Section · Invest

Public Markets

Equities, bonds, funds, and the institutional techniques — from direct indexing to collars and exchange funds.

Educational reference — explanations and tradeoffs, never recommendations. Qualified professionals evaluate what fits a particular family.

Start here Public Markets: A Field Guide

Public markets — stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, and the institutional wrappers built around them — form the liquid core of most substantial family portfolios. What changes at scale is not which markets a family can access but…

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Pillar Direct Indexing

Direct indexing is a strategy in which a taxable investor owns the individual stocks that make up a market index…

Pillar Tax-Loss Harvesting

Tax-loss harvesting is the practice of selling an investment that has declined in value to realize a capital loss…

Asset Classes

7 entries

Equities Equities — shares of ownership in publicly traded companies — have historically served as the primary engine of long-term portfolio growth for wealthy… 5min

Fixed Income Fixed income is the broad category of investments — primarily bonds — in which an investor lends money to a government or corporation in exchange for… 6min

Treasury Securities Treasury securities are debt obligations issued by the U.S. federal government, available in several forms—bills, notes, bonds, TIPS, and STRIPS—each… 6min

Municipal Bonds Municipal bonds are debt securities issued by state and local governments to finance public projects, and their defining feature is that the interest they… 6min

Corporate Bonds and Credit Corporate bonds are debt securities issued by companies to raise capital; investors who buy them are lending money to the issuer in exchange for periodic… 5min

Preferred Securities Preferred securities are hybrid instruments that combine features of both bonds and common stock, sitting between debt and equity in a company's capital… 5min

Commodities and Currencies Commodities and currencies are two distinct but often intertwined exposures that arise in sophisticated portfolios: commodities (energy, metals… 7min

Funds & Wrappers

3 entries

Closed-End Funds Closed-end funds are publicly traded investment vehicles that raise a fixed pool of capital through an initial offering, then list their shares on an… 6min

Exchange-Traded Funds An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a pooled investment vehicle that holds a basket of securities and trades on a stock exchange throughout the day, much… 5min

Separately Managed Accounts A separately managed account (SMA) is a professionally managed portfolio of individual securities held directly in an investor's own name at a custodian… 6min

Instruments

1 entries

Structured Products Structured products are securities — typically issued by a bank or financial institution — that combine a bond-like component with one or more derivatives… 6min

Techniques

3 entries

Concentrated Stock Positions A concentrated stock position — when a single equity holding represents a dominant share of a family's net worth — is one of the most common financial… 8min

Hedging and Collars Hedging and collars are option-based strategies families with concentrated stock positions sometimes use to limit downside risk without immediately… 6min

Exchange Funds An exchange fund is a private partnership that allows an investor holding a large, appreciated stock position to contribute those shares and receive, in… 6min

Public Markets

Asset Classes

Funds & Wrappers

Instruments

Techniques

The Wealth Ladder

Invest

Plan

Family

Reference