We remain operational and at your service

At Wealth Solutions Partners, we have always taken our fiduciary duties to our business partners and customers very seriously, whatever the circumstances, even the most extreme, such as those we are currently experiencing.

We would like to assure you that we have taken all the necessary measures to ensure the continuity of our services in order to guarantee that our analytical, monitoring and due diligence capacities remain up to the task required in these exceptional circumstances that are impacting the ability to work normally, while the stock markets are experiencing an unprecedented period of stress.

We therefore have to face two problems, on the one hand ensuring the high level of service which we are used to, and on the other hand facing increased attention to the organisational risks and conditions under which the funds’ portfolio we have selected for you are operated.

Our long experience in managing teams of analysts located in different parts of the world, within large financial institutions running with complex contingency plans, allow us to be ready to respond to the situation with the right structure. Thus, our internal communication architecture allows us to work in a decentralized manner without interruption.

Do not hesitate to contact us in those difficult times

For all those who benefit from our “Premium” services, or from direct service mandates, we encourage you to contact us to exchange, discuss and gather opinions on certain funds which may present a issue to you and which you would like some help to make or discuss an investment decision with your customers. We have long experience in the financial markets, we have also gone through major crises with success, we know the managers we select and have access to valuable information about them and others.

What are our priority missions ?

Beyond carefully monitoring the performance of the selected funds and the behavior of their managers in these highly volatile markets with particularly high systemic and idiosyncratic risk levels, our mission is also to methodically review the managers’ “contingency plan”.

We believe that in such situation with degraded working conditions for portfolio managers facing exceptionally risky markets, our duty is to carefully analyze parameters which have become critical for the sustainability of a fund and its performance .

It includes:

  • Evaluate the ability of a manager to make the right decisions, knowingly, despite degraded working conditions, but also to be able to execute orders in the best conditions.
  • Evaluate the capacity of people in charge of risk management to access information, analyze and communicate effectively with managers.

Currently, we are in the phase of collecting such information from the managers we follow. After analysis and synthesis, we will be able to communicate these results to you very soon.

The good news from the front of active funds

The good news for those who have remained loyal to active management is that we have witnessed an unprecedented creation of alpha from active fund managers such as those we select for our clients, even if, under the current circumstances it may seems a lesser relief. Not to mention that for some lucky people, positive performances have even been recorded, even if you have to stay cautious and analyse carefully the reasons for such performance.

In short, it is with pleasure that we remain available to discuss in more detail with you on the performance of selected funds.

As we have already noted on several occasions in the past, passive management has undisputable advantages such as in the portfolios construction for professional managers. On the other hand, for private investors, it still includes risk-taking elements which are not always well understood by investors and which can sometimes prove to be unsuitable to their risk profiles.

This becomes evident in the current period of extreme market stress. Let’s briefly recall here that investing in a passive fund (ETF) involves buying all the securities that make up an index or a market at once, without any discrimination whatsoever.

In clear, if you were invested in one of the most popular passive funds, you were exposed by default to stocks such as those of airlines, financial companies, or even oil companies, sectors which have often been avoided or the exposure reduced by most active managers in the recent period.

In addition, passive management is particularly under pressure in the bond sector, particularly in emerging and high yield debt. These ETFs currently serve as a source of liquidity while underlying assets have become very illiquid. This results in a significant widening of bid/ask spreads which are unrealized losses for active managers, but realised ones for ETFs forced to sell.

We cannot stress it enough, with active funds you still have a pilot on board.  With passive funds, you are the pilot.
Good flight !