Hedge Fund Advisors Plan to Increase Use of ETFs

Date: Friday, October 26, 2012
Author: Alex Akesson, HedgeCo.Net

Guggenheim Investments, which represents $130 billion in hedge fund assets, announced the results of a survey of financial advisors who attended the Morningstar ETF Invest Conference in Chicago.

The results found that 78 percent of financial advisor respondents plan to increase their use of ETFs in retail investors’ portfolios over the next year. Meanwhile, twenty percent of advisors are unsure whether they plan to increase use and only one percent does not plan to increase their use of ETFs over the next year.

Nearly three quarters (seventy-one percent) of advisors believe convenience and liquidity are the biggest advantages to incorporating fixed income ETFs into retail investor portfolios. While sixteen percent of financial advisors cite low costs as the biggest advantage, the remaining thirteen percent say transparency and tax advantages are
the biggest benefits of using fixed income ETFs in retail client portfolios.

“While the anticipated tax changes in 2013 may not have an immediate impact on ETF industry growth, there will be implications for how advisors are managing their clients’ portfolios.” William Belden, Director of
Product Development at Guggenheim Investments said, “The potential benefits of fixed income ETFs, such as liquidity and convenience, will be a significant impetus to advisors’ increased usage of fixed income ETFs.”

With the presidential election looming, there is much talk about the potential impact of the 2013 tax changes on their investor returns. Advisors share those concerns. According to survey respondents, thirty-five percent of financial advisors are helping their clients prepare by educating them about the tax implications to their portfolios.

Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.net
alex@hedgeco.net