The company, established in 2016 and has its presence in the United States, Ukraine and Argentina, has been the brainchild of two former Wall Street veterans who were frustrated with the professional tools available to investors without access to Bloomberg or other high-priced platforms. Rob Koyfman and Rich Meatto built all of Koyfin charting and dashboard tools from scratch to give investors the ultimate functionality to turn data into information.

Knowing About The Company

After working on Wall Street’s old, outdated and overpriced data platforms, Rob Koyfman and Rich Meatto concluded that there had to be a better way to analyse data and gain investment insight. Every industry they could think of had turned to tech and put the user first, all except investing. So the duo set out on their mission to revolutionise the industry by building a platform that puts the user in control and gives them access to live data and powerful analytical tools, all at a price that doesn’t alienate individual investors and students.

In 2016, the vision got a definite shape through the formation of Koyfin. In 2018, the start-up launched its first financial product. In 2019, Koyfin got Social Leverage and Craft Ventures as its first investors during the seed round. In 2020, the start-up saw its user base reaching the 100,000 mark. In 2021, the tally crossed the 200,000 mark. In the same year, the venture launched its paid plans to offer more advanced financial tools to more advanced users.

In 2022, Koyfin launched its mobile application, followed by the introduction of model portfolios in 2023 to help its users (especially financial advisors) monitor their strategies’ performance and risk composition. And in the same year, the venture saw its user base touching the 500,000 mark.

Koyfin, backed by some of the biggest players in the investment space, has so far raised over USD 6 million through two rounds of seed funding, while steadily becoming popular among financial industry professionals like independent investors, financial advisors, asset managers, traders and research analysts.

Here Is Koyfin’s Flagship Product

The start-up has designed its platform for its users, with powerful features to bring their investment goals to life, through a crisp and natural user experience. The platform’s intuitive features put its users in control of full market data.

One of the key features of the tool is its advanced graphing, which helps its users to sharpen their insight in a snap with superb graphing features, through the use of clean and elegant tools, thereby transforming information into power, power of spotting trends and identifying investment opportunities with ease.

Koyfin lets its users build their graphs to match how they work best. Templates let them apply their favourite views again and again. These graphs can include over 100 different series related to fundamentals, technical, performance, valuation, consensus estimates, and analyst ratings. The users can easily add their company’s logo to a chart to brand their content.

Koyfin’s platform also provides its users with quick financial analysis, thereby letting them know crucial financial data, instantly. These individuals can easily see detailed analyses of company financial and key valuation metrics on an instant basis, apart from customising top-line criteria to highlight the most important data for them. The feature also helps financial professionals to get detailed company overviews in an instant, along with the ability to review quarterly and annual data with a professional perspective.

Talking about Koyfin’s virtual platform and its range of diverse abilities, we have the element called “Equity Screener,” which allows financial professionals to find their target companies that match these individuals’ unique investment styles.

The tool allows its users to sort through mountains of data to grasp what is driving the market in a matter of seconds, apart from making the most of over 5,900 filter criteria to generate a stock screener that works best for financial professionals.

An Ocean Of Diverse Features

Koyfin’s virtual platform also offers “Market Dashboards,” which helps people identify market trends that can have a big impact on investments, large and small. Whether it’s IPOs, global yields, economic data, currencies, commodities or corporate credit, the dashboard follows the data instantly.

A Koyfin user can create and customise watchlists to easily keep track of all necessary metrics of his/her investment assets. The tool gives the user premium functionality of grouping instruments as desired; apart from organising the data he/she wants to see.

If you want to have company data (security information and analyst estimates overview) at your fingertips, Koyfin’s “Company Snapshots” is there. Through this tool, the start-up brings out broad focus and insight on company data, detailed analysis of financial and key valuation metrics like “Price Target.”

“Company Snapshots” provides crucial data like the venture’s ETF exposure, earnings estimates and price targets from Wall Street analysts. You can also view historical changes and trends in consensus estimates for earnings, sales, and operating profits, all on one screen, while keeping track of actual company performances, compared to the analysts’ estimates.

When it comes to Koyfin as a research tool, it has a global coverage of equities, analyst estimates and financials, thus allowing investors to carry out fast and comprehensive analysis. Talking about portfolio handling, the tool efficiently tracks investments and their performances. The investor can create a portfolio to monitor the financial health of all his/her investments on one page and stay on top of market movements.

Koyfin’s portfolio tools help the investors to group instruments as desired; add summary rows or notes, and more. The investor can create a personal collection of financial investments like stocks, ETFs, bonds, and mutual funds using a variety of tools to keep track of it, apart from keenly noticing the performances of every investment in a detailed deep-down approach.

The Koyfin Revolution In Financial Sector

For financial advisors, Koyfin’s robust analytics are there to power their investment decisions and help track portfolios. Through the start-up’s assistance, these professionals are getting a more complete market overview. As of August 2024, over 50,000 financial advisors worldwide are using Koyfin to analyse the markets. Using the start-up’s custom watchlists, these professionals are monitoring everything all in one place, irrespective of their asset classes.

Koyfin’s live data, alerts and breaking news are keeping financial advisors up to date with the biggest movers and factors affecting the markets. They are creating model portfolios and analysing the allocation, performance, and risk, while taking into consideration historical changes to the target allocations. The start-up has become the financial advisors’ one-stop solution for tracking watchlists of stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds effectively in one place.

For asset managers and wholesalers, Koyfin is offering an intuitive and powerful platform, intending to simplify their workflow, helping them create compelling selling points, and providing actionable insights to boost sales efforts.

They can get prepared for meetings, engage with advisors, and follow up with prospects more effectively. With Koyfin, the asset managers can also showcase their fund’s strengths, apart from answering real-time questions, and keeping the momentum going throughout the sales cycle. They can quickly compare funds during a meeting through iPad/laptop, eliminating the need to wait for data, and thereby allowing for immediate and informed discussions.

Asset managers can easily compare fund performance, fees, dividend yields, and drawdowns side-by-side, highlight cost efficiency and potential returns to simplify client decision-making and build trust, all through Koyfin’s helping hand. The same helping hand also ensures that the asset managers are able to show prospects of how their portfolios will change with a proposed fund substitution, apart from simulating different scenarios to illustrate potential performance improvements and engage clients effectively.

When it comes to wholesalers, Koyfin is equipping these individuals with comprehensive tools and real-time data, enabling them to make informed decisions and enhance portfolio outcomes for their clients. The start-up is also consolidating all the essential tools for wholesalers, enabling them to spend less time searching for information and more time optimising their clients’ portfolios.

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The synergy TEB Asset Management has with BNP Paribas Asset Management (‘BNPP AM’), one of Europe’s leading asset managers, has continued to accelerate its progress in becoming a strong local player, supported by a successful global partner, and by the end of 2023 assets under management had risen to USD 3.42 billion.

“TEB AM has a strong focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (‘ESG’) principles within its investment strategies, including gender diversity, and in 2023 launched a women-first-themed fund, focused on gender equality and equal representation in professional life,” the venture told the International Finance.

Alongside its focus on sustainability, TEB Asset Management has also launched a fund to address the social aspect of its commitment to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), in collaboration with a local university, Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi.

According to TEB AM CEO Yağız Oral, the women-first-themed fund aims to support economic and social development by strengthening gender equality and equal representation in professional life.

“We aspire to transform the investment ecosystem towards the goal of equality & inclusion by encouraging companies to contribute to a holistic framework of social development. We believe investing in a mutual fund that prioritises gender equality can promote diversity and fairness in corporate leadership, ultimately leading to better financial performance and societal progress,” CEO Yağız Oral told International Finance.

TEB Asset Management also launched a sustainability fund of funds in 2021. This was one of a number of thematic funds launched during the past three years to meet investor needs as the mutual fund landscape evolves. Themes include the metaverse and digital technology, agriculture and food technology, healthcare and biotechnology and precious metals.

“We continuously search for new ideas to keep up with the changing world and we keep a close eye on investor needs. One of the most important points that differentiates us from our peers is the strength of our relationship with BNPP AM’s global teams, meaning that we can take advantage of them, enabling us to invest in a wide range of products globally. Our rigorous investment approach combines international standards with in-house research, local expertise, and global cooperation and risk procedures,” CEO Yağız Oral added.

Overall, TEB Asset Management recognises the increasing importance of ESG in the investment landscape and the integration of sustainability into its investment philosophy. By doing so, the venture has been able to provide investors with the solutions they need to achieve their financial goals while prioritising their values and beliefs.

“By incorporating ESG principles into our investment strategies, we aim to meet the growing demand for sustainable investing options and create long-term value for our clients. As the asset management sector continues to evolve, we remain committed to meeting the changing needs of investors and ensuring that our clients can invest with confidence in a rapidly transforming world.” CEO Yağız Oral concluded.

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Some people might believe that those who are not yet considered legal adults should not invest. However, there are no age restrictions for investing, unlike at a casino or a pub. Although opening a brokerage account typically requires that you be at least 18 years old, investors under the age of 18 still have a variety of options available to them, though they may need to work with an adult or receive varying levels of supervision.

The importance of investing early
Younger people have an advantage over older people beyond simply being permitted to invest; simply put, the earlier you start investing, the more time your money has to grow. The force of compounding increases this early-mover advantage for younger investors. Starting to invest while time is on your side is even more advantageous since when you reinvest your capital gains and interest to produce more returns, the value of your account may increase.

A little example will help to highlight the benefits of starting early. Say you start saving for your retirement when you’re 22 years old and start your career. When you reach retirement age, you would have $710,810.83 if you consistently saved $100 each month and earned a respectable 10% return on your investment (compound yearly). However, if you had begun investing when you were 15 years old, you would now have $1,396,690.23, or almost twice as much.

Riley Adams, a CPA and prominent authority on teen investing, is the creator and publisher of the popular website Young and the Invested. He believes that supporting young people’s financial empowerment begins with educating them about the advantages of starting investments early.

“The one thing, the last true edge in investing, is really time in the market,” Riley Adams explains. People who realize this edge and begin to take advantage of it sooner in life increase their chances of financial success.

Custodial accounts
A minor’s investments in a custodial account are managed by an adult on their behalf until they reach 18 or 21 years of age, depending on the state in the USA. Custodial accounts are an excellent way to transfer assets to a kid or teen under the Uniform Gifts to Minors Act (UGMA) and the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA), but the custodian adult retains the legal obligation and the final say in investment decisions.

People younger than 18 can even get an early start on retirement planning through a custodial Roth individual retirement account (Roth IRA), but they will need earned income from a job or another paid activity to begin contributing. Although investment decisions are typically subject to the approval of the adult co-owner, there are joint brokerage accounts that permit minors to share legal ownership with an adult. These accounts may encourage younger people to play a more active role in society.

Are you ready to invest?
The advantages of investing while you are young are clear enough, but some teenagers might still be unsure about their readiness to make the plunge. When deciding whether to make their first investments, teens may want to ask themselves the following questions: Do you have money from a job or another source that you won’t need to access immediately? Can you afford to lose this money if your investments do not play out as planned? If you are under the age of 18, do you have a parent or another adult willing to help you invest? Do you know what you are getting into? In other words, do you understand the investment you are considering and how it works?

Riley Adams claims that companies that teens deal with frequently can pique their interest in investing. Purchasing stock in a well-known corporation is a smart approach to entering the stock market while adhering to the maxim “invest in what you know.”

“Being engaged with companies you see on a regular basis gets you interested, makes you want to understand how they tick, how they grow, how they make decisions. And then once you kind of understand that, digging a little deeper and asking the question of: Do I think this is good, do I think this is going in the right direction, and then do I have money that I want to invest in it?” he said.

The risk of investing
Younger people should be aware of the benefits of making frequent and early investments, as well as the risks. It goes without saying that the biggest disadvantage of investing is the possibility of losing some or all of your money. While it is impossible to escape the reality of potential losses, you can control how much risk you are willing to take on by choosing investments that are riskier than others. Generally speaking, a riskier investment has a higher potential to yield higher returns.

All investors, young and old, must understand this trade-off in order to choose a strategy. But once more, being young has its benefits. Younger investors may afford to take more risks since they have more time to stay in the markets, which increases their potential gains. Younger investors have time to wait for the markets to rebound when the inevitable market downturn occurs.

This explains why conventional investment wisdom recommends taking more risks when pursuing distant goals while becoming more cautious as you get closer to the moment when you’ll need to access your funds. However, no matter your age, it is important to discover your own style as an investor, ensuring that you are okay with the level of risk you’re facing.

“People have different risk tolerances, and I think you need to be honest with yourself. If someone walks you through the logic of ‘You’re young, you should take on risk, you should let it grow’—but you just don’t feel comfortable with it, you absolutely should not do that. You should look for lower-risk investments that might not have as much upside but also might not have as much downside,” Riley Adams advises.

Where teens can invest in
Once you have an understanding of your own risk tolerance, you can look into investments that have the qualities you think will best enable you to achieve your objectives. Here are a few of the more popular investment types, or asset classes, that you might choose to buy, depending on what you hope to achieve and when.

Stocks
A small portion of ownership, or equity, in a publicly traded corporation, is acquired when you purchase a stock. Two possibilities exist for stocks to generate income: Many businesses give their shareholders payments known as dividends. The market’s assessment of a company’s value affects stock prices, and if the price of your stock rises, you may be able to sell it for a profit. Stocks can be risky due to their value fluctuations, or volatility as it is known in the market. It is possible that you will end up with shares that are not worth what you bought for them if the firm you invested in starts to struggle. Stocks are a good investment for younger people with better risk tolerance because of the higher potential profits that come with them.

Funds
While stocks represent a share in a single company, you can also buy shares of funds that invest in multiple stocks and other types of assets. Mutual funds are managed by qualified money managers and invest in a variety of assets in accordance with a prospectus-stated goal. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are similar to mutual funds in that they possess a variety of investments, but unlike mutual funds, they may be exchanged on the stock market and are intended to track a particular market index, industry, or other assets.

Younger investors have access to many benefits through funds. Funds provide built-in diversification because they combine numerous investments into one. In other words, investors automatically possess a variety of assets through a fund, protecting their investment from total loss in the event that one component loses value. While some mutual funds have high fees for managing the portfolio actively, passively managed and index-tracking funds typically have low fees and a track record of generating good returns, especially over the long term.

Bonds
Bonds are an example of a debt instrument, as opposed to equity or ownership in a corporation. When you purchase a bond, you are essentially lending money to the bond issuer, who promises to repay you with interest and the principal you borrowed. Governments and corporations both issue bonds. Bonds are regarded as fixed-income investments as they offer predetermined payments over a specific time frame. They are especially helpful for investors who want to make a consistent income. They are less risky than stocks, though, and as a result have lower potential returns, which makes them unsuitable for young investors looking for long-term gain.

Other investments
Some young investors could be better suited to other financial asset classes. For instance, certificates of deposit (CDs) let you invest money and earn a fixed interest rate over a set period of time. Similar to savings accounts in operation, CDs offer a greater interest rate because you commit to leaving the money alone for the duration of the investment. Compared to stocks or bonds, CDs are more conservative and have a smaller potential return while having a more moderate risk profile.

There are yet more prospective investments on the list. From high-risk cryptocurrencies to derivatives including futures and options, there are plenty of ways to put your money to work. These products are better suited for experienced investors rather than those who are just starting because they are riskier and more complicated.

The bottom line
When it comes to investing, teens have the advantage because they have time on their side, even though they will need to work with a parent or another adult before investing. Teenagers have the chance to start accumulating their wealth early, thanks to custody accounts and joint accounts.

The post An investment guide for teens appeared first on International Finance.

Fidelity manages a huge family of mutual funds, runs a brokerage business, offers life insurance, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, and custody of assets in addition to fund distribution and investment advice. As of 2023, Fidelity has 40 million individual investors, USD 9.6 trillion in assets under management, USD 3.6 trillion in discretionary assets, and handles 3.1 million trades each day.

Fidelity is known for supplying top-notch research, practical tools, and extensive educational resources. It provides commission-free online trading for stocks, penny stocks, ETFs, and others. The majority of the account costs that brokers impose, like transfer and account closure fees, domestic wire fees, and check fees, have also been eliminated by the company.

In order to assist traders in identifying investment opportunities, Fidelity offers a variety of powerful research tools and asset screeners. For equities, ETFs, and fixed income, there are numerous pre-built and programmable screeners available. More than 140 criteria and around 20 subjects, including artificial intelligence, drones, and cloud computing, are included in the stock screener. Detailed ETF-focused research includes topics, analyst ratings, and the ability to search funds by a particular stock.

Fidelity has consistently been achieving high rankings in ‘Best for Beginners’ category due to its wide range of instructional courses. The learning centre provides educational content through articles, videos, webinars, infographics, and webinars. An individual may also ask knowledgeable coaches about trading during live, interactive sessions with the “Trading Strategy Desk”.

The year 2018 was a record-breaking year for the company. For the first time ever, Fidelity’s yearly revenue exceeded USD 6 billion. Its operating income increased by 19%, thereby reaching USD 6.3 billion. The Boston-based company generated a record USD 20.4 billion in revenue in 2022, a 12% increase from 2021.

The brain behind this successful venture is a 59-year-old philanthropist and CEO of Fidelity Investments, Abigail Johnson.

Who is Abigail Johnson?
• Abigail Johnson is an American billionaire businesswoman and granddaughter of the late Edward C. Johnson II, the founder of Fidelity Investments
• She graduated from Hobart and William Smith College, United States, with a bachelor’s degree in art history in 1984 and then did her MBA at Harvard Business School
• In 1988, Abigail Johnson joined Fidelity Investments as an analyst and portfolio manager
• In 2001, she was promoted to President of Fidelity Asset Management, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments
• In 2007, Abigail Johnson became one of three vice-chairperson of the company and was promoted to the president’s post in 2012
• As of March 2013, the Johnson family owned a 49% stake in Fidelity, with Johnson herself holding an estimated 24.5%.
• In 2014, Abigail Johnson was appointed as Fidelity CEO by her father Edward Johnson and in 2016 she became the company’s chairman
• Talking about Abigail Johnson’s political commitments, she gave Republican contender Jeb Bush USD 2,700 in 2015, the maximum amount that can be legally given to a presidential primary campaign
• Abigail Johnson was named on Forbes’ “The Richest Person in America’s 50 Largest Cities” list in 2016 and ranked sixth in 2021 on their “Powerful Women” list
• She was the richest person in Massachusetts in 2020, and as of 2023, her wealth is around USD 22.6 billion
• Abigail Johnson is the first and only woman to serve on the board of the Financial Services Forum, an American, non-partisan economic policy and advocacy organization

Initiatives For Young Women

Abigail Johnson founded Fidelity’s Boundless initiative in 2015 with the sole purpose of encouraging more young women to pursue careers in the financial industry. She has commissioned teams to study how the sector is perceived across genders.

In an interview given to cfi.co, she remarked, “Asset management is a great career for women. We have a real need right now to recruit more women, because when women customers come into our branches very often the first thing they say is ‘I want to work with a woman’. We don’t have enough women who are customer-facing.”

“Women as customers are really quite different. They tend to under-rate their abilities as stewards of their own financial situations. They describe themselves as beginners, even though they know more than they give themselves credit for, and they tend to be more methodical,” she added.

Fidelity In No Mood Of Slowing Down

Fidelity is also planning to hire 734 new technologists in the first half of 2023 as part of a 4,000-person workforce expansion roadmap. It also invested USD 4.2 billion in 2022 to maintain, enhance and upgrade its IT systems, in order to reach millennial and Gen Z clients, as well as acquire metaverse capabilities and upgrade its advisor tech stack. The company also filled over 17,000 associate roles in customer experience, technology, product management and investment research departments.

“Despite the stock and bond market declines last year, we increased hiring and spending on customer service, technology, and new products,” Abigail Johnson wrote in a letter attached to the company’s annual report.

Image Credits: Forbes YouTube

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While mutual funds invest in securities, its performance is tracked as the change in the fund’s market cap (decided after aggregating performances of underlying investments).

How Do Mutual Funds Get Priced?
A mutual fund’s value depends on the securities’ performances, in which, it is investing. Buying a mutual fund means that the investor is also buying the portfolio’s performance/value.

Unlike market stocks, mutual fund shareholders don’t get voting rights. Having a share in a mutual fund means investments in multiple stocks/securities.

Generally, mutual funds’ share prices are also referred to as the Net Asset Value (NAV).

Net Asset Value gets decided by dividing the securities’ total value under the portfolio by the total amount of outstanding shares. Outstanding shares refer to the ones held by all shareholders, institutional investors, and corporates.

These shares can be purchased or redeemed at the fund’s current Net Asset Value. This NAV doesn’t generally fluctuate during market hours and gets settled at the end of each trading day. After the NAVPS gets settled, mutual fund prices get updated too.

As mutual funds hold different market securities, the shareholders also gain on the diversification front. So, if you have multiple company stocks under your portfolio, a loss in one of them can be offset easily by the profits made by other shares.

How Are Returns Calculated For Mutual Funds?
Just like buying a stock, buying a mutual fund too gives the individual partial ownership of the mutual fund and its assets.

While you, as a mutual fund investor, can earn on a quarterly and annual basis, it happens in three ways.

The first category of mutual fund income is earned from stock dividends and bond interests held under the funds’ portfolio. Here, funds give investors a choice to either receive a distribution check or reinvest the earnings to purchase the mutual fund’s additional shares.

If the mutual fund is selling securities that have higher price tags, the fund in return gets a capital gain, which gets passed on to the investors.

Also, if the mutual fund shares’ prices increase, you can sell them for a profit.

While researching for mutual fund returns, before buying the policy, the potential investor must see the “total return” or the investment’s value change over a particular period. This “total return” consists of interests, dividends, or capital gains the fund generated and its market value changes. These returns are calculated for one, five, or 10-year periods as well as the mutual fund’s starting date.

Example of Mutual Funds
In 1963, Fidelity Investments’ started its mutual fund services called Magellan Fund (FMAGX) in the United States. The objective was to ensure capital appreciation via investment in common stocks and saw its peak time from 1977 to 1990, as its assets under management increased from USD 18 million to USD 14 billion. By 2000, the same figure grew to nearly USD 110 billion. It has still remained in prominence. As per 2022 data, Fidelity Magellan has nearly UD 28 billion in assets.

Some of the other best-performing mutual funds within the US are Johnson Equity Income, T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth, State Street US Core Equity Fund, Fidelity Large Cap Core Enhanced Index, and BlackRock Exchange BlackRock.

Fees & Shares
Mutual funds have annual operating/shareholder fees. Under the annual fund operating one, the customers will have to pay an expense ratio (summation of the advisory or management fee and its administrative costs) ranging between 1-3%.

Under the shareholder category, the fees are mostly sales charges, commissions, and redemption fees, and they get directly paid by investors while buying or selling the funds.

Investment companies also offer no-load mutual fund, where you don’t need to pay commission or sales charges since no other party is involved apart from the companies and the customers.

Another category of fees consists of charges/penalties for early money withdrawals or for selling the holding before a specific time frame.

While most of the mutual fund investors purchase the schemes through brokers, the process requires a front-end load of up to 5% or more, along with management and distribution fees. Financial advisors selling mutual funds tend to encourage customers to buy higher-load offerings to generate commissions. To deal with this problem, the investment companies now designate share classes, like ‘level load’ C shares, which don’t carry these front-end loads.

In between A and C, comes category B, under which mutual funds charge management and other fees whenever the investors sell their holdings.

Types Of Mutual Funds
The most prominent one is the category called ‘Stock Funds’, under which the fund invests in market equities. The money can be invested in small, medium and large companies, and approaches like aggressive growth, income-oriented, and value, can be taken. You can invest both in domestic and foreign stocks and in either of them.

Also, there is a something called growth fund, where the mutual funds invest the customers’ money in companies having strong earnings and sales growth, along with a steady cash flow.

Then comes the category of ‘blend’ companies, which segregates businesses with neither value nor growth stocks from the rest.

Large-cap companies have market capitalizations of more than USD 10 billion. Small-cap ones are valued at somewhere between USD 250 million to USD 2 billion. These companies are also dubbed as newer, riskier investments. In between these two, you have mid-capped ones.

Mutual funds generally blend between investment and company sizes.

The next category of mutual funds deal with bonds. Here the scheme generates minimum return under the fixed income category. Under this, the customer’s money goes into investments offering a set return rate, like government bonds, and corporate bonds. The fund portfolio first generates interest income and then passes it to the shareholders. These funds also tend to buy undervalued bonds and sell them at a profitable rate. Funds specializing in high-yield junk bonds are riskier than the ones investing in government securities. Bond funds are also subject to interest rate risk.

Index funds mainly invest in stocks corresponding to major market indexes. Since the advisors/analysts don’t need to research before reaching out to the customers, the latter don’t need to pay many expenses. In short, this is a cost-effective option.

Balanced mutual funds invest in various types of assets, be it stocks, bonds, money market instruments, or alternative investments. It is also known as an asset allocation fund, which reduces the risk factor for investors.

While some funds have pre-defined allocation strategies for the investors (to help the investors to have a predictable exposure across asset classes), others follow a dynamic allocation strategy, suited to investors’ priorities (like responding to market conditions, and business cycle changes).

There are mutual funds that operate in the money market, consisting of safe and short-term debt instruments (government treasury bills). The investor does not gain significantly under this scheme, as the monetary return under this scheme is slightly over the one earned from regular savings accounts.

Income funds invest mostly in government and high-quality corporate debts and then hold these bonds until the latters’ maturity. The whole operation provides consistent cash flow to the customers. It’s very popular among old-school investors and senior citizens.

There is also a mutual fund called an international/foreign fund, where the money gets invested in assets outside the investor’s home country. While this scheme is highly volatile, given the changing nature of the global economy and politics, it offers well-balanced and diverse portfolios.

Sector funds are targeted strategy funds covering specific areas within a formal economy, like finance, technology, and healthcare.

There is a new player in the field of the mutual fund, known as exchange-traded fund. These entities use tactics similar to the MFs. These are fashioned like investment trusts. ETFs can be bought and sold during trading days and these carry lower fees than mutual funds. They also enjoy tax advantages from mutual funds. And last but not the least, these entities are more cost-effective and liquid than mutual funds.

Is Investing In Mutual Funds Profitable?
Yes, it is. First of all, it brings the element of diversification and mix-mashing your investments and assets within a portfolio will reduce the risk factor for the customer. A diversified portfolio comes with securities and bonds. And the mutual fund is a cost-effective diversification option here.

Also, trading can be done on major stock exchanges through mutual funds. These funds can easily be bought and sold during trading hours, making these entities highly liquid investments.

Using mutual funds, investors can also participate in buying or investing in assets such as foreign equities.

Mutual funds give the option of a diverse portfolio to investors and the latter don’t need to pay commission charges and other transaction fees, since they are not buying one security at a time. The monetary side of investing in a mutual fund is a cost-effective one, since it sells a large number of securities, Apart from investing in assets.

Investing in a mutual fund, with the guidance of an ‘Investment Manager’, bring the element of trust into the play, since the person uses his/her research and trading experiences, before reaching out to the customer. Since mutual funds require lower investment minimums, taking the help of ‘Investment Managers’ provides customers with a low-cost, professional solution.

Last but not the least, these funds are properly governed by industry rules and market watchdogs, providing accountability and fairness to the customers.

However, not everything is as rosy, when it comes to the mutual fund. Just like any other finance scheme, it has its drawbacks as well.

A mutual fund can also go through the phenomenon of value depreciation, like any other investment plan. Equity mutual funds go through price fluctuations, affecting the returns.

To maintain liquidity and to accommodate money withdrawals, mutual funds keep a significant portfolio’s portion as cash. Since cash earns no return, it results in a “cash drag.”

Since investors require professional help to operate mutual funds, they also need to pay service fees, thereby affecting the fund’s payout. Fees vary from fund to fund, and if the investors don’t pay attention to the fact, they can face negative consequences in the area of transaction costs.

Acquiring too many highly related funds counterbalances the benefits of diversification. Similarly, pouring fresh money into strong funds can result in the ‘Investment Manager’ having trouble finding other suitable investments.

While a mutual fund allows its customers to convert the latters’ shares into cash easily, many other such schemes offer redemptions only after the trading day ends. After the ‘Investment Manager’ sells the security, a capital-gains tax gets activated. These taxes can be mitigated by investing in tax-sensitive funds or by holding non-tax-sensitive mutual funds in a tax-deferred account.

Another problem area is researching and comparing mutual funds. Different from stock trading, these schemes do not offer investors the opportunity to juxtapose the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, sales growth, earnings per share, etc. Generally, a mutual fund’s net asset value can offer some basis for comparison, but having the element of portfolio diversification means studying funds and finding similarities in them, before investing, becomes a herculean task.

Talking about whether mutual funds are safe to be invested in, there is an element of risk here as well, especially, while purchasing securities like stocks, and bonds. The capital put in these securities is not insured. However, these funds are considered to be liquid assets and can be sold at any given point in time. However, the investors need to review the mutual fund policies and check clauses in areas such as exchange fees and redemption fees. Also, check the tax-related details for capital gains earned with mutual fund redemption.

The post Knowing A to Z of Mutual Funds appeared first on International Finance.

TEB AM completed 2021 with a net profit of 1.4 million USD and 1.7 billion USD AuM, with a market share of 2.66% in mutual funds and 5.63% in pension funds. By the end of August 2022, it had reached 1.9 billion USD.

The synergy between TEB Asset Management and BNP Paribas Asset Management, one of the Euro Zone’s leading asset managers, accelerates the company’s progress in becoming a global force.

Furthermore, thanks to this collaboration, TEB Asset Management had the chance to launch strategic partnerships with many other international firms.

An essential point that differentiates them from their peers is their highly concentrated integration with BNPP AM global teams. It helps them use the international expertise of BNPP AM in every way and invest in a wide range of products globally.

They also care about sustainability in their investment philosophy and utilise BNP Paribas’s expertise, one of the leading groups sensitive to the ESG approach. In addition, they adopt investments to the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact, a universal benchmark for assessing companies. Besides ESG sensitivity, TEB AM’s other strong suit is its expertise and success in multi-asset management.

TEB AM CEO Yagız Oral said, “We offer innovative products that aim to provide alternative returns to our investors.”

They have launched five mutual funds between 2021-2022 by examining in detail the themes suitable for the needs of the investors and the general trends in the world. Some of them are the ESG fund, Robo fund, and Metaverse fund. They continuously search for new ideas to keep up with the changing world and closely monitor investor needs.

In this sense, they focus on new technology investments in mutual funds managed by professionals, enabling investors to cover better the investment universe that addresses the theme. For example, their asset management has established the “Metaverse and Digital Technologies Variable Fund”, which transforms the metaverse universe into an investment.

With its innovative asset management approach, TEB AM has recently launched two new mutual funds that can invest in silver and, agriculture & food technologies, aiming to make the most out of the opportunities offered by the domestic and foreign capital markets.

All in all, their main objective is to create an ongoing satisfactory performance in asset management. However, TEB knows that they also have to actively seek more and take the challenge to do better daily with the help of research, sales and marketing, and digital activities.

The post TEB Asset Management registers record profit in 2021 appeared first on International Finance.

BlackRock Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said in a statement, “China is taking significant steps in opening up its financial markets. We look forward to sharing our global investment expertise and offering more differentiated investment solutions to Chinese investors.

Last year, a trade deal was signed between Washington and Beijing which has let US banks and investment firms like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have a greater market presence and access in China. BlackRock’s approval by CSRC is the latest in line with such developments. Regarded as the world’s largest asset management company, BlackRock has assets worth more than $9 trillion under its management as of March and has made its China expansion plans a major priority.

Apart from BlackRock, several other global asset managers like Fidelity International, Neuberger Berman and Schroders have also applied to set up wholly-owned mutual fund businesses in China. BlackRock’s announcement to start its China mutual funds business comes after it received a license for a wealth management venture in China. The company also owns a minority stake in a mutual fund venture with the Bank of China.

The post BlackRock wins approval to start mutual funds business in China appeared first on International Finance.

Khun Kidakarn Chudsuwan, Head of Mutual Funds Products, said: “Receiving this prestigious award, being recognized as the “Most Innovative Investment Management Bank in the Thai Market“ by International Finance, reflects our continued competitive presence in the investment management sector in Thailand.”

TMB Bank strives to encourage the locals to start investing early by easing the banking process. Currently, only 2.6 percent of the Thai’s workforce is expected to have enough savings after retirement. The bank challenges the sector norm by catering to retail customers in the country, where discretionary portfolio management was previously available for high-net worth individuals with over ฿10 million. 

Using TSP, TMB is the first Thai bank to offer total solution investment portfolio management to savers with just ฿100,000. Previously, these savers have never had access to professional portfolio management. 

TSP is built on three pillars — asset allocation, best-in-class fund selection and portfolio monetary. For asset allocation, the bank offers five portfolio models with varying risk levels, from pure fixed income portfolios to pure equity portfolio. The client portfolio is closely monitored to capture market opportunity and carry out risk control.

To date, more than 5,000 customers have signed up for TSP — and the bank has managed to gather over ฿10 billion in assets under management. “As TSP has been well received by customers, we aim to introduce additional features to encourage Thais to start investing and make investing easy,” Khun Kidakarn Chudsuwan, Head of Mutual Funds Products said. “Eventually, TSP helps fulfill our goal in ensuring more Thais have enough savings for their retirement.”

The post TMB Bank’s bespoke solution encourages early investments appeared first on International Finance.

Through this investment, UOB Asset Management plans to offer its expertise to Indonesian investors in areas such as Islamic investments and multi-asset strategies. It will also provide comprehensive insights into the Indonesian market and specialised solutions in Indonesia-focused funds. It will also provide investment mandates for investors across its network.

Jakarta-based PG Asset Management in a financial company that specialises in mutual funds across equity, debt and money market securities. The company offers its products and services to both retail and institutional investors.

The acquisition will also help UOB Asset Management to strengthen its position in Asia since Indonesia is the region’s largest market. It is also in line with United Overseas Bank’s regionalisation plan.

According to reports, Indonesian mutual fund industry grew by 11 percent year-on-year to S$49.4 billion in 2018. As at end-July 2019, the industry was valued at S$52.2 billion.

Thio Boon Kiat, group chief executive officer of UOB Asset Management told the media that, “We see immense potential in Indonesia’s asset management industry, driven by its economic development, increasing affluence and rising demand from individuals and institutions for investment solutions to protect and to grow their assets.”

As of July 31, 2019, the company had S$32.4 billion in clients’ assets. It also has business units in Thailand, China, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, and Japan. UOB Asset Management also manages 56 unit trusts in Singapore.

The post UOB’s asset management buys 75% stake in Indonesia firm appeared first on International Finance.

30th September 2013

Fidelity Investments, the top retirement plan providers in the U.S. has been sued by its own employees over the 401 (k) plan it offers to its own workers. Employees claim that the plan is dominated by expensive Fidelity mutual funds when lower-fee options are available within Fidelity’s own offerings and from other providers. Fidelity is the 401 (k) provider for 12 million workers across thousands of companies, the employees who have filed the suit claim that the investment options available in the Fidelity plan were offered by Fidelity or a company subsidiary. By the end of 2010, nearly 85 percent of the plan’s assets were held in actively managed Fidelity mutual funds, which tend to have higher fees than passively managed index funds. The complaint comes in the wake of a series of 401 (k) related law suits against financial firms and other companies that allege mismanagement of funds and high fees. The Federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act clearly says that companies with 401 (k) retirement plans have a “fiduciary responsibility” to act in the best interest of their employees. A spokesman from the company sought the dismissal of the lawsuit as it was without merit and baseless allegation from a group of employees from the company; he said that the company provides its employees a wide variety of investments to choose from, including low cost index funds.

In this article let us understand the meaning of a 401 (k) plan, eligibility criteria, how the plan works, caveats to the rule, difference between a 401 (k) 403 (b) plans and the law suit filed against Fidelity Investments for its alleged role in the misuse of 401 (k) plans of its own employees.

What is a 401 (k)?

A 401 (k) is a retirement plan sponsored by an employer; the workers can save a portion of their salary before deduction of taxes. It is the most common kind of defined contribution retirement plan, it is named for the section of the tax code that governs them, 401 (k)’s became popular in the 1980’s as a supplement to pensions. Most employers used to offer pension funds, these Pension funds were managed by the employer and they paid a steady income during the time of retirement, but as the cost of pensions escalated, employers decided to replace them with 401 (k)’s. The term 401 (k) is a reference to a specific provision in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, however, its popularity has made other nations use it as a generic term to describe the analogous legislation.

For example: In 2001, Japan adopted the version by using 401 (k) accounts even though no provision of the Japanese code is called 401 (k). The term is not used in U.K. where analogous pension arrangements are known as personal pension schemes.

How does it work?

The employee can decide the extent of contribution made to the plan, since the plans offer valuable tax breaks, employee can make the maximum contribution to the fund. As on 2013, the maximum limits to the fund was $ 17,500 if he was under the age of 50. If the employee is more than 50, he can make an additional catch-up contribution of $5,500, for a total of up to $ 23,000. The investment happens through payroll deduction and the employee can decide what percentage of salary he can contribute, the amount shall be deducted and deposited into the fund. The company where the employee is working shall serve as the “plan sponsor”, the company does not invest the money, instead, it hires another company to administer the plan and its investments. The plan administrator may be a mutual fund company such as Fidelity, Vanguard or a brokerage firm such as Schwab or Merrill Lynch or even an insurance company such as Prudential or MetLife. The employer sends the payroll deductions directly to the company managing your plan, but the employee should decide the course of investment among the various options.

Caveats to the rule

The 401 (k) plan has lots of caveats and restrictions, the employer contribution cannot be withdrawn until a specific time limit, employers generally use this plan to control attrition rates and prevent early leaving by employees thereby strengthening their human resources. There are complex rules on the withdrawal limits and the company can impose heavy penalties for withdrawals before superannuation.

What if the company goes bankrupt?

If the company ceases to function, the plan would be terminated. If that happens, employees can roll the money into a traditional IRA to avoid paying the 10 percent withdrawal penalty and income taxes.

Difference between 401 (k) and 403 (b) Plan

Both 401 (K) and 403 (b) plans are employer sponsored retirement benefit plans that offer tax savings. Structurally both the plans are similar, the main difference lie in the eligibility of participants and the reporting requirements for employers.

The post 401 (k) Plan for Savings and Retirement appeared first on International Finance.