LSA PORTFOLIO REVISIONS

The first quarter is over and this never ending winter seems to be coming to an end. LSA will be making revisions to our strategies over the next four weeks.  Revisions will begin posting online starting Friday April 11th and wrap up May 2nd.  Please note that we are targeting TWO different trade dates for all portfolios, but will be posting the revisions prior to trading them to give advisors ample time to prepare.   Below is a schedule of when the revisions will be posted to the LSA website as well as the targeted trade date.

Here is the schedule of release dates.  Please login to the LSA site to view all changes:

Round 1 TRADE DATE IS SCHEDULED FOR April 21st, 2014.

Friday April 11th, 2014:  (After Market Close)

§  PC Tax Efficient

§  Allianz VA

§  AXA VA, Hartford VA

§  ING Golden Select VA

§  ING VUL

Monday April 14th , 2014:  (After Market Close)

§  Jackson National VA

§  Jefferson National VA

§  Lincoln VA

§  Metlife VA

§  Nationwide VA

§  Ohio National VA

§  Pacific Life VA

Round 2 TRADE DATE IS SCHEDULED FOR April May 5th, 2014.

Monday April 21st, 2014:  (After Market Close)

§  Protective Life VA

§  Prudential VA

§  Security Benefit VA

§  Sun Life VA

§  TransAmerica VA

§  Valic VA

§  Socially Responsible

Monday April 28th, 2014:  (After Market Close)

§  Private Client

§  PC Blended

§  Schwab NTF

§  Bear Market Entry

§  Cautious Bear Plus

§  American Funds

§  Fidelity

§  ETF

§  DFA

The reason for revisions:

Volatility continues to dominate in 2014 and it is becoming clear that there is a shift that is occurring in the market place that will once again play in the favor of active management.  We are taking this opportunity to revisit a few issues:

1.       Downside protection – LSA is always looking to provide protection if we were to experience a market shakeout.  There are numerous economists and portfolio managers that believe current market levels are high and a pullback is highly probable.  It was nice to see the portfolios protect well in January as equity markets were sliding.  LSA is taking this as an opportunity to solidify the downside protection is in place.  As we enter earnings season it will be important to identify forward sentiment from companies to see how much of an impact this winter had on the economy.

2.      Identify top managers – as this baton of active vs passive managers seems to get passed back and forth we believe that the next several years will benefit active managers with ability to protect and add alpha.  LSA is constantly monitoring numerous funds and these revisions will address some of the better performers that are available on multiple platforms.

3.      Continuing to address the conundrum of fixed income – although bonds have rallied nicely the first quarter of 2014, we continue to believe that the ten year interest rate is going find its way back to a more normalized historical level.  The upcoming revisions will continue to target the general themes that have been laid out in the June revisions and will introduce (when available) fixed asset classes that we believe will continue to weather this rising rate environment.

As always, the rationale and a more detailed explanation for the changes and all of the new fund fact sheets can be found on the LSA website under “Portfolio Management” as they are posted.

LSA will also be updating our VA rider restricted allocations in Dropbox over the next few weeks and we will be providing updates as content is populated.  LSA is also pleased to announce that we will be rolling out NEW allocation sheets to give advisors more content and detail to work from.  We will be introducing these new changes next week on a recorded webinar.

As always, video commentary discussing the changes will be posted as revisions are being posted online.  We will e-mail a link to the replay.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at support@LSAportfolios.com or call us at (866) 581-5724.