The Riskalyze Report

We’re going to try something new each week on TRB, something I’m calling the Riskalyze Report.

My friends at Riskalyze have offered me the opportunity to see which stocks and funds advisors all over the country are adding to their clients’ accounts and which ones they’ve been selling. Each week I’ll present you with the top three buys and sells and we’ll track how this progresses while trying to figure out what it says about the professional mindset.

This data has been aggregated from across the client accounts of the thousands of advisors who use the software. Most of it comes directly through the third-party custodians where advisors’ assets are held. Thanks to Aaron Klein and Mike McDaniel for granting me this access. I hope we can uncover interesting trends for you each week…

Week of September 29th – October 3rd 2014:

Winners = top investments purchased by advisors for client portfolios that week
Losers = investments that advisors sold out of in client portfolios that week

Winners (advisor flows TO these investments increased substantially):  

Pimco Income Fund (PONPX, PODNX, PONAX)
First Eagle Global (SGENX, SGIIX)
Permanent Portfolio (PRPFX)

Losers (advisor flows FROM these investments increased substantially):

American Funds (AGTHX, ANCFX, CAIBX)
Microsoft (MSFT)
Short Longer Term Treasury (TBF)

Josh here – Mike mentions he was surprised to see PIMCO’s Income Fund see increased advisor interest in the week that included the departure of Bill Gross. I was too – you’d have thought the “headline risk” of the last week would have driven FAs to move client cash away from the entire firm, not just Total Return. In reality, it turns out that money was moved from one to the other, to some extent.

It’s worth noting that this particular fund was not run by Gross, but by Daniel Ivascyn, who is now the CIO of the whole firm and, for all intents and purposes, the reluctant Bond King in Waiting. If you’re an advisor who had sold the PIMCO research approach to your clients for years (decades?), then moving them into Ivascyn’s PIMCO Income Fund from the tumult at Total Return makes perfect sense and is very easily explainable.

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A word about Riskalyze:

In my practice, we use Riskalyze software tools to help assess clients’ true risk tolerance and to test portfolio configurations that match up accordingly. It’s changed our practice for the better, as I explain here.

Check it out today!