Wealthfront Integrates With Crypto Accounts on Coinbase: Portfolio Products

Wealthfront announced a Coinbase API integration into its financial planning service to give Wealthfront clients a more holistic view of their finances.

According to Wealthfront, this integration is "especially exciting" because Coinbase has been one of Wealthfront clients' top requested institutions to support.

Clients have always been able to connect a wide variety of account types and asset classes to Wealthfront's advice engine — from bank and brokerage accounts to real estate, mortgages and student loans.

Clients can now add the cryptocurrency holdings in their Coinbase account to Wealthfront and Wealthfront will factor that information into clients' free financial plan.

American Beacon Advisors Launches Mutual Fund With Continuous Capital

American Beacon Advisors launched the American Beacon Continuous Capital Emerging Markets Fund.

The fund is the first open-end mutual fund from Continuous Capital, a firm specializing in value equity strategies and an affiliate company of Resolute Investment Managers, the parent company of American Beacon.

The fund's strategy is to identify investment opportunities at the intersection of value and quality and to mitigate volatility by primarily investing in dividend-paying stocks. Three share classes of the Fund are available: Institutional Class (CCEIX), Investor Class (CCEPX) and Y Class (CCEYX).

The American Beacon Continuous Capital Emerging Markets Fund employs a two-pronged screening process, consisting of both quantitative and fundamental research, to evaluate 4,000 companies in emerging market economies. The fund is broadly diversified across multiple dimensions — countries, currencies and sectors — both to minimize uncompensated risks and to generate a consistent return profile. Its sector and country exposures will be relatively flat to the benchmark, ensuring the majority of the portfolio's alpha is generated by stock selection.

The fund has an expense ratio of 1.29% for the Y Class, 1.19% for the Institutional Class and 1.57% for the Investor Class.

Betterment Adds Commodities to Its Flexible Portfolios

Betterment for Advisors added an asset class to its Flexible Portfolios: broad-based commodities.

Advisors are now able to edit their clients' Flexible Portfolio allocations to include commodities, adding to other Betterment for Advisors exclusive asset classes — domestic REITs, international REITs and high-yield bonds.

Betterment's Flexible Portfolio gives its advisors more control in personalizing their clients' investments. It allows them to further modify the Betterment portfolio strategy by adjusting the individual asset class weights and accessing additional asset classes.

According to Betterment, this is another step in giving advisors more control, optionality and personalization for every one of their clients.

Innovator Preps January Series of S&P 500 Defined Outcome ETF Listings

Innovator Capital Management announced the anticipated upside Cap Ranges and return profiles for the January Series of Innovator S&P 500 Defined Outcome ETFs, scheduled for Cboe listing on Jan. 2, 2019.

Innovator S&P 500 Defined Outcome ETFs seek to provide investors exposure to the S&P 500 Price Return Index to a Cap, with downside buffer levels of 9%, 15% or 30% over an outcome period of approximately one year. The ETFs reset annually and can be held indefinitely.

The January series of Innovator S&P 500 Defined Outcome ETFs includes three new ETFs: Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF (BJAN), Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (PJAN) and Innovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF (UJAN).

BJAN is designed to track the return of the S&P 500 (up to a predetermined Cap) while buffering investors against the first 9% of losses over the outcome period, before fees and expenses.

PJAN is designed to track the return of the S&P 500 (up to a predetermined Cap) while buffering investors against the first 15% of losses over the outcome period, before fees and expenses.

And UJAN is designed to track the return of the S&P 500 (up to a predetermined Cap) while buffering investors against a decline of 30% of losses over the outcome period, from -5% to -35%, before fees and expenses. Investors are exposed to loss between 0% and 5% and over 35% over the outcome period, before fees and expenses.

IndexIQ Launches Short Duration Core Bond U.S. ETF

ETF provider IndexIQ expanded its fixed income suite with a new fund that brings a momentum-driven approach to the short duration, U.S. dollar-denominated fixed income category.

The IQ Short Duration Enhanced Core Bond U.S. ETF (SDAG) seeks to outperform the short duration, U.S. dollar-denominated taxable fixed income universe by using a momentum tilted factor strategy.

The fund tracks, before fees and expenses, the performance and yield of the IQ Short Duration Enhanced Core Bond U.S. Index.

SDAG has an expense ratio of 0.36%.

EQIS to Offer Advisors LifeYield's Social Security Advantage Tool

LifeYield, a cloud-based solution that facilitates tax-smart, risk-smart management of an investor's entire household portfolio, announced that its proprietary Social Security Advantage solution will now be available through EQIS Capital Management Inc., a fee-based Turnkey Asset Management Platform for financial advisors.

This partnership will make LifeYield's technology available to more than 2,100 advisors currently using the EQIS TAMP.

Through this partnership, advisors who work with EQIS will gain access to Social Security Advantage. By using the tool, advisors gain access to software to provide personalized recommendations on when and how to file for benefits, including strategies for how a client can fill income gaps during certain periods of retirement.

Based on the inputs provided, LifeYield Social Security Advantage calculates the optimal timing for clients to begin to take their Social Security benefits and how to file given different spousal scenarios. Customized reports show clients how much more they can expect to receive by month, annually and in total with the optimal strategy.

—Read the last portfolio product roundup here: Vanguard to Merge Growth Funds, Shake Up 3 Fund Advisory Teams: Portfolio Products