What Investment Services Does Merrill Lynch Offer

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Culling Investments

Alternative investments offered by Merrill can play a powerful part in helping y'all achieve your goals

At Merrill, we wait for the broadest range of opportunities to help our clients achieve their investment goals. That'southward why we believe private disinterestedness, hedge funds, and other alternative investments should be considered a key part of nearly every investor'southward portfolio.

Potential benefits of alternative investments

Whether you're looking to maintain your lifestyle through retirement or gain returns to leave a lasting legacy, alternative investments may be the right choice for yous. One potential benefit is that they provide access to the cut-border companies at the forefront of applied science, healthcare and sustainability.¹ They can also complement your traditional equities and stock-still income investments and potentially aid you meliorate diversification, increment return potential and mitigate adventure.It is important to be aware that alternative investments may be less liquid, apply leverage, accept less transparency and charge higher fees including a performance incentive.

Enhanced
diversification

Complement your traditional portfolio and diversify your assets²
Increased return
potential

Provide additional sources of returns by exposing yous to a broader range of securities³
Lower
volatility

May help strengthen your fiscal strategy without increasing expected volatility

Ways to access Culling Investments

Nosotros offer alternative investment solutions through a wide variety of structures tailored to your liquidity needs and risk tolerance.

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Private Equity

Private equity funds capitalize on periods of rapid growth or restructuring, investing in private and sure public companies during diverse stages of their life cycles.
Private equity managers can improve the operations of the companies they invest in therefore creating even more than value for investors.
Historically, private equity has outperformed public equity, offering investors a premium for the additional gamble associated with investing in the individual markets, including illiquidity, less transparency for investors, college fees and longer investment horizon.

Hedge Funds

Hedge funds engage in a wide range of investments and trading strategies not available to traditional asset managers, such as equity long/short strategies and derivative instruments.
Adding hedge funds to a portfolio can help provide a buffer for market downturn and assist with majuscule preservation.

Existent Avails^iv

Real asset strategies contain both actively and passively managed investments in precious metals, commodities, existent estate, infrastructure, agricultural land and natural resources.
Investments in real assets often act as additional diversification from stocks and bonds and can serve as a hedge against aggrandizement.
The Bank of America Private Bank Specialty Asset Management group manages non-fiscal assets such as farmland, timberland, oil & gas and commercial existent estate.

The Merrill divergence

As e'er, we'll provide y'all with professional person advice, research and portfolio structure so you lot can invest confidently in these widely recognized solutions.

The independent due diligence team within our Principal Investment Function⁵ selects and advisedly monitors the culling investments that are available for buy on our platform.
Nosotros offer third party culling investments based on their merits, rather than prioritizing proprietary ones.
Our scale and commitment facilitates access – sometimes exclusive – to a broad assortment of asset managers, including some with lower minimums.

Finding the right strategy for you lot

Talk to your Merrill advisor to talk over which alternative investments may be right for y'all. Nosotros know not all investors are the same, so we tin can help you lot find the alternative investments that best align with your goals and chance tolerance.

Whether you're defining goals, addressing change or figuring out how to motility forward, Merrill and Bank of America offer a wide range of solutions to help yous take the side by side step and stay on track.

Alternative Investments Brochure
Investment Strategy Overview

_{¹Touch on investing and/or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) managers may take into consideration factors beyond traditional financial information to select securities, which could issue in relative investment performance deviating from other strategies or wide marketplace benchmarks, depending on whether such sectors or investments are in or out of favor in the market. Further, ESG strategies may rely on certain values based criteria to eliminate exposures found in like strategies or wide marketplace benchmarks, which could too event in relative investment functioning deviating.}

_{²Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets. Alternative investments involve limited access to the investment and may include, among other factors, the risks of investing in derivatives, using leverage, and engaging in shorts sales, a exercise which can magnify potential losses or gains. Alternative investments are speculative and involve a high degree of risk and volatility.}

_{³ Culling investments are intended for qualified investors just. Alternative Investments such as derivatives, hedge funds, private equity funds, and funds of funds can result in higher return potential only as well higher loss potential. Changes in economical conditions or other circumstances may adversely affect your investments. Before you invest in culling investments, yous should consider your overall financial situation, how much coin yous have to invest, your demand for liquidity and your tolerance for chance. Alternative Investments are speculative and involve a high degree of risk.}

_{⁴Nonfinancial avails, such every bit closely held businesses, real estate, oil, gas and mineral properties, and timber, farm and ranch land, are complex in nature and involve risks including total loss of value. Special risk considerations include natural events (for example, earthquakes or fires), complex taxation considerations and lack of liquidity. Nonfinancial assets are not in the best interest of all investors. E'er consult with your independent attorney, taxation advisor, investment manager, and insurance agent for final recommendations and before changing or implementing any financial, revenue enhancement, or estate planning strategy. Client eligibility may apply.}

_{⁵The Chief Investment Office (CIO) provides thought leadership on wealth direction, investment strategy and global markets; portfolio management solutions; due diligence; and solutions oversight and information analytics. CIO viewpoints are developed for Banking company of America Private Bank, a division of Bank of America, N.A., ("Bank of America") and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated ("MLPF&S" or "Merrill"), a registered broker-dealer, registered investment adviser and a wholly owned subsidiary of Banking concern of America Corporation.}

_{Some or all alternative investment programs may not be in the best interest of certain investors. Investors must have a pre-existing human relationship of six months or longer with the financial advisor before becoming pre-qualified to receive information on culling investment products. No balls can be given that any alternative investment's investment objectives will exist achieved. Many alternative investment products are sold pursuant to exemptions from regulation and, for example, may not be subject to the same regulatory requirements every bit mutual funds. In addition to certain general risks each product will be subject to its own specific risks, including strategy and market risk. Certain culling investments crave tax reports on Schedule K-1 to be prepared and filed. Every bit a result, investors will likely be required to obtain extensions for filing federal, state, and local income tax returns each year.}

_{Index definitions.}

_{The indices shown are provided for illustrative purposes only. They practise not stand for benchmarks or proxies for the return of any item investable hedge fund product. The hedge fund universe from which the components of the indices are selected is based on funds which have continued to report results for a minimum period of fourth dimension. This prerequisite for fund selection interjects a significant element of "survivor bias" into the reported levels of the indices, equally generally only successful funds volition continue to written report for the required period, so that the funds from which the statistical assay or the performance of the indices to date is derived necessarily tend to have been successful. There can, withal, be no assurance that such funds volition continue to be successful in the hereafter. ISG Alternative Investments group assumes no responsibility for any of the foregoing functioning data, which has been provided past the index sponsor. Neither ISG Alternative Investments group nor the alphabetize sponsor can verify the validity or accuracy of the self-reported returns of the managers used to summate the index returns. ISG Culling Investments group does non guarantee the accuracy of the index returns and does not recommend any investment or other decision based on the results presented. Reference to indexes or other measures of relative market performance over a specified period of time (each, an index) are provided for illustrative purposes simply and exercise not imply that whatever account, fund or portfolio will achieve returns or volatility results similar to the index. The figures for the index reverberate the reinvestment of dividends just do not reflect the deduction of any fees or expenses which would reduce returns. Investors cannot invest directly in indexes. We strongly recommend that these factors be taken into consideration before an investment decision is made.}

_{S&P 500 Total Return Index (U.S. stocks): A marketplace-capitalization-weighted index that measures the market value of 400 industrial stocks, 60 transportation and utility company stocks and 40 fiscal issues.}

_{Bloomberg Barclays U.Southward. Aggregate Bond Index (Bonds) is a benchmark alphabetize equanimous of U.Southward. securities in Treasury, Regime-Related, Corporate and Securitized sectors. It includes securities of investment-grade quality or meliorate, have at least ane twelvemonth to maturity, and have an outstanding par value of at least $250 million. Benchmark selected to represent stock-still income returns.}

_{Cambridge Associates Private Equity U.S. Benchmark Total Return (Private Equity): Operation data is calculated quarterly past Cambridge Associates and published by Thomson Reuters Venture Economics' Private Equity Performance Database which tracks the performance of thousands of U.Due south. and European venture capital and buyout funds formed since 1969. Sources are fiscal documents and schedules from Limited Partners investors and General Partners. All returns are calculated internet to investors (internet of fees and carried interest) by Thomson Venture Economics from the underlying financial cash-flows using both cash on cash returns (distributions and majuscule calls) and the unrealized cyberspace asset value of funds as reported by private equity fund managers. The "U.S." category includes simply U.S. funds. The "All Venture" category includes information from early / seed, and later-stage financing. Historical data is revised when funds are added or removed.}

_{HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Alphabetize (Fund of Hedge Funds) is a benchmark compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc. and is designed to reflect hedge fund manufacture performance by constructing equally weighted composites of constituent funds, equally reported by the hedge fund managers listed inside the HFR Database.}

_{NCREIF Property TR Index (Real Manor) is a composite total rate of return measure of investment functioning of a very large pool of private commercial existent estate properties caused in the individual market for investment purposes only. All backdrop in the NPI ― the great majority being pension funds― take been caused, at least in part, on behalf of tax-exempt institutional investors. As such, all properties are held in a fiduciary surround.}

_{Global Wealth & Investment Management ("GWIM"), a division of Bank of America Corporation, includes the Investment Solutions Grouping ("ISG") Alternative Investments group ("ISG AI group"), which provides qualified clients with a range of alternative investment products.}