CLS Investments
Omaha, NE 68130
Phone: (402) 493-3313
Fax: (402) 493-2811
Articles by CLS Investments
The Day Commissions Died
By Grant Engelbart, CFA, CAIA – Director of Research & Sr. Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments Where were you on Oct.…
Marc Pfeffer,Chief Investment Officer
Marc Pfeffer serves as Chief Investment Officer for CLS Investments. Prior to this role, he was a Portfolio Manager on the CLS Flexible Income Fund team, and managed the CLS Active Income X Strategy and CLS’s ETF strategies. He also managed individual municipal bond portfolios for the CLS Master Manager Strategy and continues to serve as a senior member of the CLS Investment Committee.
Mr. Pfeffer joined CLS in 2011, continuing as Senior Portfolio Manager for the Milestone Treasury Obligations Fund. The Fund was incorporated into CLS’s fund family in January 2012. Mr. Pfeffer has more than 30 years of investment management experience, including time spent as the Chief Investment Officer at Milestone. He also worked previously at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns.
Mr. Pfeffer graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science degree in finance. He received his Master of Business Administration degree, with a focus on finance, from Fordham University. Mr. Pfeffer holds his FINRA Series 7, 63, and 65 licenses.
More Articles
How Can Higher Expenses Lead to Better Returns?
By Kostya Etus, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments “Sorry, Vern. I guess a more experienced shopper could have gotten more…
The Little Things Still Matter in ETF Investing
By Grant Engelbart, CFA, CAIA – Director of Research & Senior Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments The fee war is officially over.…
The Story of an ETN (Exchange-Traded Note)
It all started on a fine August day in 2006. Bees were buzzing, China was surging, NINJA loans were flowing,…
Thematic ETFs: The Current Stage in ETF Evolution
By Kostya Etus, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments ETFs were once the baby of the investing world, the newest financial…
ETF Trends: CLS Investments’ ETF Dashboard
By Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CMT, Chief Investment Officer and Dustin Dorhout, Research Analyst, CLS Investments At CLS Investments, we pride ourselves…
The Various Flavors of Quality ETFs
By Kostya Etus, CFA, CLS Investments Everyone loves high quality! How could they not? The word “quality” is synonymous with “good,”…
How CLS Investments Is Getting Strategic With Dividend ETFs
In 2018, U.S. dividend growth remained solid, although some dividend exchange traded funds (ETFs) were challenged by the Federal Reserve’s…
Smart(er) Beta in the ETF Universe
By Grant Engelbart, CFA, CAIA – Director of Research & Senior Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments Smart beta has become synonymous…
The Snack You Know: Home-Country Investing Bias
By Jackson Lee, CFA – Associate Quantitative Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments My wife and I were doing our grocery shopping at…
Defense Wins Championships
By Kostya Etus, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager, CLS Investments There are several variables investors can control when investing, including the cost,…
How Investors Can Win By Losing Less
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments Risk Budgeting focuses on the management of volatility in client portfolios. This manifests itself in the…
A Simple Reason Why Advisors Should Use Factor-Based Asset Allocations
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments Rethinking Your Asset Allocation Approach Factors are changing the way investors think about asset allocation.…
3 Interesting ETFs You May Have Missed
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments One year ago, I published a piece highlighting Three Undervalued ETFs you’ve Never Heard Of. Since…
The Pitfalls of “Resulting”
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments As a portfolio manager, I generally have a pretty busy schedule. But something I really…
Midterm Elections: 7 Quick Facts on Market Impact
By Shana Sissel, CLS Investments The U.S. midterm elections are just around the corner, and investors remain concerned about how the…
ESG Investing: Myths & Truths
By Kostya Etus, CLS Investments Col. Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee: I WANT THE TRUTH! Col. Jessup: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE…
Is it Time to Buy Turkey?
By Kostya Etus, CFA – Portfolio Manager ETFs are a modern marvel, allowing investors to allocate to exposures such as…
Looking for the Next Netflix? Good Luck.
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments Netflix is an impressing stock. Despite some recent turbulence, its returns make even its FANG (Facebook,…
Fearful Investors Create Golden Opportunities
By Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CMT, and Michael Hadden, CLS Investments Baron Rothschild is credited with some timeless advice. “The time to buy…
Is Your Smart Beta ETF Engineered for Success?
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments Smart beta ETFs are generally geared for outperformance. They invest in pools of securities with…
ETF Expense Ratios: The Race to Zero
By Kostya Etus, CFA, CLS Investments “Nothing? Who do you think you’re dealing with? Nothing costs nothing.” — Terry Benedict, Ocean’s…
Not Everything in ETFs is Growing
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments The explosive growth within the ETF market has been spurred by the numerous benefits ETFs offer…
Demystifying Liquid Alternatives
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments One of our latest investment themes, Be Creative, emphasizes the use of alternative assets in portfolios.…
Why Should You Invest Internationally?
By Kostya Etus, CFA, CLS Investments As you may know, we have written a great whitepaper named “Why International: The…
The Evolution of the ETF Industry
By Mark Matthews – Investment Research Analyst, CLS Investments The exchange traded fund (ETF) industry has experienced rampant growth, expansion, and…
The Winds Are Changing for Active Management
By Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CMT, CLS Investments Chief Investment Officer Active management has had a bad rap in recent years, but I…
Do Active ETFs Outperform?
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments As I suggested in a previous post, active mutual fund managers, in aggregate, do show some…
There’s an ETF for That!
By Kostya Etus, CFA – Portfolio Manager at CLS Investments, LLC We all know and love ETFs. They mark an…
Strategic Versus Tactical Asset Allocation
By Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CMT, CLS Investments Chief Investment Officer Investors often ask, and for good reason, which asset allocation approach is…
Getting Active in 2018
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments Some of the most common New Year’s resolutions are to work out more, lose a…
Reviewing 2017 Markets: Cryptoassets, Market Highs & Value Vs Growth
By Mark Matthews, CLS Investments While short on market volatility, 2017 suffered no shortage of excitement. Major U.S. indices went on…
What Multi-Factor ETFs & Active Managers Don’t Have in Common
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments Investors continue to focus on factor investing as more ETF issuers launch single and multi-factor…
Is International Still Undervalued?
By Kostya Etus, CFA, Portfolio Manager CLS Investments International markets are having a standout year and finally outperforming the U.S. market for…
Bitcoin Bubble About to Burst? Not So Fast…
By Michael Hadden, CLS Investments For every social media darling claiming to have struck it rich with Bitcoin, there’s a prominent…
Millennials Say ETFs Are Their Investment Vehicle of Choice
By Kostya Etus, CFA, Portfolio Manager at CLS Investments Financial advisors and investment managers are trying to crack the code on…
10 Common Smart Beta ETF Questions
By Rusty Vanneman, CLS Investments At CLS Investments, we are heavy users of smart beta ETFs, so understanding smart beta is…
Active ETFs Make Sense in Active Portfolios
By Paula Wieck, CLS Investments Innovation in the development of financial tools has been tremendous over the last several decades. There…
ETF Expense Ratios: More Than Meets the Eye
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments We’ve all got our pet peeves and soap boxes. For most people they have to do…
CLS Investments Launch Smart ETF Models
As the ETF industry continues to evolve, CLS Investments has launched Smart ETF Models that utilize products from five ETF…
Investors: Think Big by Going Small
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments Small-cap stocks have long offered investors opportunities to capture sizable gains either through index exposure…
There’s More to Being a Fiduciary Than Lowering Costs
By Rusty Vanneman, CLS Investments Being a fiduciary means acting in a client’s best interests. Striving for lower costs is part…
3 Undervalued ETFs You’ve Never Heard Of
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments CLS Investments is a top 10 holder in more than 50 different ETFs, many of which…
The Market ≠The Dow
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments “The market is up 100 points today!” How often do you hear that comment? Some of…
The Battle of Acronyms: SRI Vs ESG
By Kostya Etus, CFA, CLS Investments Values-based investing has been making headlines and growing a lot of assets recently. What is it?…
Are International Stocks Really Beating U.S. Markets?
By Case Eichenberger, CLS Investments Of course they are! Are you kidding me? It’s not even close! (This is what I…
ETFs on TV and in the Financial Media
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments Over the July 4 holiday, I had the privilege of stepping away from the office for…
3 Strategic Reasons Advisors Should Adopt Factor-Based ETFs
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments Factor investing is all the rage, but many financial advisors are still unsure of its…
How to Lose Money With Factors
By Grant Engelbart, CLS Investments Factors are powerful tools for managing risk and producing excess returns – a pretty consistent message…
Can Female Executives Improve the Quality of Your Portfolio?
By Paula Wieck, CLS Investments When a recent CFA Institute survey revealed that only one in five CFA charter-holders are…
Should You Replace Your Active Manager with a Smart Beta ETF?
By Joe Smith, CFA, CLS Investments The rise of ETFs has generally come at the expense of active management, primarily…