The News Review:
- Frost Investment Advisors Funds Receive Morningstar Ratings(TM)
- Banco Santander to Pay $235 Million to Settle Madoff Trustee Claims
- 529s still good for college savings
Frost Investment Advisors Funds Receive Morningstar Ratings(TM)
PR Newswire (press release)
“It is extremely rewarding and a validation of our fund management expertise to see six Frost funds receive Five-Star ratings from Morningstar” said Tom Stringfellow president and chief investment officer of Frost Investment Advisors LLC. “In our first year of eligibility we are especially proud of these fund ratings. We build on our company’s substantial experience and history along with Frost’s outstanding service to provide investment expertise to both institutional and retail investors. “The five-year percentile rankings of institutional shares of several funds are very strong: The Frost Dividend Value Equity Fund and the Frost International Equity Fund are in the 1st percentile; the Frost Municipal Bond Fund is in the 5th percentile; the Frost Low Duration Bond Fund is in the 15th percentile; and the Frost Core Growth Equity Fund is in the 16th percentile. ” The Frost Investment Advisors LLC investment team has been managing some of the predecessor commingled funds since 1981. The staff of more than 40 investment professionals has a number of accreditations and advanced degrees. Frost Investment Advisors LLC a subsidiary of The Frost National Bank (Frost) one of the oldest and largest Texas-based banking organizations offers a family of mutual funds to institutional and retail investors.
Banco Santander to Pay $235 Million to Settle Madoff Trustee Claims
Wall Street Journal
Most of the assets Mr. Picard has recovered thus far were held by the Madoff firm. He recently began targeting individual investors who made profits by investing with Mr. Madoff as well as larger investment funds that channeled money to the convicted swindler. In several instances he has claimed that defendants “should have known” of fraud by Mr. Some defendants have disputed the allegations; others haven’t responded to the suits.
Related from Lasilla: Santander BBVA Earnings Decline After Booking Madoff Losses
529s still good for college savings
Atlanta Journal Constitution
The research company was particularly critical of plans that didn’t adjust their age-based portfolios to decrease market risk. With an age-based option the idea is to create a portfolio that aggressively invests in equities when your child is young. It then pulls back and becomes more conservative —- investing in bonds and cash for example —- as he or she gets closer to attending college. “There’s not a strong consensus on the exact amount of stocks bonds and cash to hold for a particular time horizon but it’s clear to us that some plans didn’t move out of equities fast enough and were courting far too much risk given that they were geared toward students getting close to matriculation” Brown wrote. Although Utah Educational Savings Plan Trust earned a spot on Morningstar’s best list one of its age-based options was singled out for being “dangerously bold” in investing 65 percent of assets in equities for a college-enrolled beneficiary. Morningstar gives high marks to 529 plans that keep fees low and have “sensible” allocations among stocks bonds and cash that are appropriate for the age of the beneficiary. The company also looks for diversification that includes foreign bonds real estate investment trusts and Treasury inflation-protected securities.