What is a Managed Account?
An investment account that is owned by an individual investor, held at a clearing firm, and traded by a hired professional money manager. See more information about GCAM, LLC’s Managed Forex Account. GAIN Capital Asset Management (GCAM, LLC) is a sister company of GAIN Capital Group, a leading independent provider of foreign exchange services. GCAM’s traders (who average more than 11 years of experience) use a mix of proprietary technical and discretionary strategies to identify short-term trading opportunities. GCAM’s managed account program is focused on the most liquid currencies – including the U.S. Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, New Zealand and Australian Dollar – providing investors a pure play option for those looking to diversify into the Forex market.
A managed account is a personally customized investment portfolio that is administered by a professional manager. When an investor has a managed account, he or she gives an investment manager the authority to purchase and sell securities for the account, without the need to request permission. Essentially, the manager is authorized to make all transaction decisions for the investor’s account in accordance with specific goals and objectives. Unlike other types of investment accounts, a managed account is intended solely to meet the needs of the individual investor, as opposed to a group of investors. For example, a mutual fund could mingle the assets of thousands of clients, while a managed account consists of just one investor’s assets. The holder of a managed account can be an individual or an organization. Each managed account has specific objectives. For example, an individual may choose to invest for growth, income, or a combination of both. The holder of a managed account has the
Mutual funds and managed accounts are essentially the same thing: professionally managed portfolios that offer exposure to stocks, bonds or other securities. There are many distinctions between the two, but the most important is what you actually own. In a mutual fund, you own shares of a pool of securities with other investors. In a managed account, you own the underlying portfolio of securities, whether stocks or bonds. While this difference in ownership may seem trivial at first, it enables some of the key investor benefits, such as greater control over taxes and customization. Now we’ll look at three benefits this sophisticated structure of managed accounts offers versus mutual funds: • Greater control over taxes. Although some mutual funds have tax-efficient investment strategies, they can fall short compared to managed accounts. As a fund investor, you can control when you buy and sell shares of a fund for a gain or loss, but you cannot control what the fund manager does to the p
