As the exchange traded fund universe continues to expand, there is a growing need for education to keep up with the endless supply of new strategies hitting the market.
ETF Trends publisher Tom Lydon spoke with Peter De Boer, Chief Executive Officer of CFRA, and Todd Rosenbluth, Director at CFRA, at the Inside ETFs conference that ran Jan. 22-25, 2017 to talk about the growing need for education and research in an expanding universe of investments as a way to find the best opportunities for a diversified portfolio.
“CFRA is an independent research company that’s been around for about 25 years,” De Boer said. “We focus on forensic accounting research and earnings quality.”
“We look at ourselves, now, as one of the largest independent research providers that are out there really focused on quality, scale and performance for our clients.”
CFRA covers a broad range of maturates, including ETFs and fund industries and market sectors.
“I’m excited that we continue to see the breadth of products from the larger asset managers getting in from a factor perspective, multi-factor products from iShares, from Goldman Sachs, from John Hancock to name just a handful of these large providers that we think they’re going to compete,” Rosenbluth said.
As the number of strategies grows, financial advisors and investor will need to do their due diligence and fully understand what they are getting themselves into.
“They still need to do their homework, understand what’s inside the portfolio and that’s where CFRA can bring to the table with our dedicated research team looking at the underlying holdings,” Rosenbluth said.