FUND COMMENTARY
03/24/2026
Investors may want to consider rotating from cash to Treasuries and/or corporate bonds.
Thrivent Asset Management contributors to this report: Jeff Branstad, CFA, model portfolio and managed account strategist; David Royal, chief financial and investment officer, portfolio manager for model and mixed asset portfolios; Steve Lowe, CFA, senior vice president, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager for model and mixed asset portfolios; and David Spangler, CFA, vice president, model and mixed asset portfolios
Thrivent’s range of model portfolios provide professional investment management, diversification and cost-effective solutions.
We offer risk-based, diversified portfolios as well as tax-efficient, income-oriented and faith-based options.
Utilizing pre-constructed models may free up more time to communicate with existing clients or to grow your practice.
Managed portfolios are investment solutions that typically consist of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and, in some cases, specialized options from highly vetted managers to better meet your client’s specific investment objectives. As a provider of managed portfolios, Thrivent Asset Management offers a variety of solutions, allowing financial professionals to select among a range of exposures to ensure a diversified, balanced approach that aligns with their clients’ return, liquidity and risk profiles.
Thrivent Managed Portfolios provide robust solutions across a variety of risk exposures, intended to help support the successful realization of each client’s individual goals.
Professional management: Clients may benefit from experienced managers providing strategic portfolio allocation, tactical adjustments, opportunistic trading and continuous research on new and existing managers used to build the model portfolios.
Diversification: Managed portfolios offer investors diversification potential in one convenient package, typically not an easy feat to achieve in a self-managed portfolio. A professional manager, with expertise in portfolio construction and manager selection, may offer more sophisticated asset allocation strategies, including a wider variety of asset classes and vetted active managers for specialty asset classes. More diversified and specialized allocations may help produce both higher returns and lower volatility1.
Cost effectiveness: Professionally managed portfolios with strong manager selection capabilities can help identify attractive and cost-effective exposures to major asset classes. This can include passive exposures to some asset classes and targeting the most cost-effective use of actively managed allocations in more specialized asset classes.
Rigorous risk management: Professional oversight allows for a more thorough approach to risk management and can help provide a disciplined approach to tactical portfolio adjustments, helping to minimize reactive decisions that could disrupt steady progress toward investor goals.
Thrivent Asset Management provides a robust portfolio construction process within a rigorous research and risk management framework. The portfolio management team determines long-term strategic asset allocation targets through rigorous market and economic analysis, while active tactical positioning allows the portfolio to adapt to ever-changing market conditions. This allows our portfolios the potential to capitalize on both longer-term market trends and shorter-term opportunities that passive management cannot.
As a firm committed to rigorous analysis of economic fundamentals, our proprietary analysis includes a broad set of economic indicators. Furthermore, our quantitative analysis of these indicators can help identify any significant changes in the longer-term trends, particularly in more volatile and critical data, such as inflation.
While we believe in the value of active management, we recognize the benefits of passive exposure and follow a hybrid approach that combines both management styles. Passive holdings can help keep expenses low, provide more specific tactical exposures across asset classes, facilitate trades within our model portfolios and, in some cases, act as a hedge against adverse outcomes for the portfolio’s current holdings.
Additionally, we employ a multi-manager approach, using several style-pure managers with disciplined, repeatable investment processes that we feel have good opportunities to consistently outperform the market across different business cycles. This can help generate additional returns for a portfolio while expanding the diversity of investment perspectives and forecasts, thereby reducing portfolio volatility. The figure below summarizes our process for selecting vetted managers.
Furthermore, we implement a robust risk management process aligned with our goals to keep model portfolios within defined parameters and guidelines, ensuring risks remain consistent with each portfolio’s investment objective.
Finally, we provide timely materials regarding market research, portfolio changes, trade rationale and performance analysis—all geared to keep financial professionals well-informed and ready to support their clients.
Thrivent Asset Management offers a variety of managed portfolios to meet the varied time horizons, risk tolerance, personal values, income needs or growth goals of most investors. For example, Thrivent SELECT Managed PortfoliosTM offer a range of risk tolerances from conservative to aggressive, as well as parallel tax-sensitive options; Thrivent Faith-Based Managed PortfoliosTM allow clients to integrate finances with their faith; and Thrivent Income-Focused Managed PortfoliosTM aim to generate income
Thrivent SELECT Managed Portfolios are broadly diversified portfolios focused on the accumulation of wealth with the ability to tactically adjust exposures as market conditions warrant. As shown in the figure below, the more aggressive models have larger allocations to stocks, offering higher growth potential and greater sensitivity to market volatility. The more conservative models have larger allocations to fixed-income assets, reducing the potential for asset growth but also lowering the sensitivity to market volatility.
Thrivent SELECT Tax-Sensitive Managed Portfolios are similar to the five SELECT portfolios shown above but prioritize tax efficiency in the portfolios’ fixed-income holdings. For example, the portfolios invest in a higher allocation of municipal bond funds, which are largely free from federal income tax. Additionally, we aim to reduce taxable events for shareholders by minimizing trading that could trigger realized gains and by shifting more assets to ETFs and other tax-efficient strategies that are far less likely to pay out capital gains. We also look for opportunities to harvest losses in the portfolios that could help offset taxable gains incurred elsewhere.
Thrivent Faith-Based Managed Portfolios are diversified portfolios designed for investors looking to align their finances with how they live and what they believe by seeking to avoid investments in companies that may conflict with their values. We select investment products we believe do not invest in securities that may conflict with certain commonly held Christian values, such as those associated with gambling, adult entertainment and the manufacturing or distribution of alcohol and tobacco products.
Thrivent Faith-Based Managed Portfolios include products from several Christian asset management firms that approach investing from a faith-based perspective. Each of these firms is responsible for determining and implementing its own screening process. This collection of asset managers offers a unique combination of investment expertise and experience to help clients invest with purpose, as illustrated in the figure below.
Thrivent Income-Focused Managed Portfolios prioritizes generating higher income than the more traditional Thrivent SELECT Managed Portfolios. These portfolios seek to optimize yield while maintaining the necessary diversification to help mitigate risk and, like Thrivent SELECT Managed Portfolios, are actively managed through tactical adjustments as market conditions evolve. The models include a mix of active and passive products, including holdings outside of traditional asset classes to help maximize income generation.
We have two income-oriented models. Thrivent Income-Focused 20/80 has 20% of the portfolio allocated to equities and the remainder to fixed income, and Thrivent Income-Focused 0/100 has no equity exposure but is instead 100% allocated to fixed income, providing lower volatility but also lower income potential. Their target allocations are shown in the figure below.
Thrivent Asset Management has offered managed portfolios since 2007, building a 19‑year track record—double the 9.5‑year average history of managed portfolios tracked by Morningstar, Inc., a leading investment research firm. This depth of experience shapes our current lineup of managed portfolio solutions, informed by nearly two decades of real‑world application, evolution and opportunity. Today, with more than 80% of financial professionals using managed portfolios for at least some of their clients2, our long-standing commitment positions us as a partner for advisors looking to incorporate managed portfolios into their practice with confidence.
We look forward to working with you to provide the potential benefits of managed portfolios to your clients and your practice. Learn more about Thrivent Managed Portfolios, and please reach out with any questions or suggestions on how we could further improve our managed portfolios offering.
Media contact: Callie Briese, 612-844-7340; callie.briese@thrivent.com
Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. The prospectus and summary prospectus for the securities within the model portfolios contain more complete information on the investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and other information of the fund, which investors should read and carefully consider before investing. To obtain prospectuses, contact your Regional Investment Consultant or call 800-521-5308.
Before June 1, 2019, Thrivent Managed Portfolios were offered through Thrivent Investment Management, Inc, an affiliate of Thrivent Asset Management, LLC. Thrivent Asset Management, LLC personnel comprised a committee that made investment recommendations for these portfolios to Thrivent Investment Management during that time.
Faith Based Portfolios: Thrivent Faith-Based Managed Portfolios’ investment strategy limits the types and number of investment opportunities available to the models and, as a result, the allocations among asset classes may vary from other Thrivent Asset Management (TAM) model portfolios and strategies that do not have a Faith-Based focus. In addition, the Faith-Based models may underperform other strategies that do not have a Faith-Based focus. Further, the Faith-Based models’ investment strategy may result in the model allocating to underlying funds that hold securities or industry sectors that underperform the market as a whole or underperform other strategies screened for, or that do not include, securities that conflict with the Faith-Based focus of the models. While TAM monitors the allocation and performance of the underlying funds selected for the models, TAM does not monitor whether the underlying funds include securities that conflict with the Faith-Based focus of the models. Further, if the models include underlying funds that liquidate securities for violations of one or more screening criteria, such liquidation could negatively impact the performance of the underlying fund and the models.
Thrivent Managed Portfolios will include investments in Thrivent Mutual Funds. Asset management services for the Thrivent Mutual Funds are provided by TAM, which receives fees for its services as disclosed in the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information for each Fund. As the investment adviser for Thrivent Mutual Funds, TAM has greater knowledge of these Funds and may prefer to use Thrivent Mutual Funds in Managed Portfolios over non-affiliated funds, which may be a conflict of interest. Affiliates of TAM may earn distribution and other fees, including 12b-1 fees, in connection with Thrivent Mutual Funds.
For more information about potential conflicts of interest, as well as important risks, limitations, and other considerations applicable to TAM’s management of separately managed accounts and model portfolios, please refer to TAM’s Form ADV – Part 2 Brochure.
Thrivent Asset Management, LLC’s role is providing sponsors of managed accounts with non-discretionary investment advice in the form of model portfolios. The implementation of or reliance on a model portfolio is at the discretion of the managed account sponsor. Thrivent Asset Management, LLC is not providing personalized investment advice or investment recommendations and will not make any representations about the suitability of a model portfolio for any investor. Thrivent Managed Portfolios information is intended for use only by third-party adviser firms in conjunction with their management of their clients’ accounts. Thrivent Asset Management, LLC does not have investment discretion over, or place trade orders for any portfolio derived from this information.
1 Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss.
2 More Financial Advisers Are Outsourcing Investment Decisions. June 12, 2025. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/more-financial-advisers-are-outsourcing-investment-decisions-a27ebc1f?utm
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