Products October 4, 2007

SSgA Announces Practice Management and Portfolio Building Events for Advisers

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has launched a program that focuses on the needs of financial advisers, registered investment advisers, and wealth managers in practice management and portfolio building.
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Presented by SSgA’s Intermediary Business Group, the State Street Thought Leadership program includes a series of events called Mid Cap SPDR Precision Thinkers that are scheduled to be held in Washington, DC (October 9), Houston (October 23), and Chicago (November 13), according to a company announcement. These half-day events feature a keynote speech from a prominent leader, strategist, or author including: General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.), former Secretary of State; Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner, co-authors of Freakonomics; and Renee Mauborgne and Chan Kim, co-authors of BlueOcean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.
Each keynote speech will be followed by a Practice Management Workshop lead by Rebecca Pomering, a principal at Moss Adams LLP, who specializes in practice management consulting to the financial advisory industry, or Hannah Shaw Grove, a leading authority on the mindset, behavior, concerns, preferences, and finances of high-net worth individuals.
In addition, SSgA’s Intermediary Business Group is hosting four regional thought leadership segments titled “Global Trends in Institutional Investing,’ focused on the latest trends in institutional investment management and asset allocation, the announcement said. The first two events were held in September and the remaining two events are scheduled to be held in Boston (October 4) and Chicago (October 10). These events feature, Thomas Anderson, head of Strategy and Research for the Intermediary Business Group; Adele Kohler, head of Product Engineering and Product Development; and Alistair Lowe, head of Global Asset Allocation and Currency.
The events are open to all pre-registered investment professionals and are not limited to State Street clients.
For more information, visit http://www.ssga.com.
In Practice October 4, 2007

Clients Look to Advisers for Help with ETFs

Among investors who work with financial professionals, 40% would like more information about ETFs and about half (51%) would consider investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) if their adviser suggested it, according to a survey by an ETF provider.
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According to the results of a survey of 500 mutual fund investors conducted by Rydex Investments, younger investors are even more receptive to ETFs; almost 80% of investors younger than age 30 would invest in ETFs if suggested by their adviser.

However, even though Americans have a willingness to invest in the product, the Rydex survey found that there is a significant lack of knowledge about the products. The main reason 63% of investors don’t invest in ETFs is because they don’t know enough about them, despite the proliferation of the investments and the significant coverage of the investments in the mainstream media. In fact, more than a third (38%) of individual investors do not know what an ETF is, and more than half (53%) do not know the difference between an ETF and a mutual fund.

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Further, investors indicate an interest in ETF education. More than a third (35%) of individual investors would like to learn more about ETFs.

The survey of 500 individual mutual fund investors was conducted by Rydex Investments in July 2007. All participants had investable assets of more than $100,000, with 150 of the participants having investable assets of more than $500,000.

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