In this issue of Lipper’s U.S. Mutual Funds & Exchange-Traded Products Snapshot, we feature a summary of total net assets (TNA), estimated net flows, new fund creations, and fund liquidations for conventional funds and exchange-traded products (ETPs) for Q1 2020, comparing the changes to those of prior quarters and highlighting the largest individual gainers and losers of both groups. The Snapshot provides readers a powerful, easy-to-use guide and quick reference tool to help them discern fund trends during the quarter. Highlights:  For Q1 2020, the average equity fund and taxable fixed income fund posted a 22.33% decline and 4.56% decline,

In this issue of Lipper’s U.S. Mutual Funds & Exchange-Traded Products Snapshot, we feature a summary of total net assets (TNA), estimated net flows, new fund creations, and fund liquidations for conventional funds and exchange-traded products (ETPs) for Q4 2019, comparing the changes to those of prior quarters and highlighting the largest individual gainers and losers of both groups. The Snapshot provides readers a powerful, easy-to-use guide and quick-reference tool to help them discern fund trends during the quarter. Highlights: Total net assets (TNA) in the conventional funds business (not including ETP and variable insurance products [VIPs]) rose 6.09%, increasing

Thomson Reuters LPC Leveraged Loan Monthly – April 2018 Contents: Leveraged Loan Market Overview U.S. High Yield Bond Market Overview Investor Overview CLO Market Analysis List of recent CLOs / League Tables Loan Mutual Fund Flows & Returns Primary Market: Leveraged lending stands at $362 billion year-to-date, with institutional volume making up 69% of activity at $251 billion. Although issuance levels are down 30% from last year, the institutional share has stood firm at around 70%. Looking at leveraged lending by purpose, refinancing activity drove activity in the first quarter and continues to make up the bulk of volume early

Need and yield are making cat bonds roar. Low interest rates and a hunger for uncorrelated returns are fueling investor demand for bonds insuring against hurricanes, pandemics and other catastrophes, pleasing insurers eager to lay off risk. Yields on these instruments have fallen even as issuance has soared. Disaster, if it strikes, may only increase their popularity.In a typical cat bond, an issuing insurer or government agency pays a healthy interest-rate premium to investors over about three years. If a pre-specified event happens, the buyer forfeits some or all of the principle. So if, say, an earthquake above a certain

Stock markets have tumbled amid speculation President Trump may be impeached. Is this the start of the great bear market many investors anticipate or something less concerning? Warren Buffet has a problem, one that not many of us, either as individuals or companies are likely to experience or even view as a problem. He has too much money. According to the latest filings, Berkshire Hathaway has just under USD 100bn in cash sat on its balance sheet (a record high), money that Buffet clearly feels under pressure to deploy as evidenced by the following comment he made at the recent

Warren Buffett respects his elders. During Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder bash in Omaha on Saturday, the 86-year-old Oracle sang the praises of – and delivered early 88th birthday wishes to – Jack Bogle, the Vanguard founder who pioneered low-fee index mutual funds. While the sentiment is undoubtedly genuine, it is also starting to sound a bit self-serving. Buffett told the 40,000-strong live audience that Bogle had done “more for the American investor than any man in the country” by saving them tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary charges from portfolio managers. For a long while, though, Buffett offered an

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Investors awaited the pre-Christmas bounce. Theory aside, the literature was clear, For those with investments ’tis the ‘most wonderful time of the year’. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit chart in Datastream Investors are well aware that much money can be made on stock markets in the pre-Christmas bounce. Indeed, there is now a wealth of academic research on the matter, which offers a conclusion about as close to unanimous as economists are ever likely to reach: “Equity markets do better in the week before Christmas than in

Investors were gearing up for interest rate hikes between January 2012 and March 2014, padding the coffers of loan participation funds (also known as bank-loan funds, senior-loan funds, or leveraged-loan funds). Loan participation funds invest in syndicated loans made to below-investment-grade companies and can provide attractive yields. However, the primary attractor of these funds is that they often provide floating rates that adjust at regular intervals (generally every month or quarter), reflecting changes in short-term interest rates (usually based on a common measure such as LIBOR). So, as interest rates rise, so do the yields on these issues. They can