AssetMark Inc. launched a new program that includes a suite of turnkey, professionally managed portfolios designed to deliver stable cash flows to clients planning for retirement.
The AssetMark Guided Income Solutions uses a "bucketed" investing framework to provide advisors with a simple approach to converting clients' nest eggs into a steady, tailored and automatic income replacement based on their personal financial goals.
The program segments clients' assets based on their unique short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term objectives, accommodating the psychological tendency for individuals to think about spending needs in terms of separate mental accounts.
The two longer-term buckets are rebalanced gradually over time to systematically reduce risk as clients approach the end of their target duration, providing growth and income that can potentially extend the portfolio life, while minimizing the risk of income shortfall. The short-term bucket is personalized to equal two years of the client's income needs, providing adequate liquidity to support distributions, even during periods of market volatility.
In addition, Guided Income Solutions features a modern digital calculator and enhanced goals-based proposal and reporting capabilities. Advisors can leverage the calculator by inputting two of three inputs about the client's goal, immediately receiving income and bucket projections, as well as a host of other portfolio attributes.
Catalyst Funds Launches Asset-Backed Security Strategy
Catalyst Funds, an alternative-focused mutual fund company, launched a new fund that employs an income-focused strategy that invests in a variety of nontraditional income asset classes.
The Catalyst Enhanced Income Strategy Fund (EIXIX) invests primarily in agency and non-agency residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) as well as other asset-backed income securities, including securities backed by aircraft, automobiles, credit card receivables and student loans.
Under normal circumstances, the fund will invest over 25% of its assets in agency and non-agency RMBS and will diversify geographically and among the servicing institutions that service or originate these securities. The fund's objective is current income.
According to Jerry Szilagyi, CEO of Catalyst Funds, there couldn't be a more opportune time for the Catalyst Enhanced Income Strategy Fund to debut with interest rates on the rise.
"This fund offers investors an income-oriented strategy fueled by alternative sources such as mortgage backed securities that can provide insulation from the impact of rising rates," Szilagyi said in a statement.
The investment strategy is designed to include 12 monthly distributions to shareholders. The level of monthly distributions (including any return of capital) is not fixed and is not designed to generate a fixed percentage of the fund's current net asset value per share.
The fund will trade under the tickers EIXAX, EIXCX and EIXIX, with respective net expense ratios of 1.78%, 2.53% and 1.53%.
