Curian Capital has rolled out two alternative-focused strategies for separately managed accounts. The firm's aim is to bring an institutional way of managing money to the retail investor base, said CIO Steve Young.
"We think retail investors should not be completely reliant on buying and holding traditional investments like stocks and bonds," he said.
The firm implements its strategies using mutual funds and ETFs.
The new strategies include Dynamic Risk Advantage (DRA) - Aggressive, which is an addition to Curian's DRA series, and Alternative Select, which is a strategy for investors looking to supplement a traditional stock-bond portfolio with diversified exposure to alternative asset classes and strategies.
The DRA strategies use active asset allocation that pulls investors out of risky assets when they are declining and moves the money into a portfolio of short-term treasuries. As the risky assets increase in value "we put more money back into them," Young said. The DRA-Aggressive strategy invests in ETFs to achieve its investment objectives. Curian also offers DRA-Diversified and DRA-Income.
The new Alternative Select Strategy invests in nine mutual fund portfolios and one that uses ETFs, and some of the funds have the ability to go short, Young said. The funds invest across asset classes including commodities, currencies, real estate, bonds and stocks, he said. The aim is to build portfolios that "are more flexible and less correlated to stocks and bonds," he said.
The Alternative Select Strategy offers three asset allocation models tailed to conservative, moderate and growth investor risk profiles.
Curian Capital has $9 billion in assets under management.
