From yield-bearing option trades to funds packaging bank loans, it’s shaping up to be a bumper year for strategies that purport to bring a professional investing edge to the masses.
Financial firms of all stripes are marketing their creative trades to clients beset with uncertainty about the economy and Federal Reserve policy. Yet virtually no allocation has proved as lucrative as the simplest of them all: Buying and holding the S&P 500.
Money managers have lavished cash on a panoply of would-be diversification strategies. Yet they’ve had to sit and watch as the famous index trounced around three out of every four exchange-traded funds in the past year. That’s the worst drubbing since at least 2010. The favorite picks of mutual fund managers are trailing their least-favorite ones in one of the worst semi-annual showings in years.
“In a low-volatility,…
