Welcome to Pincus Perspectives, a quarterly newsletter providing updates on the market and our company. Our goal is to make this newsletter informative for our readers as it relates to both GA Pincus Funds and the economy as a whole. We LOVE referrals, so please forward this email along to your friends. Thanks for reading!
Market Commentary:
2016 brought us Brexit and David Cameron’s resignation, Roderigo Duterte’s violent war on drugs in the Philippines, a failed coup leading to numerous retaliatory murders by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, the rise of populism across Europe demonstrated by the gaining popularity of Beppe Grillo in Italy and Marine Le Pen in France, and of course, the victory of Donald Trump in the US.
The Syrian Civil War, the onslaught of global terrorist attacks both connected to and inspired by ISIS, and the increase of cyberterrorism through hacking have all taken center stage in 2016. The United States, through its new President, Donald Trump, must find a way to maintain its dominance or risk losing its position as the world’s one true super power.
While many economists expected 2-4 increases in the US Federal Funds rate in 2016, Janet Yellen, possibly in a bid to improve the presidential prospects of Hillary Clinton, did not increase rates until after the election. This inaction gave Donald Trump a talking point, and may have contributed to the average American’s interpretation that the Fed is politicized and not working in the best interest of the American people. Coming off a strong 2016 for the US economy, it is our belief that 2017 will have more rate increases than did 2016.
During 2016 we also learned that in the age of readily available information, something as simple as a tweet can have a profound impact on an individual company, currency, or even the entire world economy. In 1789, Benjamin Franklin said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Donald Trump proved him wrong. In fact, during 2016, we came to learn that many seemingly obvious projections would ultimately be proven wrong (Fed Fund increases, Hillary winning, a no vote for Brexit, etc).
Through all of this turmoil, GA Pincus Funds stayed true to our belief that a diverse portfolio of ETFs comprising numerous different correlated and uncorrelated asset classes will stabilize and improve our client's returns. By constructing an allocation using our unique mix of securities and actively managing those securities through the use of our proprietary algorithm, GA Pincus Funds provides its clients with a blended exposure to the world economy. Not all quarters will be perfect, but our overall goal is to produce annual returns that outperform each client's blended benchmark by 1.0%. This year, we achieved our goal. All clients who began 2016 with us beat their respective benchmarks by at least 2.0%.
Technology Update:
Our website and blog are now live WEBSITE
Across all mobile phones and desktop browsers
Our blog, Pincus Pontifications is now live! Pincus Pontifications provides our readers with Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) investment suggestions. We translate ongoing current events into ETF-based trading ideas. Let us know about a topic you are interested in and we will identify the best way to use ETFs to make you money!
In The News:
In late 2016 we hired a fantastic publicist, Jen Seelig, of Orion Public Relations. Jen helped us create our blog, Pincus Pontifications, and has improved the public face of our company. Through our relationship with Orion Public Relations, GA Pincus Funds has been featured in numerous publications in late 2016.
GA Pincus Funds is a Texas Registered Investment Advisor that creates Separately Managed Accounts for our clients using an investment strategy comprised of three main tenets:
Active Management
Low Cost
Transparency
GA Pincus Funds Actively Manages all accounts; investing exclusively in Low Cost ETFs; while allowing all investors Transparent 24/7 real-time access to their accounts.
Our longest running account, split 45% fixed income and 55% equities, has outperformed all but one of its benchmark indices since inception.
Net of all fees, this separately managed account has outperformed its benchmark 11 out of the past 13 quarters, annually, and since inception
2016 GA Pincus Funds Year In Review
GA Pincus Funds began 2016 with 9 clients in 6 states and $3.7 million in assets under management (AUM). At the close of 2016 our company now has 19 clients in 8 states with an AUM of $11.3 million.
Below is a list of our achievements in 2016:
Launched a unique data-focused website
Worked with external developers in Texas, New York, and India
