Communities Corner
Connect with Leading Strategists that Align with Your Investment Philosophy
Communities Corner highlights what’s happening within Orion Communities, our robust investment model marketplace. Find out about the newest investment strategists to join Communities, get valuable market insights, plus stay informed of enhancements to Orion Advisor Tech.
New Investment Strategists
Meet the latest investment strategists to join Communities. Learn their history, core competencies, investment philosophy, and how they can add value to your model portfolios.
Profitable Growth For Uncertain Markets
At AllianceBernstein, we believe a unique combination of expertise across equities, fixed-income, alternatives and multi-asset strategies and a connected global network helps us deliver differentiated insights and distinctive solutions to advance investors’ success. While there are many different styles of growth investing, we believe the AB Large Cap Growth strategy employs a differentiated approach. The team’s philosophy is focused on identifying companies with proven profitability that can self-fund reinvestment to drive future growth.
Our team seeks to invest in companies with the following characteristics:
- Economic value creation evidenced by high or improving returns on invested capital
- High and persistent profitability
- High reinvestment rate opportunities
- Capital efficiency and robust cash flow generation
This philosophy, and the team’s disciplined research and portfolio construction process, has delivered strong absolute returns, but more importantly, better risk-adjusted returns and a smoother ride as measured by both up- and down-capture ratios.
Proven expertise. Strong partnership. A focus on clients.
At Columbia Threadneedle Investments, every strategy is built with your clients in mind, seeking to align their investment goals with financial outcomes. As one of the top 10 largest third-party model providers in the nation1, we have expertise advising assets across a diverse suite of model portfolios — helping investors reach their investment goals for more than 14 years.
Our ability to construct, manage and monitor strong multi-asset solutions is underscored by the strength of our broad asset allocation capabilities, experienced multi-manager research team and underlying investment strategies. Each model is built with carefully curated, cost-effective mutual funds and ETFs—without charging a strategist fee.
1. Cerulli Report – 2021 U.S. Managed Accounts. Based on assets as of Q4 2020.
A Modern Approach to Portfolio Design and Diversification
At Horter Investment Management, we believe modern times demand modern solutions. As opposed to the traditional portfolio design approach espoused by the advisor community (an approach which was developed in the 1950’s), Horter offers a modernized portfolio solution designed for today’s modern markets. Horter believes in going beyond traditional diversification norms by employing multiple investing methodologies, multiple portfolio strategies, multiple managers, and multiple timeframes. The goal is to provide more robust diversification which can help “smooth out the ride” by reducing correlation risks and portfolio volatility.
Horter also believes that managing risk is mission critical. Instead of the “buy and hope” approach promoted by so many financial professionals, Horter believes investors can “win more by losing less” during severely negative market cycles. Thus, our portfolio employs multiple risk mitigation elements, which strive to reduce exposure to market risk during those nasty bear market cycles. All in a single, easy-to-use portfolio.
Strategist Spotlight
Each month we shine a spotlight on an investment strategist or two. There’s no better time to find out what’s new from these strategists.
2022 Essentials of Wealth Planning:
Lessons Learned from Inflation Fears, COVID Variants and Conscious Consumption
Explore Janus Henderson’s comprehensive overview of wealth planning developments and trends that could impact your most valued clients in the year ahead.
Key highlights from this year’s edition include:
- New Required Minimum Distribution Tables
- Portfolio Construction Ideas in an Uncertain Market Environment
- Total Return, Time Segmentation and Income Floors
- The Value of Professional Advice
- Which Investors Are Adopting ESG into Their Portfolio
- Practice Management Trends
Strategists to Watch
Keep an eye on new models and the latest offerings from strategists you’ll find on Orion Communities.
Inflation, Moats and Asymmetry
Inflation is here, but for how long? While inflation’s duration and impact on financial markets certainly matter, the investment process that underlies both of our firms’ high quality, large cap equity strategies, SaratogaRIM Large Cap Quality and Large Cap Quality Focus, is not predicated on predicting what is going to happen; this process always protects against inflationary environments. We do so by eliminating capital intensive companies and instead investing in asset-light businesses that we believe are less exposed to the ravages that can occur during prolonged inflationary periods. We also weed out companies that utilize more than moderate leverage because these companies are susceptible to refinancing risks as interest rates rise with inflation. Finally, our qualitative work seeks to identify businesses that have sustainable competitive advantages or “moats,” which allow them in inflationary environments to pass along input price increases to customers and/or exert their market power on suppliers to keep costs down.
In combination, the elements of our investment process are intended to limit our investable universe to companies that possess healthy balance sheets, low capital intensity and strong competitive advantages. In doing so, our exposure to companies likely to face the highest inflation risks is reduced. Our companies tend to have asset-light business structures, low marginal costs and stronger pricing power. While we don’t know how long inflation will persist, we simply remain focused on our never-ending search for asymmetric risk/reward opportunities as guided by our investment process. Ultimately, our job is to find and invest in a relatively small number of very high-quality businesses where we think we have a lot more upside than downside. When you do that, it’s amazing how good things tend to happen, regardless of whether consumer prices are moving up, down or sideways.
Expertly managed strategies consistently risen to the top of their peer groups.
Zacks Investment Management, a wealth management boutique, is an expert on earnings and using earnings estimates in the investment process. The firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zacks Investment Research, one of the largest providers of independent research in the U.S. ZIM is managing Billions of dollars for high net-worth individuals, 401-k plans, large brokerage firms, pension funds, foundations and endowments. We provide our clients customized investment portfolios using proprietary investment strategies developed through 43 years of research, with both equity & fixed income strategies.
Working within a family owned and operated business and utilizing the resources of one of the largest providers of independent research in the U.S.- Zacks Investment Research- we provide added benefits to our clients. As a privately-owned, independent firm, we believe our research and results based strategy stands out as a way to evaluate first, then invest. Client portfolios are managed using a combination of Zacks independent research and Zacks quantitative models. We invite you to get acquainted.
LIVE Webinar Event – February 8
Who is Zacks Investment Management?
Get an introduction to ZIM and a brief overview of the models available on the Orion platform. Also- find out why each of the Zacks models are ranked in the top 1-14% of each of their Morningstar Asset Classes.
Strategist Pairings
Portfolio Recipes, a monthly webinar event, brings together two investment strategists to create customized model portfolios to satisfy your clients’ unique needs. Join us each month as we introduce you to a fresh pair of industry-leading strategists, explore the value each brings to the table, and how they can complement each other in your model portfolios.
Portfolio Recipes: The Global Multi-Asset Portfolio
Compelling income and downside mitigation is hard to find. Now more than ever, sourcing income and managing risk across a variety of asset classes requires specialized expertise. Join Orion’s Chief Investment Strategist Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CMT, as he welcomes two investment strategists with longstanding records in managing multi-asset income strategies – BlackRock and Brinker Capital.
The Global Multi-Asset Portfolio
Tuesday, February 22th
2:30 PM CT/3:30 PM ET
3098-OPS-12/14/2021
How to Make SMAs Accessible for All
SMAs were invented in the 1970s to accommodate the needs for high net worth individuals, whose investment objectives didn’t fit well into standard mutual fund strategies. But that was then and this is now!
Recent history shows that SMAs actually hold more wealth than either ETFs or mutual funds. One study found that they comprised 35% of U.S. equity assets in 2018, while ETFs held 34% and mutual funds came in third at 31% of equity wealth.1
The steady growth that SMAs have shown may be about to get much higher as well. Another study suggests that demand for SMAs may double by 2023.2
Download our ebook to learn more about the benefits and roadblocks to using SMAs and how you can make them more accessible to all your clients.
Streamline and Scale Your Investment Management Process
When Kathy Kraft, owner and founder of Kraft Financial, LLC, logged on to an Orion Communities webinar, she thought she was there to learn about how to better market her firm. And in a roundabout way, that’s exactly what happened. Learn how Orion Communities is helping Kathy to grow her business “at least four times over, in the next couple of years.”
Have a question about Communities?
Feel free to reach out to our experts
0178-OAT-1/27/2022