Capitalize on market volatility with direct indexing
Vanguard Perspective
|June 6, 2024
Vanguard Perspective
|June 6, 2024
Markets can be volatile, with sudden downward drops that can stress out your clients. Fortunately, you can take advantage of market volatility by tax-loss harvesting, which can potentially improve your clients’ after-tax returns. By far the most efficient and scalable way to do that is by leveraging a direct indexing strategy like Vanguard Personalized Indexing.
As a reminder, a direct indexing portfolio is a separately managed account where the investor owns individual stocks that represent a chosen benchmark index. This direct ownership structure creates extra opportunities for tax efficiency that clients may not get with ETFs and mutual funds.
With bundled products like mutual funds and ETFs, you’re not able to isolate losing stocks for tax-loss harvesting. With direct indexing, you can sell individual stocks at a loss. This lets you offset capital gains in the portfolio even when the benchmark index is up.
Recent software innovations in direct indexing technology have automated processes such as scanning for tax-loss harvesting and rebalancing opportunities. Now, you can scale up what used to be a time-consuming process—and your clients won’t miss out on opportunities you don’t have time to implement on your own.
Volatile markets provide an abundance of opportunities for tax-loss harvesting, since periods of loss are often quickly followed by periods of rebounds. In addition, when markets are in high-volatility mode, volatility is likely to persist in the near term. The best and worst days tend to cluster around each other. (See an example in the chart below.) During such periods of market volatility, the automatic tax-loss harvesting feature of direct indexing technology really shines.
For instance, Vanguard Personalized Indexing uses sophisticated tax-lot and wash-sale management to scan daily for tax-loss harvesting opportunities. This allows you to harvest losses more aggressively during a volatile period, helping generate additional after-tax alpha for your clients without extra effort.
S&P 500 Index daily price returns January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022
Here’s how Vanguard Personalized Indexing helps you capitalize on volatile markets without violating the wash-sale rule.¹ During an initial market downturn, our daily tax-loss harvesting scan flags an account for tax-loss harvesting opportunities. Our expert team of portfolio managers reviews each opportunity the system identifies and makes sure it will drive positive outcomes for your clients. If approved, the account is traded to realize losses, and those trades are added to a restriction file.
A few days later, if the market continues dropping, our system flags the account again for significant tax alpha opportunities. When losses are harvested this time, our software avoids the securities in the restriction file. This prevents investors from being locked out of the market for 30 days due to the wash-sale rule, and missing tax-loss harvesting opportunities that occur close together.
You can use harvested losses to offset a client’s capital gains on stocks, the sale of a home or business, and up to $3,000 of ordinary income each year (as of the 2022 tax year). Plus, losses can be carried forward to future years indefinitely.
Of course, not every client is positioned to benefit from the tax-loss harvesting feature of Vanguard Personalized Indexing. Some may not have enough recurring capital gains to offset realized losses. However, for your high-net-worth clients with realized capital gains of at least 3% to 4% of taxable equity holdings per year, daily tax-loss harvesting can make a meaningful difference—roughly doubling the amount of harvested losses they generate.²
In volatile years, tax-loss harvesting lets you make use of capital losses and potentially help your clients keep more of what their portfolios make.
In addition to the potential for improved after-tax alpha for your clients, Vanguard Personalized Indexing also gives you the ability to customize their portfolios. You can align clients’ investments with their unique preferences and values, apply factor tilts, and diversify around concentrated positions. Consider how personalized indexing technology might help you differentiate your practice while giving appropriate clients the tax-efficient, customized investing experience they expect.
Request a demo today to discover how Vanguard Personalized Indexing can help deliver additional value to you and your clients.
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1 The IRS doesn't allow an investor to sell an investment at a loss and then immediately repurchase it (known as a "wash sale") and still claim the loss. If the investor buys the same investment or any investment the IRS considers "substantially identical" within 30 days before or after the investor sells it at a loss, the loss will be disallowed. If you need guidance on whether an investment would be considered substantially identical, consult a tax advisor.
2 Kevin Khang, Alan Cummings, Thomas Paradise, and Brennan O'Connor, 2022. Personalized indexing: A portfolio construction plan. Valley Forge, Pa.: The Vanguard Group. Simulation as of September 2021.
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