LPL, the nation’s largest independent broker-dealer, is continuing to fuel the rapid growth of its Model Wealth Portfolios platform, with a range of new offerings now available for consumers with as little as $25,000 to invest.
Overall, this platform grew by almost 73% this year as of March 31 over last year to $8.7 billion.
“LPL Financial is continually searching for new ways to give our financial advisors the best tools and resources to provide their clients with superior solutions,” John Moninger, LPL Financial executive vice president of Advisory and Brokerage Consulting Services, said in a statement.
When the platform was first launched in 2008, the investment minimum was $100,000. The reduction in minimum is the result of both demand from financial advisors and innovation in managing smaller accounts on the part of strategists participating in the platform.
The expansion of the portfolio includes strategists from three new companies AlphaSimplex Group, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Morningstar Investment Services. Each one brings different investment philosophies, knowledge and experience to the MWP platform.
The three join existing strategists already on the platform from BlackRock, Quantitative Advantage, Cougar Global and LPL Financial Research (which has also added new strategies). Specifically, the platform expansion encompasses the following:
- LPL Financial Research – Absolute Return Diversified Plus, Tactical Opportunities Diversified Plus, Strategic Exchange-Traded Product (ETP) Portfolios
- AlphaSimplex Group – Risk Efficient Portfolios
- BlackRock – Tactical Mutual Fund Model
- J.P. Morgan Asset Management – Global Asset Allocation, Tax Sensitive, Absolute Return Portfolios
- Morningstar Investment Services – Mutual Fund and Exchange-Traded Fund Managed Portfolios, including tax-conscious mutual fund options and Absolute Return Model.
“We … are especially excited to make our time-tested Absolute Return portfolio, which aims to generate equity-like returns without the associated volatility and downside risk, available to LPL Financial advisors for the first time,” Jeffrey Ptak, president and chief investment officer of Morningstar Investment Services, said in a statement.
MWP is a centrally managed, fee-based platform available to LPL Financial advisors to provide client-centric, theme-based investment portfolios for a broad range of investors. It offers an array of mutual fund and ETF strategies. MWP was named the Advisory Product Solution of the Year in 2010 by the Money Management Institute, the leading national organization for the advisory solutions industry.
