During Refinitiv Lipper’s fund-flows week ended June 1, 2022, investors were overall net redeemers of fund assets (including both conventional funds and ETFs) for the fourth week in five, withdrawing $3.6 billion. Money market funds (-$12.4 billion) reported weekly outflows, while equity funds (+$7.4 billion), tax-exempt bond funds (+$1.2 billion), and taxable bond funds (+$262 million) attracted inflows. Index Performance At the close of Refinitiv Lipper’s fund-flows week, U.S. broad-based equity indices traded positive for the second week straight—Nasdaq (+4.89%), Russell 2000 (+3.09%), S&P 500 (+3.08%), and DJIA (+2.16%). Fixed income indices traded mixed following their first weekly gain in

The German asset manager Flossbach von Storch (FvS) was one of the major winners of the group awards during the Thomson Reuters Lipper Fund Awards 2017; the company not only won the mixed-asset large category for Europe, but it also won this award for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In addition, it was a topic of interest that FvS has moved from the small-asset manager category to the large-asset manager category in 2017. FvS showed an impressive growth story over the past eight years, mainly driven by its flagship product–Flossbach von Storch Multiple Opportunities R (LU0323578657). During a meeting in Cologne, where FvS

In hindsight the year 2016 was a very successful year for the European fund industry. The assets under management reached a new all-time high (+€9.4 tr), and the net inflows stood at €268.7 bn. Even though this number was below the record net inflows of 2015 (+€368.0 bn) and 2014 (+€351.0 bn), it was far above the long-term average of €162.2 bn. Exhibit 1. Fund Flows in the European Fund Industry (Euros Billions) Source: Lipper A closer look at the fund flows unveils that the year 2016 didn’t seem to be that successful for promoters of actively managed funds, since exchange-traded

After dropping to $26.20/barrel on February 11, domestic crude oil prices staged a substantial comeback over the following month to reach nearly $41.50/barrel for a trough-to-peak gain of over 58%. While prices have since pulled back (see chart below) volatile oil prices may be tempting to play through exchange-traded products (ETPs). Given the two types (equity-based, like Energy Select SPDR and crude oil futures-based, like US Oil) neither is a perfect fit to track spot oil prices. Due to the effects of contango (where the future spot price is below the current spot price) USO has severely underperformed quoted oil

An ever-popular way for analysts and investors to determine whether a stock is cheap or pricey is the venerable price-to-book ratio. Generally speaking, the lower the P/B ratio, the “cheaper” the company. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Investors searching for so-called “cheap” companies can get better results than by screening by price-to-book value alone if they can find a way to “back out” intangible items, such as goodwill, from a company’s book value. That’s because book value by itself may cause analysts to reach incorrect conclusions about valuation. That is the conundrum the StarMine research team set out

It’s no secret companies reacted to the financial crisis by laying off employees and cutting costs to the bone in order to improve their bottom line. While the unemployment rate spiked to levels last seen during the Great Depression, corporate income statements painted a rosier picture of the economy. But what worked for a while may no longer prove as reliable a strategy in the future: while companies still seem to be trying to operate as leanly as possible, it is going to be harder for them to translate whatever cost-cutting measures are still possible into profits that can surprise

Kids these days spend less time playing board games or with other non-cyber toys than they do with their Xbox and Wii gaming systems. That’s not good news for Hasbro, which makes toys that range from action figures to puzzles and board games like “Trouble” and “Jenga”. Little wonder, then, that the StarMine research team selection of Hasbro (HAS.O) selected as one of the ten North American companies that it believes are most likely to report first-quarter earnings that either beat or miss analysts’ forecasts. Based on the large negative Predicted Surprise of -29%, Hasbro may fall short of those

The StarMine research team scrutinizes earnings forecasts toward the end of each quarter, in search of companies that its StarMine SmartEstimate® and Predicted Surprise models signal are most likely to beat – or fall short of – analysts’ consensus forecasts. Of the ten companies that we believed had a high probability of recording an earnings surprise, we used these models to accurately predict the direction of the subsequent earnings surprise in seven of those companies in the latest quarterly reporting period for North American companies. That gives our forecasting process a 70% accuracy rate. The Predicted Surprise percent relies on

It has been a great earnings season for most luxury retailers, a majority of which posted earnings that were stronger than those they reported a year earlier. Many also announced plans to expand their outlets and online presence to attract even more consumers. (To read more about same-store sales trends, see this previous article on AlphaNow.) One of these luxury retailers, Coach, Inc. (COH.N) has adroitly used social media to establish consumer loyalty, a factor that is likely to contribute still further to its already-robust earnings as it invests in a mobile platform. Coach’s fourth-quarter earnings were higher than those

The start of earnings season is typically defined as the day that Alcoa Inc. (AA.N) reports its earnings. For the first quarter of 2012, it is scheduled to kick off on April 10, only days after a majority of U.S. companies close the books on the first quarter. There are, however, a significant number of companies that report first-quarter earnings before Alcoa does, together comprising an “earnings preseason”. During this quarter’s coming earnings preseason, 33 companies are scheduled to report earnings, including tech giants Adobe Systems Inc (ADBE.O) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL.O) as well as Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST.O), Nike

Semiconductors are the backbone of the electronic revolution, used in everything from cars and computers to refrigerators and mobile phones. Given that demand for semiconductors continues to rise as a range of industries continue to find more diverse applications for them, it’s not surprising that the semiconductor industry has become hyper-competitive. There are 60 semiconductor-related companies with a market capitalization in excess of $1billion trading in the United States alone. Among them is International Rectifier Corp. (IRF.N), which appears to be among the losers within this group, at least as far as earnings quality is concerned: The StarMine research team

Despite all their grousing about the high (and constantly increasing) price of gasoline, U.S. consumers kept driving to the malls in February. According to the Commerce Department, retail sales rose 1.1% during the month of February, and the largest gain seen in five months. Automobile sales also boomed and shoppers turned to websites like AutoTrader.com (which reported record traffic) in search of value and discounts. EXHIBIT 1. MONTHLY PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN US RETAIL SALES & FOOD SERVICES Source: DataStream. Still, those high gasoline prices loom in the background. The Energy Information Administration reported that the average price of a gallon