Liquid Strategies Insights & Commentary

Understanding Fees – Mutual Funds and ETFs

Author: Justin Boller

 

I was recently watching a news program in which a commentator generalized Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) as “cheap” and mutual funds as “expensive”. Too often, we dismiss all ETFs as index following and therefore “cheap” and all mutual funds as being actively managed and therefore “expensive”. In reality, an ETF or a mutual fund is simply a packaging solution that can contain a variety of assets and styles of investing. In order to properly assess whether a particular solution is priced appropriately, we must first dissect the package to understand which investments are included and how they are managed.

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility, ETF, mutual fund

Sleight of Hand

Author: Brad Ball

 

Magic tricks utilize sleight of hand or misdirection. Everything about humans makes us prone to follow the shiny object. This most certainly holds true with investing. As I watch investment shows I once again find myself in disbelief how many investors have seemingly become “misdirected” and focus on the wrong things. Less experienced investors would have you believe that the experts who have been wildly successful for long periods of time “are too negative on the market”. So far these less experienced investors have been correct. But, then again, at every magic show the audience gasps in disbelief as the magician seemingly cuts the woman in half only to learn a few minutes later they were duped by misdirection.

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

Is this the most hated rally ever?

Author: Shawn Gibson

 

In my role, the first thing everyone wants to talk about is my opinion on the markets (and ideally exactly what to buy and sell and when!). These advice seekers usually walk away empty handed in terms of specific investment ideas, but I am always happy to talk big picture in terms of broad risks and opportunities. The only question that I have gotten over the past few weeks is some version of: “Why is there such a big disconnect between the stock market and the economy…shouldn’t the market be much lower?”

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

How a Potential Vaccine Affects the Market

Author: Megan Delaney

 

If there’s one thing we can all agree on in the age of coronavirus, it’s that we cannot stay shut down forever. Sooner or later we will have to reopen, and many states have already started that process with mixed results. People want to feel safe as they come out of isolation and venture back into the world, and even with social distancing, masks and testing, many of us will not truly feel safe until a vaccine is developed.

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

A Little Goes a Long Way

Author: Justin Boller

 

It’s been over a decade since I last grilled using charcoal. This past weekend I found a half-used bag of Kingsford and decided to give it a try. This particular brand of Kingsford was “Match Light” which should catch instantly to get the coals burning.

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

Get Outside

Author: Adam Stewart

 

If there’s one thing that being stuck inside proves, it’s that getting outside has never been more important. Being outside and experiencing your natural surroundings is critical for both mental and physical health.

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

Volatility Outlook for the Remainder of the Year

Author: Shawn Gibson

 

After multiple daily moves over 9% in the S%P 500 Index in March (including one down day of almost 12%), market volatility has contracted significantly since the March 23rd bottom. One way to measure volatility is to look at the average daily moves of the market (regardless of direction) to quantify the daily price swings. In March, the average daily move of the S&P 500 Index was 4.95% (it moved up or down on average 4.95% a day).

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

Put Writing as an Income Overlay

Author: Shawn Gibson

 

In a previous blog post (What is an Overlay?), we discussed how investors who utilize overlays do so with the goal of reshaping the potential investment outcomes with the most common goals being:

  1. Generating supplemental income/return (typically through covered call or put writing strategies
  2. Reducing the risk of the existing portfolio beta exposure (typically through collar strategies)

For investors seeking additional income, it is our belief that the best way to achieve this outcome is through a disciplined put spread writing program that provides investors with a relatively conservative stream of income that supplements the income/total return of the assets in the underlying.    

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Topics: Overlay, Theta Income, Volatility

Manager Commentary - Q4 2019

Author: Shawn Gibson

The final quarter of 2019 was one of the significant milestones and achievements for Liquid Strategies, marking the 6th full year of managing a conservative, risk-controlled option writing overlay program designed to add excess return to fully invested portfolios with a modest increase in overall portfolio volatility. In addition to applying the overlay program on top of existing client assets on a customized basis, the application of the Overlay expanded to provide separate account and packaged solutions (funds and ETFs) to allow the overlay to sit on top of six core underlying sources of beta: 1) Large Cap U.S. Equity; 2) Small Cap U.S. Equity; 3) Non-U.S. Equity 4) Core Bonds; 5) Municipal Bonds; and 6) Short-Duration Bonds. For investors that would have been invested in these various strategies since the inception of the firm, below are the illustrative long-term performance results:

ANNUALIZED SEPARATE ACCOUNT ILLUSTRATIVE RETURNS (Net1)

11/01/2013 - 12/31/2019

  1 YEARS 3 YEARS 5 YEARS Inception to Date
Large Cap Equity + Overlay 34.35% 15.62% 13.90% 14.93%
S&P 500 Index  31.49% 15.27% 11.70% 12.68%

 

Small Cap Equity + Overlay 25.55% 8.72% 11.69% 11.86%
S&P 600 Index 22.78% 8.36% 9.56% 9.70%

 

Foreign Equity + Overlay 17.70% 10.74% 8.82% 8.05%
MSCI ACWI ex US 21.51% 9.87% 5.51% 3.95%

 

Core Bond + Overlay  11.25% 4.74% 5.36%  5.64%
Bbg Barc US Agg Index 8.72% 4.03% 3.05% 3.27%

 

Municipal Bond + Overlay  9.80% 4.96% 5.46% 6.25%
Bbg Barc Muni Bond Index 7.54% 4.72% 3.53% 4.23%


1
Net of fees assumes a 0.75% management fee applied monthly. These returns are illustrative, hypothetical numbers representative of two actual return streams (Liquid Strategies Overlay and the underlying index ETF). The numbers illustrate what would have happened had we taken the underlying index ETF returns and added Liquid Strategy Overlay returns to them. Source: Morningstar, Liquid Strategies.

OVERLAY + SHORT DURATION FIXED INCOME ANNUALIZED PERFORMANCE (Net2)

11/01/2013-12/31/20191

  1 YEAR 3 YEARS 5 YEARS Inception to Date
Theta Income Strategy 6.90% 2.50% 3.36% 3.13%

2Net of fees assumes a 1.00% management fee. 

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Topics: Overlay, Volatility

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