John

Hello and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head, investment consulting and education services at Manulife John Hancock Investments. Today is June 24, 2025. As always, the goal of this podcast is to help investment professionals deliver better outcomes for their clients and their practice.

With that in mind, I'd like to talk about an investment option that has seen rapid acceleration in the number of options offered in an AUM, and another option that's attracting headlines and offering similar growth potential.

Those options are active ETFs and ETF share classes. To discuss these, I've invited Steve Deroian, global head of exchange traded products and models at Manulife John Hancock Investments to the podcast. Welcome, Steve.

Steve

Thanks for having me, John.

John

You got it. Hey, Steve, as I mentioned, the number of active ETFs has exploded in the marketplace. Can you tell us what they are, what's driving that growth?

Steve

Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, an active ETF is just a lovely marriage of two things that we're already pretty darn familiar with. One is the ETF wrapper. So you have an exchange traded fund. We've been, you know, playing in that sandbox for quite a while now ... since you know ... the ETFs are about 34 years old now. So, that piece is not new. And then active management inside of a 40 Act product like a mutual fund. But in this case, the 40 Act product is the exchange traded fund. So, it's just an actively managed portfolio inside of an ETF wrapper. So, what's great about it is, it sort of takes what I think a lot of people see as the best of both worlds and puts it into one solution.

The ETF wrapper generally is, been looked at over the last 15 years in particular to be an interesting addition to most people's portfolio. It allows for the intraday trading. It allows for transparency of the underlying holdings. It allows for a more tax efficient experience. For those of you holding it inside of a taxable account. And then you add in the ability to potentially outpace a market or a benchmark, when you look at historical ETFs, many of them as we started out. And I've been doing this for almost 20 years now, John, in the ETF space and almost all of them back then were passive vehicles.

As time has gone on, we've seen a tremendous amount of growth. Over the last three years we've seen about 1,200 new active ETFs. And just last year alone, you know, I think we saw about 450 new active ETFs. So, it's really been a growth engine in terms of product. And then from an AUM perspective, when you look at globally, active ETFs now represent about $1.1 trillion in global assets.

And that's a … it's a pretty high increase over the last several years in particular, about a 50% growth just last year alone. So, it's been a … it's been a great growth story.

John

Wow. Impressive. So, Steve, if someone's interested in this, how should an investor go about picking which active ETF is right for them?

Steve

Well, again John, as I mentioned, when we think about the products themselves, one element is understanding how do I pick and choose an ETF and then the second element or leg would be how do I pick an actively managed product. And so, the two pieces that I usually think about, let's start with maybe what's, what's easier for folks that have been in this business for a long time picking an active manager, right? So, it's … it's the same story, man. It's … it's, do I know and trust the people running the fund? Do I have a historical evidence that the people who are running this one can actually outperform or even just maybe deliver on what they promise, right. Sometimes people think of outperformance as the only objective of a fund, and sometimes it's not about outperformance. It might be about safety. It might be about hitting a particular income benchmark, if you will.

So, you know, understanding what the fund is trying to accomplish and what it's trying to do. I think another element, as always, you have to understand price. But I think about price a little bit differently these days. I think, you know, my mom always said you usually get what you pay for. And, when I think about that, I do think about price in terms of value.

And so if, if a manager can deliver alpha, if they can deliver on their income targets, if they can deliver on the protection that they're trying to acquire for you, then I think it's really incumbent upon you to say—you know what? That is worth something. There is a value there. And just getting the lowest cost, provider isn't always in your best interest as an individual investor or as an advisor for your clients.

So, I think, like, step one is like the traditional active manager. Step two is how do we think about an ETF. And, and I think, this may be newer to some people or maybe you haven't even done it at all.

But when you look at an and an ETF, there's a, there's a couple of things that you should probably look at. One is the underlying investments that make up the ETF and how that relates to the pricing you receive. So, as I mentioned earlier, ETFs are traded intraday and they're treated on an exchange. So, unlike a traditional 40 Act mutual fund where you just get the end of day pricing, you get a NAV price and you get it at 4 o’clock—you can buy and sell your ETF throughout the course of the day. If you do that you're doing … or when you do that, I should say, you're doing it at a market price that's dictated by, the market makers or brokers who buy and sell on your behalf through the exchange.

And so what you want to make sure you understand is, there's always a spread, like when you buy a stock, there's always a spread. Same deal here. So you just want to understand how wide is that spread? What's my cost of acquisition? Do I personally have a commission to pay? Some platforms charge you a commission, some do not. So, understanding what your platform is and how it works. And then I think lastly, on the ETF side is just understanding the idea that sometimes you can see an ETF if you wanted to buy a large position in this ETF you might not see a lot of shares that are trading on a given day. Because a lot of these active ETFs they're buying hold, right. They're not really trading vehicles. And so, understanding that the liquidity of the ETF is really based upon the underlying holdings is a key element. So if you put a large order in, as long as you do it correctly and you work with your platform, usually using limit orders, staying away from the open or the close of the day, what you'll find is that you can oftentimes on a large order, get an even better price because your block desk will go and, and, deliver to you an improved price because of the size that you're willing to buy.

So just understanding some of those nuances of an ETF is super helpful. And, you know, our firm and whatever firm you deal with usually has folks that can help you out. We certainly have a great capital markets team that can help anyone that's wanting to understand that more.

John

All right. It's really helpful. Steve. I think if I were to summarize, I would say it's an investment vehicle that offers the best of both worlds, whether it's active management in an ETF wrapper that provides transparency, tax efficiency, liquidity. However, know the details of the product that you're offering, because there are some nuances you want to be familiar with … if you're getting … if you're new to the ETF in the active ETF space.

So, let's pivot a little bit. I mentioned, we saw a lot of growth in active ETFs. And we've seen a lot of headlines and interest in ETFs share classes. Tell us what the ETF share class is and how you think Manulife John Hancock Investments may participate in that space.

Steve

Yeah, it's a great question, John. And it's really something that's kind of come to the forefront. Really since the administration change in particular. A little over two years ago, really, some firms started to put in what's called an exemptive relief request or order to allow them to do what one firm today is doing, which is just paying a share class off of a standard traditional mutual fund.

So those of us who have been in the industry know there are different share classes in mutual funds. You may be familiar with the A share class or the I share class. And in the case of ETFs, historically, there really hasn't been the same flexibility to just add a share class to a standard mutual fund. For some of the reasons that we've always described, they kind of work a little bit differently, right? With the ability to buy on the exchange versus buying at the end of the day, the transparency of the ETF versus what is traditionally a non-transparent product in the active mutual fund space.

So it's a little, it's been a little difficult to get people to say like, hey, I think we can get to this space where a fund complex, as I like to call it, could have an I share class and A share class and what we are kind of internally here calling an E share class, right, an ETF share class.

And so what's happened over the last, I would say six months in particular, is we've really seen a shift with the SEC and we've seen them engaging in approving these exempt relief orders. We, along with over 60 other asset managers like us, have put in the request to allow us to hang a share class of an already established mutual fund with a with a track record, a history and scale.

And so, the benefits to an ETF, starting out, are real. Right. And what I mean by that is when you think of an already established mutual fund of, you know, billions of dollars potentially, you think of scale that you get with lower cost when it relates to other expenses like legal cost or custody costs, right? The ETF can be hung off of that same entity and have lower overall expenses. Secondly, you have a track record that's already been built, right, this is going to be run in an identical way. This is the same fund. It's just inside of an ETF wrapper.

So, you get the long-term track record. Some of the things we talked about at the beginning where you have someone who's got a history and you have credibility as an investor and as a buyer of that investor to say—hey, this is a person or group of people that I know and trust. I'd like to participate in the wrapper of the ETF that I really like. Because I like the intraday action, let's say.

And then lastly, I think what we'd say about kind of this concept is historically the ETF has been only launched in a standalone vehicle. And so, because of that, all of these things that we talked about, the instant scale historical track record and flexibility, have been a detriment. And you've had to sort of like, trudge up the hill in a new vehicle, even though you may have a very similar, strategy, but it's got to be different because it's not the same.

And so what we found is that being able to participate in something like this could really benefit not only our company, let's be honest, like there's going to be a benefit there because we're going to get scale and we can get people working, you know, kind of rolling in the same direction on the same fund, but also the end clients on both the mutual fund and the ETFs side.

Because ETFs have this interesting feature on tax efficiency, the having a share class that's dedicated to the ETF wrapper through redemptions and kind, we can make a more efficient tax process for everyone. And so that's one of the benefits that, that we'll see, for the mutual fund shareholder is that they will definitely see a more tax efficient vehicle. And the ETF will have benefits around scale and efficiency right away. And so that's the process.

To answer the second part of your question, John, around, what will we be doing? So we've been, a reasonably early adopter to this, you know, where in the first half of firms that have have filed and we continue to refile, you know, to get into the minutia, but we continue to work with the exchange, excuse me, with the commission and, really try to develop whatever, requirements that they will have for us to be able to add this share class.

What I will say is—there are some hurdles along the way, as you would expect with any new technology, for lack of a better term. The biggest is we have, the melding of some of these complex issues around, you know, having a brokerage relationship with an ETF and maybe not having a brokerage relationship with a mutual fund, because you can own that directly through your mutual fund company, for example.

And so there's different custody, arrangements that need to be worked out. There's also the idea of this ability to exchange from one share class to another. This conversion, if you will, has not been fully kind of baked out to figure out exactly how that conversion will happen. So there's definitely hurdles I think just so like those our listeners can understand what you'll probably see is approval for hopefully most of us or all of us that have put in our request. And then I think you'll see six, nine, maybe even 12 months of development that has got to happen internally at the mutual fund companies and at the brokerage companies to be able to actually deliver this share class in a meaningful way to advisors and clients. So, at the end of the day, I think it's an amazing step for our industry because I think it will kind of continue to level the playing field, if you will, for everybody.

However, you know, this is not a sprint. It's definitely more of a of at least a half marathon, John. Maybe a full marathon, I don't know, I don't run … so, as you know … so, all I know is anything more than 100 yards and I'm out for the count, so. But we're going to run this marathon together, I think.

John

I think a marathon is the right analogy. All right. Well, Steve, I want to thank you for joining in telling what we're always trying to bring fresh ideas to the marketplace. I absolutely think that the active ETF space is something investors should explore. We're always here, financial advisors are there for the end client. We're always here. If anyone is interested in learning more, we want to help educate.

And as the ETF share class space evolves, I'd love to have you back, Steve. And you can tell us about the new developments that are happening in that space over the next 12 months, to that marathon analogy that you used. So, Steve, thanks for joining the podcast. I appreciate it.

To our listeners. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Portfolio Intelligent Podcast on iTunes or visit our website, jhinvestments.com. You can find a bunch of information around ETFs, other investment vehicles, business building ideas and much, much more. As always, thanks for listening to the show.

John

John Hancock ETFs are distributed by Foreside Fund Services LLC in the United States, and are sub advised by Boston Partners, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP, Marathon Asset Management, or our affiliate Manulife Investment Management (US) LLC. Foreside is not affiliated with John Hancock Investment Management Distributors LLC, Manulife Investment Management (US) LLC, Boston Partners, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP, or Marathon Asset Management.

John P. Bryson

Hello, and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence Podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head of investment consulting and education savings at Manulife John Hancock Investments. Today is June 9, 2025, and I thought it would be a good time to check in with both Emily Roland and Matt Miskin, our co-chief investment strategists here at Manulife John Hancock Investments. As we often talk about economies in markets around the world, I thought it'd be great to hear the latest insights from both Matt and Emily. Matt, Emily, welcome.

Emily R. Roland

Thanks for having us.

Matthew D. Miskin

Yeah, thanks for having us, John.

John P. Bryson

You got it. Excited to catch up. So, Matt, I'm going to start with you. Let's talk about the economic data that we're seeing here in the U.S. recently.

Matthew D. Miskin

Yeah. So Q1 in general was really marked by this massive import boom to get ahead of the tariffs. So, we imported a ton of stuff from Europe and Asia and that actually helped boost a bit of the economic growth numbers in other spots outside of the imports. But what we're seeing here as we got into May is a bit of a slowdown from that.

So after you buy a bunch of stuff because you want to get ahead of the tariffs, then you kind of slow down your buying. The employment picture is still holding up okay. It's showing there's job openings that are holding in okay. There are monthly job gains of about 150,000. That's okay. Initial jobless claims have come up a little bit but are still at a low level historically.

So, it's nothing to write home about of amazing growth, but it's not too slow either. And it's almost Goldilocks. We're almost back to the same macro regime we were actually pre-COVID a bit. And it looks like inflation's moderating. We almost kind of say it quite late because we don't want to let everybody know because it seems like no one's appreciating the slowdown in inflation. But the data’s showing it. And so, if inflation's coming down, growth is holding steady, you would think that would lead to better outcomes for markets. We have seen a huge recovery from the April lows, and I'm sure we'll talk about that more. But we think that the market's kind of hypnotized right now with politics and not focusing on the fundamentals or the economy, and that's what we're doing. So, we're sitting here kind of saying—hey, some of these market movements may have rotation or opportunities presenting themselves because the economy's holding up alright and inflation's been coming down.

John P. Bryson

All right. Great. And we often talk about trying to pay attention to the important information not the noise in the market. So, we'll continue that conversation. Hey Emily, I want to dig in on the bond market specifically and hear about how it's reacting to the type of information that Matt just talked about, and then walk us through, like what your expectations are for the Fed with all this information.

Emily R. Roland

Yeah, I mean, that just highlighted this idea that investors aren't really paying much attention to the fact that, you know, growth is slowly decelerating, and inflation is coming down and we would definitely put the bond market in that cap. Bonds aren't really sort of like getting the memo as it relates to the macro backdrop. Normally you would think that bond yields would be falling meaningfully as inflation comes down. We're not really seeing that. We're sort of chopping around in this sort of 4.50%-ish range. And bond yields actually backed up last week on that very slightly better than expected jobs report—I mean barely. It doesn't seem to take much for bond yields to move higher here as of late, as investors are concerned that inflation may be on the horizon given some of the dynamics around tariffs.

And we're actually watching the opposite. You know, we're talking about the shelter inflation a lot worse. You think about shelter—it represents almost half of CPI. It's a really, really critical component. That's the housing market. And what we're seeing is that the supply and demand dynamics are actually shifting pretty meaningfully right now as it relates to supply. Housing—existing homes for sale, for example—have risen the most, to the highest level since 2020.

We just saw the first month over month decline in home prices since January 2023. And that's just happening is, you know, demand is slowing in the face of continued unaffordability. People are a little bit more concerned about their jobs. That's causing demand to slow a bit. And supply is happening in areas that built up a lot during COVID.

We're also seeing, you know, everybody locked in those low mortgage rates five years ago. Well, a lot of stuff happens over the course of five years in terms of maybe you've got to move to for a job or changes to your life have happened. So, there's a lot more supply here, coming online and that's bringing inflation to the lowest levels that we've seen since 2021.

So that's a really notable dynamic that, again, is just not being picked up by the bond market. The bond market is just focused on other things right now. So, we would look to that is really, frankly, a gift. Any back up in bond yields that we're seeing—we would look at as an opportunity, frankly, to lock in this elevated yield as bonds just really aren't sniffing out this disinflationary and lower growth environment that we think unfolds as we head into the back half of 2025.

John P. Bryson

Okay. Very good. And let's continue to talk about looking forward. Matt, what are you keeping an eye on trying to separate the signals from the noise. What indicators are you looking at this week and beyond.

Matthew D. Miskin

So initial jobless claims come out every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. You ever want to know what I'm up to on a Thursday morning? That's what I'm doing. It's from the Department of Labor and I'm reading through that report. And so, this is the best real time labor market indicator. So, the jobs market is the foundation of the U.S. economy.

It is the most powerful pillar. If you have a job, it then enables you to, you know, spend money and pay off your debt and do all these things, you know. There's concerns with the consumer, but as long as they have jobs available and there's they're sturdy with their jobs, then it's okay. It's manageable. So, every week they there's a note of initial jobless claims, it's called it's you know, if you've lost a job you can apply for unemployment benefits. And if that rises significantly, that's been the best indicator of an economic contraction, an issue with the employment picture, jobs market. And that is about at 247,000. It got up to 260,000 twice over the last three years and then came back down.

So, it almost gave you a headache. Head fake, sorry. Maybe it was a bit of a headache as well. But the economic data has done this where it just, it keeps whipsawing you around. Where it looks like it's deteriorating and then it's like, just kidding—it's not that bad. It seems like there's going to be a recession—just kidding, not that bad.

So, to honest, you keep getting these false signals and we really need to be disciplined and wait till these indicators give us a sign of a more significant slowdown. If it's not, then things are fine. And so, it's that initial jobless claims will be watching.

We also do have CPI, you know, so Emily already did talk a good amount about inflation. So that is public enemy number one. That is, you know, what is going to be most important to the Fed, likely. But this could be the third month in the row of pretty low inflation. And if that does happen, then that to us is the bond market probably going to move on it. And so that's a secondary report.

But at the end of the day, the jobs data that weekly and unemployment claims is probably the number one thing I'm going to be watching.

John P. Bryson

All right. Very good. So great insights on the US economy and the information you're looking at. Emily, I want to stay on economic data but pivot overseas. What are we looking at over there.

Emily R. Roland

Yeah. So, Matt characterized economic data in the U.S. as like not that bad. I would call economic data in Europe kind of bad. We look at things like survey data, so PMI is Purchasing Managers Indices, that is really the most timely read that we can get on the health of an underlying economy. It's surveys that go out to manufacturing firms and services firms and ask, you know, how's hiring going, how are prices paid, how are new orders coming in. Anything over 50 means the economy is expanding, and anything below 50 means the economy is contracting. And you kind of think about this juxtaposition of, you know, last week we saw that Eurozone final manufacturing PMI, for the month of May, you know, came in at 49.4.

So not terrible. But you look at places like Germany at 48.3. Meanwhile, their stock market is absolutely soaring this year. Services side in the Eurozone a little bit better, just under 50. So, the composite where you combine manufacturing and services is like just above 50. But markets are acting like it's amazing growth, you know. European equities up 20% plus this year, really remarkable performance—we think really based on the sentiment or this idea of sell America and this huge amount of capital flows that are coming out of the U.S. and going overseas. And it's just really not justified, by the data. U.S. again, sort of really holding in the best, we're not great, but holding in the best around the world.

And you've seen really significant outperformance in many of these non-U.S. markets. Earnings—same thing—the U.S. holding up best around the world from an earnings perspective. We look at U.S. earnings growth for the first quarter around 13%. It was -6% for the MSCI EAFE. And again meanwhile U.S. markets underperforming. So again, it's been frustrating to see this almost sentiment driven rotation that's really playing out against a backdrop which suggests that the economic cycle and the earnings momentum is actually here in the United States.

John P. Bryson

Okay. And that's really interesting because we've talked about in the past, the economy is not the markets. They're different things. We've got this interesting dynamic going on right now. I want to dig into it a little bit deeper. Matt, Emily mentioned international markets are doing better than the U.S. markets. Dig a little deeper for us and help us understand what's driving that.

Matthew D. Miskin

Yeah. So, there's a couple main components to the international equity huge rally we're seeing this year. And the biggest one is actually currency. So, the dollar is down about 9% to 10% this year. So, when the dollar's down and you're investing in the foreign currency market unhedged, they call it, the net currency reflection is up 9% to 10%.

So, 9% to 10% of your return in non-U.S. equities this year is just currency. The other thing that has been driving it is called multiple expansion. So basically, have you ever heard internationals cheap? We've heard that for like 15 years.

John P. Bryson

Yeah. Pretty consistently.

Matthew D. Miskin

And this year we're getting an unlocking of value, if you will. The multiple on the market has gone up pretty meaningfully.

And so that's accounted for another, let's say, 5% to 10% in returns. The rest is earnings. So, let's say that the MSCI EAFE is up around 20% year to date. Half of it is basically currency. Another almost half is multiple expansion. There's been a little bit of a dividend yield, a little bit of earnings growth. But what's really challenging is at the end of the day, why are you paying up for businesses that are showing very modest earnings growth.

So as Emily highlighted actually it's negative earnings growth. It's hard to say I'm going to pay up for a business when the earnings are declining. Usually that doesn't happen in the United States. You know if your earnings are decline you get you might get you know hey well there's a there's a buyback or there's a dividend payout or there's some sort of catalyst to get a multiple higher…M&A.

If it's just a stock or companies that are declining their earnings, that usually deserves a lower multiple, frankly. And so, it's been an interesting year. It's really been driven, in our view, by politics and feelings versus facts. And the currency market, you know, we use interest rate differentials. The Fed is still the most hawkish in the world.

Our interest rates are 4.5%. The ECB, European Central Bank is cutting interest rates and cut them seven, nine times already. And yet usually that would create a weaker currency. Tariffs also used to create a much stronger dollar, or whoever's doing the tariffs would usually get a stronger currency versus the other currency. Because in essence, you're creating some inflation even though we don't think it's going to be that bad.

It also means, you know, that basically the foreign country has deflation because they're selling into this market that might not get as much demand because the tariff, and that's just totally academic, have been thrown out the window this year as it relates to tariffs and the impact on currency.

But so, look, we have a strategic asset allocation to international. We've been overweight value versus growth—that has worked. We've been overweight more or calling for more developed than emerging. That has worked. But it's just been hard to get as much enough on the ball or enough beta in our calls for international, given it's running on sentiment, we would want to see the fundamentals do better.

So we're still, you know, modest underweight tactically in our calls. We've got that strategic asset allocation that's paying off after years. But we're watching for the fundamentals to improve. And frankly, we're just not seeing it yet.

John P. Bryson

Gotcha. Gotcha. So, a little bit cautious on the international despite the run up. Do you have any advice for investors? And Emily, I'll ask you this if the theme continues longer. Right. If this this disconnect continues, launder any advice to investors, any ways to take advantage of any opportunities? There?

Emily R. Roland

Yeah. So, it's been really interesting, in previous periods, the last few years, when the dollar weakened, that was just a really an indication that anything risk on was rewarded and meant looser financial conditions, helped, with earnings of larger companies in the United States. The kind of the set of winners under a weaker dollar regime this year is a little bit more narrow, than it was before.

So, there's kind of the haves and have nots, in this weaker dollar environment. And Matt talked a lot about how the weaker dollar is accretive to your performance in international stocks, especially as an unhedged investor. There's a mechanical reason for that, which is that your returns are going to be worth more when they're converted back to U.S. dollars. So that's a really big help for a U.S. investor overseas.

But there's a couple other areas that have done well, things like gold in the weaker dollar regime, certainly that helps. Areas like infrastructure, global infrastructure indices have done really well in this environment as well. You know, looking within the United States, value related stocks, sectors like industrials and healthcare, they're less positively correlated to the dollar than growth stocks. So they may hold up a bit better in that environment as well. So, I think, you know, if momentum continues in this space, you may see some of those sort of cross asset momentum winners continuing to do well on a weaker dollar on a relative basis.

John P. Bryson

Okay. Very good. We've hit a lot. Emily, I'm going to stick with you. Are there any other final thoughts on portfolio positioning or a summary you'd want to leave our listeners with?

Emily R. Roland

Yeah, I mean, I think Matt really hit on this when he talked about the feelings versus the facts. And it's there's kind of this like epic battle that's going on between sort of the fundamental backdrop and the technical or momentum or sentiment driven, sort of a theme that's at play that's really pushing investors into riskier assets, you know, whether it's cryptocurrencies or sort of growth at any price type stocks.

And so, you know, it's a painful place to be if you're sort of not reaching to the riskiest, parts of the market and what we're doing, you know, you look at the momentum factor, which is that double digits, you know. And sometimes we want to remember that, that high momentum areas sometimes see these parabolic moves higher and then of course they see parabolic moves lower on the on the other end.

So, we want to be careful about chasing risk here. And we really want to think about you know, where is the value. Where can we find the best earnings growth on a relative basis? Where can we find parts of the market that are on sale?

It's allowing us to continue thinking about the quality factor and trying to find areas within quality where you're not overpaying for earnings growth. So, you know, it's leading us to continue to embrace things like tech, comm services, areas like utilities are still, on our list. Mid-cap stocks are still trading at a significant discount to their large cap counterparts.

So, there's certainly a lot of ideas across markets here. But again, we want to be careful about sort of being pushed into those more momentum driven areas of markets that are really just rallying on sentiment here.

John P. Bryson

All right. Very good. Great overview, great kind of coming up on a mid-year check in. Folks, the markets are always moving. The data is always changing. But Matt and Emily, they have their finger on the pulse. I saw a great video this morning from Matt. Keeping us up to speed on things. So definitely check them out on LinkedIn.

If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast on iTunes or you can visit our website jhinvestments.com where you can read our viewpoint on all things investing. You can get some great insights in business building ideas and much, much more. As always, thanks for listening.

John P. Bryson

This podcast is being brought to you by John Hancock Investment Management Distributors LLC, member, FINRA, SIPC. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speaker are subject to change as market and other conditions warrant and do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation regarding any specific product or security. There's no guarantee that any investment strategy discussed will be successful or achieve any particular level of results. Any economic or market performance information is historical and is not indicative of future results, and no forecasts are guaranteed. Investing involves risks including the potential loss of principal.

John P. Bryson

Hello and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head of investment consulting and education savings at Manulife John Hancock Investments. Today is April 17th, 2025, and we're on the verge of May. And May, as you know, is 529 month.

At Manulife John Hancock Investments, we believe a 529 plan can help investment professionals stand out from the crowd. It can help you attract net new assets and new referrals. It can help you connect with the next generation of clients and most importantly, can help you pay for college.

The other part of preparing for college is understanding the process. And most importantly today is understanding the current landscape around standardized testing in the college. Admissions process. To dig into that topic, I've invited college admissions coach Nancy Steenson to the podcast. Nancy is the owner of Steenson College Coaching. She was one-on-one with high school students, helping them to market themselves in the best light possible by sharing underutilized strategies to help distinguish them from the other thousands of applicants. With her guidance, students have had great success in finding and applying to colleges that are a wonderful academic, social, and financial fit. She's also an instructor in a professional program in college admissions consulting at the University of California, Berkeley Extension and speaks extensively on the topic nationwide. Nancy, welcome to the podcast.

Nancy Steenson

Thank you. John, I'm so happy to be here.

John P. Bryson

All right. Hey, listen, I mentioned college admissions is important in preparing for college admissions is important. Standardized testing is a big part of that. So let's go back and talk about what's changed since the pandemic and what's going on now. My first question is our test scores are still optional at most colleges like they've been since the pandemic, right?

Nancy Steenson

So the short answer to that is yes, most colleges are test optional; however, the longer answer is it's a little bit of a complicated situation. While most colleges are test optional, and keep in mind, John, there are about 2,800 four-year higher-ed institutions in this country and most of them are still test optional. Most will probably remain test optional, but we are seeing a lot of flavors here, amongst different colleges.

We're seeing some colleges that are test blind, which is also called test free, meaning we don't want to see a score and we will not consider a score when we evaluate the applicant. We are seeing colleges that have gone back to requiring tests. That is a small cohort, but it's slowly growing and it is for the most part highly selective institutions and some state university systems.

We're seeing another flavor called test flexible. And that would be, well, if you don't want to send a standardized test score that we usually require, that would be an SAT or an ACT score, then we need to see something else. It might be AP or IB test results. It might be a graded essay that the student wrote in school.

So it is a little bit complicated. And, and the fact of the matter is many colleges have announced that they are going back … those who have announced that they're going back to requiring testing have let us know that, and some have let us know they're going to go back in 2027 because grade inflation continues to be a real thing in many, many high schools. Colleges are looking at this carefully, and many of them are acknowledging that the score can add value to an application.

John P. Bryson

That, you know. All right. So it's flexible. It's optional. It's always evolving. Do you recommend for most students to take the SAT or the ACT? I mean they've got a lot on their plate already. What's your thoughts there.

Nancy Steenson

So here's what we know. A score, if it's submitted by a student, may help the application, but it may hurt. But what we also know is that it never hurts to take the test and then decide if the student should submit it or not. We can always make that decision later. So it's a good idea, in my opinion, for students to think about taking … taking one of the tests, seeing whether they have the aptitude, the ability, the learning style to achieve on that test.

I always equate it to, applying for a job and a master's degree is not required for this particular job, but you've got one, so that makes your resume pop. It makes you look a little bit, perhaps better in the applicant pool because you're adding some … some … another, another feather in your cap. So even for colleges that … that are not requiring test scores showing a very nice test score for that college is a plus.

So I tell my students there's no harm in taking the test. If you decide you don't want to submit it, you do not have to. Think about taking a pre-ACT. or a PSAT. They're both for practice. And then figure out your testing plan from there. Keep in mind that you always have the opportunity to take another one, and take another one and prep in between, because colleges will always super score, and that means they will take the highest sub core from various different testing dates. So if it doesn't hurt you to test a couple or three times.

John P. Bryson

Okay. Really interesting. So you led me to another question. What do people need to know about the differences between the ACT in the SAT?

Nancy Steenson

So that's another evolving landscape. It used to be years ago that the SAT was what everyone took on the East Coast. And students in the South, the Midwest and … they took the ACT. They're both national testing organizations. All colleges that accept test scores will happily take either the ACT or the SAT, and students who take one or the other are not, are not looked upon more … more favorably.

So it's really a good idea for students to look at both tests and ask themselves, which test might I do better on? Because they are different, even though they're … they're, they're … they're both testing the same kinds of skills and knowledge. They are … they are quite different. We often say that the ACT is a great test for quick thinkers, and the SAT is a great test for deep thinkers.

Traditionally, the SAT has been longer, quite frankly. Less black and white, much more nuanced … requires a deep level of thinking, but you have the time to do it. The ACT has traditionally been a little bit more straightforward. Not three right answers picked the most, right? But one right answer. But it moves very, very fast. You have less time for the ACT. So students really have to move it along. So it's really for two different kinds of students, two different kinds of brains to make it even a little bit, more … more complicated. And the SAT went digital not … not very long ago. So students now have to take the SAT on the computer.

That's not come without its wrinkles. But … but here we are. When they do that, the … the test is now shorter than it used to be. So it used to be a longer test. It's a shorter test. However, it's still a good test for deep thinkers. It's got the math, and it's got the reading. Interestingly, it's an adaptive test.

And that's something that educators understand. It means after you do the first section of the reading, if you do really well, you get a harder second section, and so on with the math. If you do not so well in that first section of math or reading, then you get the easier second section, so you lose the opportunity to gain what we might call, you know, a perfect score.

So, this adaptive testing has been used in education quite a bit. It's new to national standardized testing at this level, but that's what the SAT is doing. The ACT followed suit, and they decided they were going to go digital, but they're still offering the paper test. So right now, students have the opportunity for either one and that's something to think about if they prefer a paper test. Lastly, the act involves a science section, and the SAT does not. But interestingly, the science section doesn't really test your knowledge of science. It tests your critical thinking. You're given a set of data, and then you have to interpret it and answer some questions. So I would say to any student to figure out which is the right test for them.

And if they want to take that a step further, many many tutoring companies offer a free proctored diagnostic SAT and ACT practice tests that they can score and advise the student which one is better suited for them.

John P. Bryson

That's excellent. So, so far I'm picking up that even though it could be optional, having the SAT or ACT in your back pocket is going to be a great idea. Pick the right one for you, whether you're a quick thinker or more of a methodical thinker. But I want to go back to one other thing: How do you make that decision after you've gone through the process? You've got your score. Give us a little bit more information on whether or not to submit the score when you're applying. What's the options there?

Nancy Steenson

So the first thing a student should do is look at the college website. Each of the colleges that they're applying to click on admissions, click on, you know, testing and see what the … what the policy is for that school. And then I would, frankly, read between the lines. First of all, it's going to be very clear whether they're test optional, test required, test blind.

But for those who are test optional, you first want to look at the range of scores of admitted students and most colleges will show you a bar graph, or they will give you the mid-50th percent or the 25th to the 75th percentile of scores of either students who applied or students who are admitted. And those are two different numbers.

But different colleges use different numbers. Either which way you've got a mid-50th and you want to be in that sweet spot. Now, quite frankly, if you interviewed a thousand of my colleagues, I'll bet you that 50% of them would tell you that you want to be at least at the 50th percent point, and the other half would tell you, well, as long as you're in that range, at least at the 25th, you would get … you would get conflicting advice, because this whole landscape of test-optional college admissions has is … is not very transparent and has an enormous amount of people a little bit confused because the message has not really been clear.

So the fact of the matter is some would advise minimum 25th percent, some would advise be at the 50th, but it's somewhere in that range. Consider whether that score also is a good reflection of who you are as a student. But … but if it's not anywhere close to that range, it is rarely a good idea to submit the score.

Students coming from more disadvantaged backgrounds who clearly don't have the same curriculum in their high school that more advantaged students do, who clearly have not had the ability to get expensive tutoring and so on. Colleges acknowledge this. And for those … for that subset of students, sometimes we do advise sending a lower score that's a little off that radar of 25th to 75th, especially if that score is very good for that student’s school.

So you can see that different situations mean … mean, different set of advice. But the most important thing I really want to convey here is that for colleges that are test optional, read their website. Many of them are giving a message without being very direct. For instance, we have … we have seen through research that scores are a great value in our process.

Of course we don't require them, but they … we do value them. You have to read between the lines and understand that they sort of want a score. The other data point is to understand how many of the admitted students … admitted students sent scores in. And sometimes they'll say that as well. We don't require scores. But keep in mind that two thirds of the students we have admitted over the past few years did submit their scores.

That's sending a very strong message. They want to send the message of equity that if you don't, can't, won't send a score, we will still read your application, but they're speaking out of both sides of their mouth because they're also saying, but we really want a score.

John P. Bryson

That makes a lot of sense and it's good insight to that point of read between the lines. They're … they're, indicating their preference ... and when … when in doubt, try to follow that preference. That's great. Hey, Nancy, it's always great to catch up with you. And we get great insight and the landscape's evolving. Last question for you today is, what are some of the other changes that you're anticipating whether it's around the test prep or other parts of the college admissions process?

Nancy Steenson

Well, I mentioned that the ACT has a science section, and they recently decided that it's going to be optional. Students do not have to take the science section. That's … that's been very unclear for students because they don't know if colleges are going to want it. I'm asking on all my college visits. And John, as you know, I visit dozens and dozens of colleges a year.

I'm hearing colleges say that if the ACT is not requiring you to take it, then we're not requiring it either; however, if you think you might want to major in science or the STEM field, you might want to go ahead and take that optional science section. So, we may get more clarity on that down the road, but that's something to keep in mind.

And the other thing regarding the testing landscape is that we have to keep our ear to the ground, because there are colleges, even as we speak, who are or will be meeting to decide whether they're going to require standardized testing for the class of 2026. That would be our juniors, our rising seniors, specifically some public university systems. They have to wait for their boards of directors to have their annual meetings in mid- to late spring.

So we could be hearing as late as this summer that they are going to various institutions or … or public university systems may be announcing that they're going to require scores for students in the class of 2026. So, know that that could happen. And like I said, I think that the ones who are going to flip on this are likely going to be the very very selective private institutions and … and … and possibly, public university systems as well, because if they're at the mercy of their boards of governors.

John P. Bryson

Well, Nancy, I'll tell you this, we've had you on the podcast before. You've been one of our most popular podcasters, with the changing landscape, we're just going to have to have you back again in the fall. Maybe.

Nancy Steenson

I'd love it. John, thank you so much.

John P. Bryson

Well, thanks for joining, folks. Thanks for listening in. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the portfolio Intelligence Podcast. You can find us on iTunes or wherever you subscribe your favorite podcast. You can also visit our website JH investments.com. You can read about our viewpoints on what's going on in the markets. We can hear … talk to you about what's going on in different business building ideas and much, much more. As always, thanks for tuning in. Take care.