Quarterly Newsletters 2017

The Armbruster Capital Management News & Education section of our website incorporates articles, vidcasts, and newsletters specifically geared towards issues that our clients are facing today.

Current Thinking – Q4 2017 Newsletter

With the exception of Donald Trump and Bitcoin, stock market valuations seem to be making the most headlines these days.

Index Investing – Q4 2017 Newsletter

Index investing was much in the news in 2017. An article in the Wall Street Journal in late November noted that U.S. index funds have seen cash inflows of around $1.7 trillion since 2009, compared with outflows of nearly $1 trillion for actively-managed mutual funds. Another article noted that investors had collectively invested $436.5 billion this year into index funds globally through December 20, according to EPFR Global.

Alternatives in Focus – Q4 2017 Newsletter

While 2017 was a great year for stocks, it was mediocre for alternative investments. The benchmark index we often look at, the HFRI Fund-Weighted Composite Index, earned 8.5% last year. While that isn’t too bad, our alternative investments did not produce returns in that range.

Portal Launch – Q4 2017 Newsletter

With the new technology we implemented last year, we have been able to offer clients a portal to log into their accounts to run various detailed reports on their portfolios. We believe this has been a great success.

2018 Tax Facts – Q4 2017 Newsletter

1.$18,500 maximum salary deferral to a 401(k) or 403(b) plan (up $500 from 2017).

Compliance Corner – Q4 2017 Newsletter

We are in a highly regulated business, which causes a few headaches, but is largely a good thing that offers our clients important protections. There are certain disclosures we are required to make regularly regarding our policies and procedures. A few of them are

Socially Responsible Investing in the US

Today, socially responsible investing, or SRI, accounts for around 25 percent of all managed assets in the U.S. The percentage is even higher in Europe and is rising fast in parts of Asia. SRI investing can take many forms, but the most popular is negative screening. That means excluding companies that participate in undesirable activities, such as the manufacture of tobacco products, weapons or fossil fuels. However…

Portfolio Review – Q3 2017 Newsletter

The third quarter of 2017 was one of continued political strife at home, missile launches and increasing tension in Asia, several devastating natural disasters, and efforts by the Federal Reserve to slow the economy. In the face of that, the stock market rose to record highs.

Identity Theft – Q3 2017 Newsletter

By now, everyone is aware of the massive data breach at Equifax. Something like 143 million Americans had their personal information exposed in the hack. That effectively means that every American adult was impacted. You can check to see if you are on the list here: www.equifaxsecurity2017.com. I’ll bet you are.

Alternatives In Focus: Reinsurance – Q3 2017 Newsletter

Our alternative investment portfolio was looking pretty good through August of this year. All of the funds except one were in the black, and returns were on track for around a 6% gain. Then September hit.

The Market Is Going Up – Q3 2017 Newsletter

What if someone told you that there was more upside in the market from today’s levels? What if they said it could rise 4,445% from here?

Tax Planning Time – Q3 2017 Newsletter

As hard as it may be to believe, yearend is just around the corner, and that means it is time to think about tax planning. This year, it seems that year-end tax planning is facing a perfect storm of unknowns.

Firm News – Q3 2017 Newsletter

We may have announced it before, but we recently updated our website. There are a host of resources there, including electronic versions of all our newsletters, articles, and even a few videos. We try to send most of this to you directly, but there are a few items that you likely missed.

Portfolio Review – Q2 Newsletter

The rally in investment assets continued in the second quarter of 2017. All major asset classes earned positive returns for the quarter, and most have posted very strong returns year-to-date.

Alternatives in Focus – Q2 Newsletter

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about our alternative investments recently, so we thought we would introduce a new, at least quasi-regular, column in our newsletter  focusing on this asset class. We’ll talk this time about  why we  use alternative investments, but in the future, we’ll do a deeper review of some of the funds.

Firm News – Q2 Newsletter

We recently added a new team member. Craig Julien joined us in early June to help us with our systems, operations, and IT. Craig has a couple decades of experience in the IT industry, most recently with the accounting firm EFPR Group. Accordingly, Craig knows firsthand about data security and the importance of confidentiality in the financial industry. He’s already done a great job of tweaking our systems so they are more efficient and user friendly, and we’re looking forward to some enhancements that will make electronic account access easier for our clients as well.

Indexing Fares Well Over the Long Term

Standard & Poor’s recently released its biannual study of mutual fund performance. S&P looks at the performance of actively-managed mutual funds versus appropriate stock market indices to see if the funds, as a group, added value for their investors.

Portfolio Review – Q1 Newsletter

The first quarter of 2017 was a solid one for stock investors. Large-cap stocks rose over 6.0% in the quarter, as measured by the returns of the S&P 500 index. Historically, election years and the first year of a Presidential term are the strongest for stocks, and 2017 is shaping up to follow the historic pattern.

Stock Market Valuation

It is conference season, which means we’ve been on the road lately meeting with fund companies and hearing about their latest research. One point that virtually everyone is making these days is that traditional asset classes (stocks and bonds) are richly valued, and likely won’t generate the same level of returns in the future that we have experienced historically.