Friday, 15 March 2013

Asset Managers - a leveraged way to play a rising market

Over the past 12 months the number of available asset classes which have produced competent returns has been diminishing and as a result many have moved into equities.  This increased flow of money into equities has proved great news for asset managers as they make up significant proportion of equity investments.

The asset managers came under pressure after the credit crisis as many ran to cash to protect themselves from heavy losses. Unsurprisingly share prices collapsed along with the market. Since then assets have been slowly building back up gathering pace over the past year. A number of companies have reported increased profits as a result.

Increasing demand for equity funds has rolled through from institutional, retail investors and Wealth Managers.   As the asset managers have experienced gains at the end of the line, further towards the front, Wealth Managers have experienced a similar trend.  Since the introduction of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) at the start of 2013 this separated the good from the bad and a number of wealth managers have taken this in their stride increasing assets under management.

Namely Brooks MacDonald, announcing an increase of 44% in discretionary assets over the year and raising their dividend is a prime example. Also St James’ Place and Hargreaves Lansdown have also benefited all be it from slightly different avenues.

With banks still having a number of structural issues, many investors are wary of jumping back in. These other alternatives to the financial sector have great growth potential, especially as these mid cap stocks have room to grow and increase their dividends going forward.

This rotation into equities may have only just begun which is great news for both asset and wealth managers a like.  Without going out and buying a number of these stocks directly, I would suggest purchasing Guinness' Global Money Manager Fund that invests solely in asset managers and has performed very well over the past year, returning 34%!



3 comments:

  1. The total demand for products and services in the economy. This includes a demand from the private and public sector for products and services within the country and a demand for products and services from consumers and companies in other countries.

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  2. Good for those who had an increase in assets, just need follow-ups for it then they're still good to go. Just a quick question about the Global Money Manager Fund, is this some kind of a service from Guinness or you'll just have to apply it directly with the sales and things go with them?

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