Products June 6, 2019

Investment Product and Service Launches

intellicents builds active management feature to adviser platform and Hartford Funds releases multifactor mutual funds. 

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Art by Jackson Epstein

Art by Jackson Epstein

intellicents Builds Active Management Feature to Adviser Platform

intellicents investment solutions, inc. has added an active management sleeve to its intellicents bionic advisor, a tool designed to provide personal planning and investment advice from financial professionals.

At intellicents, investors have a choice of active or passive investment management strategies, says Matt Twedt, president of personal financial management at intellicents. One strategy focuses on low-cost market-indexing exchange-traded funds (ETFs), while the other takes on more of a Smart Beta or fundamental indexing approach, he adds. Additionally, the investment menu within intellicents’ bionic advisor platform includes actively managed mutual funds from T. Rowe Price, Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, American Century, Charles Schwab, Baird, MFS, and Cohen & Steers.

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“Our business plan is to build a national financial services firm centered on financial wellness,” adds Brad Arends, CEO of intellicents.  “Financial planning is a key deliverable in our five-step process for a financial wellness program that actually works. We must have the products and services to attract and recruit experienced certified financial planners to join our team. Our intellicents bionic advisor is a combination of cutting-edge technology and highly compassionate humans, with just the right amount of personal insight and programmed sophistication to help guide investors to the destination of their dreams.” 

Hartford Funds Releases Multifactor Mutual Funds

Hartford Funds has launched its first two multifactor mutual funds, the Hartford Multifactor International Fund and the Hartford Multifactor Large Cap Value Fund. The products are designed to meet the demand for multifactor strategies in retirement plans by offering investors access to investment approaches that Hartford Funds offers only through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

 “Retirement plans have historically not had access to the multifactor strategies that are common in ETFs, and have, therefore, been unable to access their risk-managed results and lower fees,” says Vernon Meyer, chief investment officer of Hartford Funds. “We adapted our existing multifactor ETFs to ensure that retail investors and retirement plans alike can leverage them in their continued pursuit of capital returns with the potential for reduced volatility.”

The Hartford Multifactor International Fund tracks the Hartford Risk-Optimized Multifactor Developed Markets Index, the same index as the Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets ETF. The fund is designed to provide equity exposure to major developed markets in Europe, Canada and the Pacific Region with potentially less volatility over a complete market cycle than traditional capitalization-weighted indices. 

The Hartford Multifactor Large Cap Value Fund tracks the Hartford Multifactor Large Cap Value Index, which seeks to outperform traditional cap-weighted, value-oriented U.S. equity market indices and active U.S. equity market strategies, while reducing volatility, over a complete market cycle.

Compliance June 6, 2019

SEC Seeks to Protect Teachers and Military Personnel

The regulator is increasing its education about saving and investing to these groups, along with enforcement to safeguard them.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced two new initiatives to educate and protect teachers, active duty military personnel and veterans, the Teachers’ Initiative and the Military Service Members’ Initiative. Both of these initiatives build on the SEC’s past efforts and focus additional enforcement and investor education on these groups.

“Teachers, active duty military and veterans provide tremendous service to our country, often at great personal and financial sacrifice to themselves and their families, yet far too often are targeted and fall victim to securities fraud and other misconduct,” says SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “These new initiatives reflect the Commission’s dedication to fighting fraud and to educating retail investors. My colleagues and I are particularly focused on ensuring that our teachers, veterans and active duty military, who often leave financial planning to others, know the financial services they are getting, what they are paying for those financial services, and to call us if something doesn’t seem right.”

The initiatives will increase proactive outreach to these groups to educate them about savings and investment, investment fees and expenses, retirement programs aimed at educators and service members, and the red flags of investment fraud. The initiatives will be led by the Enforcement Division’s Retail Strategy Task Force in partnership with the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy.

“The Enforcement Division is committed to fighting for our country’s educators, service members and veterans, who may be vulnerable to fraud in the securities markets,” says Steven Paikin, co-director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.

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