Make an informed decision

Now in its 11th year, the FE Alpha Manager rating is now firmly established and highly coveted in the fund management industry. Unlike fund ratings, which are based on various performance criteria of the fund, the FE Alpha Manager Ratings rate the performance of a fund manager over their entire career including all funds they have managed, and places worked and helps fund selectors to take a step back and remove short-term market movements or cyclical factors from their analysis.

It is becoming more and more evident that the wealth and asset management industry is going through a digital transformation. Changing technology is making space for a new breed of digital competitors with innovative solutions aiming to disrupt the industry. Increasingly, clients are demanding and expecting online tools and mobile functionality to be part of their online user experience along with a seamless customer experience.

2018 is drawing to a close so now is time to take a look back at the year gone by to see what facts and figures have emerged. In order for asset managers to better connect with advisers and understand their investment decisions, it’s crucial that we look at how advisers are behaving and why that may be.

We asked Rob Botha, Head of Data at FE, how FE helped the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) to boost transparency.

Lehman Brothers collapsed a decade ago. It was a key milestone in the global financial crisis, teaching investors a painful lesson that nothing is too big to fail. A lot has happened since then and anybody you ask will tell you it’s been a tough decade all round, both on political and economic fronts. In addition to the global financial crisis, the period also witnessed the European debt crisis which has had a significant knock on effect for the countries in Europe. Political events such as the Brexit referendum in 2016 led to further uncertainty in the region.

Risk has never been a bigger issue for financial advisers. Not only do today’s financial advisers need to correctly assess clients’ attitude to risk and map it across to suitable portfolios – they also need to become risk management experts and ensure regulatory compliance. This blog will look at the issues raised in FE’s latest annual adviser survey, ‘Adviser business models - What lies beneath?’ and how and why asset managers should take note of the situation advisers find themselves in and help advisers better understand the risks associated with their funds.

This year’s FE Adviser Survey (Adviser Business Models – what lies beneath) looked at how advisers are managing their investment processes, to discover areas for improvement and to highlight best practice. Here, we look at one part of that process specifically – investment choices and which sectors advisers have increased their exposure to.

With the World Cup beginning last week, football fans will have been putting together their dream teams, made up of the top players participating in this year’s tournament. Inspired by this, FE’s research team has put together their dream team of funds based on the FE Invest Approved List. They’ve opted for an attacking 4-3-3 formation, consisting of a goalkeeper, four defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 attackers.

The world nowadays is divided into generations that have grown up in completely different circumstances and which therefore have very different outlooks on the world. The generation made up of those born between 1980 and 1995 have come to be known as millennials, and while older generations may look down on them and say how “things were better in my day”, its undeniable that millennials and their views are shaping the future. This blog will consider the influence of millennials on the asset management industry and how it should be adapting to meet their needs.