Are Actively Managed ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) Worth a Look?

Investors are divided into two groups: those that see themselves as investors and those that use their 401(k) accounts to invest for their retirement. The latter group tends to refer to this activity as savings, a word that has long since distressed me for its inaccuracy. The other group, the ones who think they can invest, tend to fall prey to the next new thing or on the flip side, spend a great deal of time and money trying to mimic an index fund. This group wants to be their own mutual fund manager and does everything but charge the trailing fees that a mutual fund does.



So we have one group who "invests" and the other who "save".Both use essentially the same tools and with any luck, practice the same prudent practices. Tempting both groups is the ETF or exchange traded fund. When these we first introduced, about a $1 trillion worth of investments ago, they were heralded as the one thing investors needed to keep their assets where they could get to them, when they needed them.

Trading like stocks, you could buy an ETF in the morning, sell it if you wanted to at noon, and buy it back before the end of the day. This was a genius move on the part of Wall Street and began generating buckets of cash via trades. Mutual fund companies wanted a piece of the action and jumped in as well with ETFs that looked eerily similar to index funds they were already selling.

The cost of the trade was about the only thing you could toy with. So they eliminated that fee. But not to be allowing you to do something for free, they found another way to charge you. Back on January 6th, 2011, I wrote: "a Vanguard spokesman said the company believed “that the ability to attract and retain clients, particularly high-net-worth clients, will improve the bottom line and ultimately result in lower fund expense ratios.” The truth is that instead of charging for the trade, they charge you to hold the ETF in your account."


Now, three years into the first appearance of the actively managed ETF, we wonder if this will be as wildly popular as the indexed ETF (which has sliced and diced the market in such a way that no corner of the investment world is un-indexed and because of that, has added to the volatility in the marketplace, particularly at the close of trading). Perhaps but the wary investor and more than one "saver" should approach these tools with caution.

Does an actively managed ETF cost less than a actively managed mutual fund? The short answer is yes. Mutual funds bought outside of your 401(k) - where fees tend be lower and in some cases, different - have fees for distributions and marketing. While these fees are annoying and do take away from your returns, they are needed to attract new investors, pay for research into which stock is next on the buy or sell list and to pay for the services of the fund manager. Could they be lower? Yes. Have they dropped significantly? Over the last several years, yes. But what about their ETF counterpart?

Without many of those "trailing fees", actively managed ETFs are less expensive. But few people add in the cost of the trade when they think of purchasing an ETF and each time you buy or sell, this acts as a fee - albeit right up front.


Several other comparisons come to mind. The transparency of ETFs, which must disclose what they hold everyday seems on the surface like it would be a grand idea. But when it comes to this type of investment, transparency and rules for trading tend to make this a dangerous place. In an index fund or ETF, the investments mimic an index, set and left alone for a year, sometimes longer.

In an actively managed ETF, which discloses its holdings and must disclose its building or restructured portfolio almost as it executes the trade, it allows investors outside of the ETF to "front-run" the fund and buy at a cheaper price than the fund would pay. This is not good for the ETF manager if the stock they are buying is somewhat illiquid.


Taxes are another issue. Mutual funds tax you quarterly and yearly. Index ETFs tax you only when you trade them and because they don't turnover (trade their securities often) as much, the taxes, once levied are less. Actively managed ETFs only charge you taxes when you sell the fund but, because they trade often, the taxes you will pay will be higher than indexed ETFs.

Now there is little I can say that will dissuade you from buying an actively managed ETF once they become more widely available and have logged a track record (currently, they have less than three years under their belts). If you find them in your 401(k) and they are cheaper than actively managed mutual funds, they might be worth looking at if you are looking at adding some risk.


This investor tool is not going away. And it will add to some additional volatility as traders in these funds move around much more than those that hold individual stocks and/or mutual funds. And that can't be good no matter how you view who you are: and "investor" or a "saver".

Let's Talk Target Date Funds: Investing While Hiding the Risk

On this weeks MomsMakingaMillion radio broadcast, the topic of target date funds is front and center.

The hosts Gina Robison-Billups of MIBN.org and Kat Belucchi of PensionsInc. asked the following question: Almost every 401(k) now has these funds. Many are used as default investments for new employees. But you have a long-standing problems with them Paul. Care to our audience why?

I have been on the record, with some decidedly trash talk centered thoughts about target dated funds in the past. Why do I think these are quite possibly the worst investment idea ever?

Let me explain what these funds are suggesting they can do and why, under the guise of protecting your assets as you grow older, they might not do as promised.

Shooting for a Distant Promise
A target dated mutual fund picks a date in the future that coincides with the year you would like to retire. So far so good. We all want to retire and we all have some idea when that time will be. For most, it it the arbitrary time picked for you by Social Security. For others it might be the moment, at age 59 1/2 when you can first tap those tax-deferred 401(k)s and IRAs.

Suppose you are 40 years old, your target date might be somewhere around 2030 or 2040, depending on what you do and whether you think you can do it for that long. You direct your money to a fund in your 401(k) that offers this date. These are in almost every tax-deferred account due to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (perhaps one of the worst named pieces of legislation ever).

The fund prospectus suggests (you do read the prospectus, don't you?) that the fund will gradually shift from stocks to bonds over the course of that time frame, growing less aggressive as your account grows. This seems to fall into lockstep with what you have always heard about asset allocation and diversification. And it will be done automatically. No hassle investing for those who feel as though the whole process is too difficult to understand.

But what you fail to realize is that this is uncharted territory that has never really been navigated. Balanced funds offer something of a similar type of investing but usually hold steady at a 60/40 split between stocks and mutual funds. These investments however offer an actively managed approach to the process, a continuing shift in how the fund is invested.

The Success is Hard to Determine
This has not been done with any success in the past and may prove more costly - and more risky - than some investors realize. Some of these newly created funds hold orphan funds that, although they have not closed completely, would have had the fund family not stepped in to save it. This is out-sized risk that other investors have left for good reasons.

Many of these fund managers are entering into fixed income investing world with the idea that this might provide less risk. They may be incorrect in this assumption as bonds may see more problems down the road with inflation and deficit spending by the government, here and abroad.

There is also the question of performance as judged by the benchmarks. Many compare how well they have done against the S&P 500. But the need for new benchmarks still won't mean that these funds will be comparable. Ron Surz, president of Target Date Analytics suggested "The current practices [meaning investment styles] are all over the map. You could have 2010 funds with 90% equity to 20% equity. Any investor looking at the whole landscape is going to be challenged to what they like and what they don’t." And what they understand and don't.

Provider Accountability and Investor Assumptions
In a paper published by Vanguard Group that explored this problem, they describe benchmarks as holding "the provider accountable for the appropriateness of the return assumptions used in constructing the funds." They also suggest that historic returns are a reasonable guide for future results. If that is the case, many of us are in for a disappointment.

Currently, these types of funds employ a glide-path style of investing. But a paper published by Wilshire Funds Management believes this method needs to be rethought. In fact, they believe that a fund - and this might sound even more confusing - need multiple glide-path plans in order to make the fund work. If that happens, the "one-stop shopping" approach that these funds were advertised as doing, no longer works.

So what is an investor to do? While the industry struggles with the idea - and the SEC questions their methods and exposure to stocks - it is best to stay with a broad range of indexed funds across several market sectors or use the actively managed funds that do the same thing. Stocks still rule for the vast majority of us in large part because we simply haven't been investing that long to get any real benefit.

If you have to use target date funds, pick a date that is ten or twenty years beyond when you want to retire so you can get more exposure to stocks longer.

Mutual Funds Explained: Measuring Mutual Fund Performance Using a Rolling Average

In a previous post on performance, I wondered if there was a way for investors to measure how well a mutual fund has done. Mutual fund managers often use comparison to less risky indexes as the benchmark for their own performance. This, we all know, enhances how the fund appears to have done. Right or wrong, I suggested that the ultimate guide to performance may lie in the investor; the person in the mirror who must assess their risk, their goals, and their expectations.

Richard Gates, portfolio manager for TFS Capital agrees. Interviewed recently at Forbes, he said: "I think the root of the problem is not really how returns are measured and presented. Rather, I think the basic problem is that investors just shouldn't be so fickle about short-term performance." And that accounting of performance is what we are faced with, almost daily.

The short-term also presents other problems. For instance, how can you tell whether a mutual fund manager simply has lost her/his/their touch even as the market declined for every fund? In other words, is bad really the fund manager's fault? Or is doing bad something entirely different?

It would be nice to throw 2008 out of the equation. But for the next five years, that year will show every fund as underperforming even as we forget about what happened in 2008, probably soon after we turn the calendar on 2010. The real test is how well they have done since March of this year (2009). But that would be looking to the short-term in the hope of finding some long-term potential. Is it possible?

Is it right to do so? Possibly not. If you are an investor, 2008 looked really bad. Yet, never have investors had such a clear understanding of what worst-case scenario looks like. Bear markets toughen investor hides across the board. Sure, many run for cover. But those that understand that bad can be turned into good, relish the opportunity to grab a once in a lifetime (or perhaps once in a five year cycle would be more like it) chance at finding out what worked and what didn't and even more importantly, why.

Keep in mind, even as funds fell, so did their comparable benchmarks. Were they still able to match, even beat those benchmarks in a down year? Did the fund family pursue a cost-cutting, fee stripping strategy to help boost your return, however meager? Did they look out of house for a different manager to run a fund that was really beaten down?

If your fund manager is still at the helm as I write this, look at their performance over the past ten years to get what is called a rolling average. Compare that number with the benchmark's rolling average over the same period. Then compare it to the peer group, using the same investment style as a comparison.

Then look at your risk factor again. The investor in the mirror will need to make some choices as well. And whatever you do, do not eliminate too much risk. Let your fund manager do what he can to mitigate out-sized risk as they struggle to regain your confidence and at the same time, increase their performance.

Seeing but Not Seeing: How What You Own May Not Be What You Want.

Diversification is what we are told to do. What we usually end up doing is owning a wide variety of funds and making the assumption that we are diversified. In many instances, we could not be farther from the truth.

The problem with mutual funds, more specifically with actively managed funds is the available basket of stocks to purchase is much smaller than you might imagine. While there are thousands of companies available to buy on any one day, the majority of those companies are too small to buy in a large enough quantity and be able to do so without forcing the price of that equity higher.

This has to do with liquidity. If there are not enough shares available, a fund manager's purchase might actually increase the stock price simply because of interest in the equity. So, by default, many fund managers who look for price stability must by much larger companies. This increases the chance that your portfolio, the one with several mutual funds may actually be invested in the same stocks. This defeats the diversification opportunity and makes all of the funds you own susceptible to the same market changes.

There are some simple rules for you to follow in order to diversify your portfolio.

The easiest way to do this is to purchase funds that invest across a variety of asset classes. To cover all of the available asset classes may create diversity, it is best to focus on just three or four and stick with them. Aside from large-cap stocks, small caps and international stock funds spread the equity risk. Mid-cap funds also do this as well. But during tough economic times, the line between mid-cap and large-cap can often blur, where a large-cap might be beaten down enough that it actually qualifies as a potential purchase in the mid-cap range.

Inside a a defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) sponsored by your employer, numerous fund families are not always offered. By when they are, you should take advantage of the opportunity. In numerous instances, the cost of research is often prohibitively high. Because of that, research may be shared among fund managers within the same family increasing the chances that your fund will carry similar, if not exact holdings in different funds.

Mutual fund managers all come with a different set of investing ideas that need to form fit within the fund's charter. Once again, look for fund managers that offer you some track record, good benchmark comparisons for their performance and tenure.Use different fund companies.

Avoid filling your portfolio with winners. This type of investor behavior is often called herding and is more common than you think. All markets sectors do not perform the same at any one given time. Spread the risk among growth and value, domestic and international and large-cap and small cap funds. This will require a little due diligence on your part. In other words, open those statements. Compare the holdings side-by-side and consider the overlapping investments carefully.

I often suggest that S&P 500 index funds be owned outside a retirement account (better to pay those taxes now while the tax break is still good and because these funds do not have much in the way of turnover or high fees), freeing those investments for increased diversity and better tax-deferment. It will also allow you exposure to a little more risk (which is needed for sustained growth) and better fund diversification (across all the available asset classes).