Products June 23, 2016

Investment Product and Service Launches

American Century Investments redesigns and renames large cap equity fund; Wilshire Associates Incorporated announces the launch of the Wilshire Bond Index.

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American Century Reveals Focused Dynamic Growth Strategy

In order to provide its clients with a more concentrated investment option, American Century Investments is redesigning and renaming its Legacy Focused Large Cap strategy.

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With the changes, newly named American Century Focused Dynamic Growth Fund “becomes a more concentrated, active growth investment strategy.” Under its new moniker, the fund will have a smaller number of holdings and strive for increased difference between the portfolio’s returns and its benchmark.

According to the firm, stocks held in the portfolio will be comprised of companies that the team believes are in the early stages of their long-term growth cycle. The repositioning also will move the fund from the large-blend to the large-growth category.

Launched in 2006, the fund originally was designed as a “go-anywhere” product using a proprietary momentum investment approach. “Enhancements will address a strategic need for a concentrated, high-growth extension of American Century’s current fundamental growth investment capabilities,” the firm says.

Focused Dynamic Growth is co-managed by Keith Lee, vice president and senior portfolio manager; Michael Li, vice president and portfolio manager; Henry He, portfolio manager; and Prabha Ram, portfolio manager.

More information is at www.americancentury.com.  

NEXT: Wilshire Associates Launches Wilshire Bond Index

Wilshire Associates Launches Wilshire Bond Index

Wilshire Associates Incorporated announced the launch of the Wilshire Bond Index, aimed at providing investment firms with a more accurate reflection of the investible U.S. fixed-income market.

The new index is being introduced by the company’s Wilshire Analytics business arm. According to the firm, the index is “uniquely designed to track money managers’ holdings, providing a valuable perspective on the fixed-income market.”

“The Wilshire Bond Index assesses the performance of fixed-income securities that have been selected by institutional bond managers who actively trade pension assets, which we believe is a measure that better reflects true bond market performance,” explains Cecilia Loo, president of Wilshire Analytics. “Composition of the new index is an important distinguishing factor because its holdings are based on actual investor holdings which are far more relevant from a benchmarking perspective than the simply issued-based holdings of other bond market indexes.”

The index tracks the approximately 13,000 securities from the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service (Wilshire TUCS) database, which represents more than $3.7 trillion in institutional assets. Returns for the Wilshire Bond Index are available on a daily basis from December 31, 2015 and on a monthly basis from June 30, 2004 and can be found at www.wilshire.com/indexcalculator. 

Break from the Grind June 23, 2016

A Little Friday File Fun

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In Boston, Massachusetts, a 31-year-old man hand-delivered an apology letter, along with $300 in cash, to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. According to the Associated Press, that’s the amount he believes he owes the MBTA for evading fares. The man told the Boston Globe he avoided paying the train fare whenever he could as a teenager and in his 20s.

In St. John’s, Newfoundland, a woman ordered a pizza and didn’t feel it had enough cheese on it. She called the pizza company to complain, but didn’t like its response. So, she called 911 to report it.

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In Rosenberg, Texas, a woman underwent jaw surgery to fix an overbite, and suffered nerve damage. She now speaks with a British accent and has been diagnosed with foreign accent syndrome.

In Blue Hill, Maine, back in 1976 a chemistry teacher took a freshly unwrapped Twinkie and placed it on top of a chalkboard in his classroom so he and his students could see how long it would take to decompose. That question remains unanswered to this day, with said Twinkie having outlasted both the teacher’s career and Interstate Bakeries Corp., the original company that manufactured Twinkies from 1930 until it filed for bankruptcy in 2012. According to the Bangor Daily News, today, the same Twinkie sits in a glass case on a shelf in the office of George Stevens Academy’s dean of students, looking a tad more ashen in color than it used to but nonetheless in one recognizable piece, except for a few crumbs that have fallen to the side.

In Queensland, Australia, a woman woke up to a 17-foot python stretched from her lounge room to her bedroom. The woman says the snake has been living in her roof for 10 years, and she named him Monty. But, it was when the python made its way into the house that she called someone to capture it.

In Trussville, Alabama, a 15-year-old girl was at a church sleepover when she spotted a Barney the Dinosaur head the pastor had bought and used for various activities. She thought she would scare her friends as they came down the stairs by putting on the head. However, as she sat down to wait, the head fell over her shoulders. When her friends showed up, she realized she could not get out of it. Her four friends and the parents of one of the friends then tried to get the girl out of the head. It wouldn’t budge. According to AL.com, they slathered Vaseline on her arms, but the head still wouldn’t come off. So, they all piled into a minivan and headed to the fire station, where firefighters made some release cuts in the back of the head to relieve the pressure and remove it.

Exercising can be dangerous.

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Helpful uses for shaving cream.

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More than eight minutes long, but worth watching this 8th grader give his graduation speech as several presidential candidates.

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