Advisors turn to outsourced investment management for a number of reasons:

  • Increased expertise and focus from dedicated third-party strategists
  • Greater bandwidth to dedicate to developing and expanding service sets
  • More time to spend engaging prospects and delighting clients
And with client expectations of advisor service and support only continuing to rise, reaping the practice management benefits of outsourced investment management is more important than ever. 

Think about it: what could you do with even more time to spend with clients? An even broader service set? Even more efficient active management?

You’re about to find out.

Orion Portfolio Solutions is thrilled to announce the launch of our all-new, pre-designed UMA model portfolios: Market Cycle Advised Mandates.

Turnkey investment solutions are nothing new, but don’t mistake Market Cycle Advised Mandates for any other pre-designed UMA portfolios available on the market. By the end of this blog, you’ll see how they differ—and how they can help you set yourself apart, as well. 

Let’s get started.  

Orion Portfolio Solutions Designed, Strategist Partner Empowered

Not all turnkey UMA portfolios are created equal. Some place such a heavy emphasis on in-house investment strategies that they lose the benefits of being truly mindfully chosen and blended to support the portfolio’s objective. 

But Market Cycle Advised Mandates models are driven, primarily, by strategically selected third-party investment strategists (as opposed to the heavy use of in-house investment strategies seen in most turnkey UMA models available today). 

Market Cycle Advised Mandates features access to 7 - 12 of the following strategies (varies across risk band):

Beta Strategies:

  • SA U.S. Core Market Select (Buckingham Strategic Partners)
  • SA International Value Select (Buckingham Strategic Partners)
  • SA Emerging Markets Select (Buckingham Strategic Partners)
Active Strategies:
  • AdvisorOne CLS Shelter N
  • Horizon Active Asset Allocation
  • Main Sector Rotation ETF
  • Meeder Muirfield Institutional
Diversifier Strategies:
  • AAMA Income
  • Litman Gregory Masters Alt Strats Instl
  • Main BuyWrite I
  • Navigator Tactical Fixed Income I (Clark Capital)
  • Sierra Tactical Core Income Instl
  • Toews Tactical Core Income Instl
The Orion Portfolio Solutions Investment Committee and Investment Strategy Research Group are responsible for initial and ongoing model allocation decisions. Each model will be actively managed, under the three-mandate diversification process, across five distinct risk profiles to serve your broad and diverse client-set. 

Let’s take a deeper look into the portfolio construction process. 

Created to Align with Client Risk and Market Participation Attitudes

The Market Cycle Advised Mandates models are designed to accommodate your clients’ risk tolerances, as any good investment strategy must, but they go far beyond that. They also take into account market participation attitudes.

Your client’s aptitude to be fully invested in the market may not directly align with their risk tolerance. By looking at both independently, we can structure a model portfolio that aligns with their true behavioral preferences. 

Every investor’s risk and participation attitude can be different. And so we’ve structured Market Cycle Advised Mandates models to take three distinct mandates into account, so you can customize each to be appropriate for your unique investors.

The three mandates (or strategy types) are Beta, Active, and Diversifier—and they can each be blended into one portfolio in a UMA structure that’s easy for advisors to manage. This multi-mandate option is what allows you to diversify a strategy to fit your clients’ risk and market participation attitudes. 

Furthermore, by segmenting these three easy-to-understand categories, you can help to clarify and communicate the role each investment type plays in your client’s complete portfolio. Communicating the diversification process isn’t always easy for advisors, but this approach makes it simpler to enhance each client’s confidence in the strategy you’ve chosen for them. 

The Benefits for Advisors

As powerful as Market Cycle Advised Mandates models will be for your clients, they might be even better for your business. 

Offload Your Administrative Duties

What growing advisory firm owner wants to take hours away from prospecting and meeting with clients to instead sit behind a computer doing investment research and portfolio management?

Not many.

Advisors who subscribe to Market Cycle Advised Mandates models get portfolio oversight and management led by our dedicated Investment Committee and Investment Strategy Research Group. We’ll handle the administrative tasks, so you can focus on strengthening relationships and providing advice instead of building portfolios.

Get More Competitive on Fees

The Race to Zero is nothing new, as eliminating commissions on trades has been in the works for years.

But advisors still have to remain cost-conscious. From an advisor’s perspective, the new fee race is about remaining competitive against other human advisors who charge sub 1% fees and robo-advisors who charge only dollars a month.

The value a human advisor provides is built on relationships and custom financial advice. We support and enhance that value by offering Market Cycle Advised Mandates models with no platform or strategist fees*.

Provide a Consistent Investment Experience for Every Client

As an advisor, you have to prove that you’re servicing each client based on their unique needs, while simultaneously offering the same fair treatment to all of your clients.

Market Cycle Advised Mandates models make it easy to prove you’ve done your due diligence and that you’re providing fair, equitable treatment to each client, no matter their asset value.

By segmenting models across five risk profiles, you can quickly find a model to accommodate each type of investor you serve, and ensure every client receives the same access to the innovative strategies offered in each Market Cycle Advised Mandates model.

Each portfolio features seven to 12 strategies, which can be blended to meet the objectives of each client, while also avoiding the overuse of in-house investment strategies that many pre-designed UMA portfolio providers rely on.

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Ready to see how you can enhance your firm’s investment strategies, lighten your administrative burden, and make sure your clients are receiving the most value from their relationship with you?

Schedule a personal consultation to see how Market Cycle Advised Mandate models fit into your firm’s approach to portfolio management.

Click here to set up your meeting right now.

*No platform or strategist fees for households of $75,000 or more. Households under $75,000 will incur a $90 annual minimum fee, per account.

The unaffiliated strategists whose funds or models are utilized pay Orion Portfolio Solutions (OPS) a fee in exchange for inclusion in the Market Cycle Advised Mandate (MCAM) Portfolios.  Additionally, we utilize the AdvisorOne Funds, which are mutual funds managed by our affiliate CLS Investments, in the portfolios.  

Further, each Strategist may expect that a portion of the total assets in the portfolios be allocated to their funds or models. To mitigate the conflicts, OPS manages the portfolios based upon their investment objectives, our long-term capital-forecasts, and the client’s risk score.  Further, the client and their Investment Advisor, not OPS, are responsible for selecting the most suitable portfolio for you.  OPS does not provide advice or recommendations regarding portfolio selections. 

 

2064-OPS-8/10/2020