Investment Process Posts

On March 23, 2020, New Frontier hosted a live webinar in which Dr. Richard Michaud, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Robert Michaud, Chief Investment Officer, discussed investing in historic market volatility, as well as the recent trades of New Frontier's Standard and Tax-Sensitive Global Multi-Asset ETF investment strategies, which occurred on March 17 and March 20, ...

The passive/active debate continues to dominate academic and professional discourse.  But the issue of performance versus cost is not well formed.  Any investor should want the benefit of professional management of their savings.  And the quality of that professional management often follows the old adage that you get what you are willing to pay for. New Frontier’s solution att ...

New Frontier’s patented investment technology, including an independently corroborated portfolio optimization algorithm and state-of-the-art rebalancing rule, allows for the creation of institutional-quality portfolio solutions that are scientifically risk-managed for clients across the risk tolerance spectrum. The successful use of any kind of optimizer for asset allocation, h ...

Many investment strategies are not appropriate for investors seeking to maximize after-tax returns.  High-turnover and tactical strategies that may liquidate a portfolio inefficiently generate short-term gains, and others invest in asset classes that may be less desirable to taxable investors.  Tax-sensitive strategies were marketed to overcome these limitations, but tax-efficient investing is rarely properly implemented.  Typically, these tax-sensitive portfolios are merely repackaged standard portfolios with municipal bonds substituted in—trading may be limited to once per year, but equity positions remain identical.

There’s room for improvement.

Given great interest in the DOL decision on fiduciary responsibility, we note a blog posted in 2012 by James Watkins that referenced New Frontier’s patented optimization process followed by a comment by noted expert Steve Winks that we quote below: “…[T]here is massive push back from the brokerage industry, which neither acknowledges nor supports the fiduciary standing of brok ...

Question: U. S. Equity markets are up. Why isn’t all of my money in the S&P 500? Why do I have any exposure to treasuries when everybody knows they are underperforming U. S. equities? At the heart of New Frontier’s investment policy is planning for all contingencies and reducing portfolio risk. It may be fashionable to bet strongly on particular outcomes, but a sensible lo ...

The universe of investable ETFs has experienced tremendous growth over the over the last 20 years since the launch of the first ETF to over 1,000 investable products.  The vast expansion of choices raises the question: How to choose among so many options?  To vet new ETFs and reconsider ETFs that are currently included in our portfolios, the New Frontier investment committee an ...

Fixed income funds have many important functions in global capital markets.  Life insurance companies may buy long-term bonds to hedge long-term life insurance policies.  Commercial insurance companies may purchase intermediate-term bonds to hedge various shorter-term liabilities.  Pension funds may buy various maturity bond funds to match vested retirement liabilities. Central ...

Most traditional optimizers have two inputs – mean and variance. In fact, most portfolio optimization frameworks pit some notion of return against some notion of risk. The conventional wisdom in the finance practitioner community is that high quality, accurate estimates are available for the risk inputs, whereas the expected return estimates are highly proprietary and subject t ...

Once a portfolio has been designed and implemented, what happens next? Studies show that asset mixes as well as proper rebalancing are keys to successful ROI. However, a portfolio based on certain historical statistical and financial analysis during a specific period in the past may only be valid for an indeterminate length of time. Macro and micro economics and their accompanying market conditions are continuously changing. So, how does an investment manager decide when it’s time to rebalance a portfolio?