NEW YORK Online separate account provider Envestnet Group started a series of four indexes against which investors can measure the performance of their investments.
The benchmarks called the Envestnet Wealth Counseling Index, or WCI, supply more personal measuring sticks for investors, said Mary Lehman-MacLachlan, president and chief investment officer at the company.
Unlike the better-known indexes such as the Standard & Poors 500 or the Russell 2000, the WCI includes asset allocation models, tracks actively managed portfolios, and calculates fees when measuring performance.
To get a truly diversified benchmark, the four indexes track nine asset classes from large-cap funds to money market funds and each index gives a different weight to the various asset classes, Ms. MacLachlan said.
Donald B. Trone, president and founder of the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies in Pittsburgh, helped Envestnet create the indexes. He said that most major benchmarks do not properly reflect the objectives of most investors and therefore are not necessarily the best means for judging investment performance.
