behavior is already changing and that women are leading the way.

"Ellevest's focus is to close the gender-based money gaps that can cost women a fortune over the course of their lives," Krawcheck said in a statement. "Across the board, as we see women taking their rightful seats at the investing table, they want to do moreand are ready to do morewith their money. They're recognizing the power that our collective investments can have, and they want their impact to be a positive one."

Voya Financial Enhances Capabilities to Support the Special Needs Community

Voya Financial enhanced its digital retirement planning capabilities with features to support people with special needs and their caregivers.

All retirement plan participants will have access to the new functionality through Voya's myOrangeMoney website. It provides information that can help special needs plan participants address the unique planning circumstances they may face when preparing for the future.

Based on a few questions that are presented to them, individuals are prompted to consider their eligibility for certain government benefits, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).

In addition to these specific government programs, participants can also learn more about a number of other important topics for their planning needs such as, broader special needs planning guidance; specialized legal and financial resources; additional government benefits including Medicare and Medicaid; as well as background on special needs trusts and the important role they can play within one's financial strategy.

Tortoise Launches Tax-Advantaged Social Infrastructure Fund

Tortoise launched a closed-end interval fund that offers investors access to the firm's direct lending strategy that was previously available only to qualified purchasers through a private fund.

The Tortoise Tax-Advantaged Social Infrastructure Fund (TSIFX) will provide capital for social infrastructure projects related to 501(c)(3) organizations, nonprofits and other entities authorized to issue private activity and tax-exempt bonds focused on education, healthcare, housing, industrial infrastructure, human service providers and social services, where there is currently a capital dislocation.

The fund seeks to generate attractive total return with an emphasis on tax-advantaged income. Liquidity will be provided to shareholders through the fund's quarterly repurchase offerings.

Vident Financial Launches U.S. Diversified Real Estate ETF

Vident Financial launched a multi-factor alternative to traditional market cap-weighted real estate funds.

The U.S. Diversified Real Estate ETF (PPTY) seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the U.S. Diversified Real Estate Index (PPTYX).

The portfolio construction process uses data on the individual properties held by each company in the investment universe to build a portfolio diversified by location and property type. Leverage and governance factors are further included to reduce exposure to higher risk companies.

PPTY has a management fee of 0.53%.

Motif Introduces Artificial Intelligence Portfolio

Motif released a new thematic portfolio focused on artificial intelligence.

The Artificial Intelligence motif includes 20 companies at the forefront of the AI revolution, ranging from intelligent software and algorithms to the hardware behind the scenes.

The top five holdings are Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc, Intel Corporation, Facebook Inc., and International Business Machines Corp.

Cboe Vest Launches Its First ETF, New "Dividend Aristocrats" ETF

Cboe Vest Financial launched its first ETF: the Cboe Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF (KNG).

KNG is index-based and seeks to track the Cboe S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income Index Monthly Series (SPATI), an index designed to track the performance of a partial overwriting strategy applied to the stock holdings of the well-known S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index.

KNG seeks to solve two major concerns of bond investors: the income dilemma of low bond yields and concerns about price sensitivity when interest rates rise.

KNG targets portfolio yield, pursuing a strategy that seeks to convert a portion of the potential upside performance of dividend growers into current income. The strategy seeks to provide annualized income from stock dividends and option premiums of approximately 3% over the annual dividend yield of the S&P 500 Index and generate price returns that are proportional to the price appreciation of the S&P 500 Index, before fees and expenses.

Dry Bulk Shipping ETF Launches as the First Freight Futures ETF

Breakwave Advisors, in partnership with ETF Managers Group, launched the first freight futures exchange-traded product focusing exclusively on dry bulk shipping.

The Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF (BDRY) aims to provide investors direct access to an instrumental part of the global commodity market that historically has been uncorrelated with other major asset classes.

BDRY provides long exposure to the dry bulk shipping market through a portfolio of near-dated freight futures contracts on dry bulk indices. This offers investors exposure to dry bulk freight without the need for a futures trading account. BDRY uses a laddered strategy to buy contracts while letting existing positions expire and settle in cash.

The initial freight futures allocation will be 50% Capesize contracts, 40% Panamax contracts and 10% Supramax contracts, rebalancing annually. The expense ratio is 1.72%.

Nasdaq Launches Nasdaq Fund Network to Expand Market Transparency

Nasdaq announced the expansion and relaunch of its Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS) as Nasdaq Fund Network (NFN).

Nasdaq Fund Network is a global investment product information service bringing greater efficiency and transparency to the world's financial markets. Nasdaq Fund Network lists and distributes performance data for 35,000-plus investable products to one million plus investors on a daily basis.

Nasdaq Fund Network provides the global investing public daily access to valuations for listed financial instruments, including mutual funds, money market funds, unit investment trusts (UITs), annuities, Separately Managed Accounts/Unified Managed Accounts, collective investment trusts, alternative investments and structured products that are listed with Nasdaq.

Previously, MFQS was limited to only mutual fund and money market fund listings.

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