Direxion wants its investors to know what they're doing before they get their feet too wet, so the Boston-based specialty mutual fund firm launched a "Strategy Series" of publications for advisors and investors. Look for more tools to follow.

It's all part of Direxion's overall approach, according to vice president and marketing director Andy O'Rourke.

"We're very committed to an educational approach to working with our clients," O'Rourke told MFWire in an interview. "We'd prefer someone didn't invest in our funds until they've been educated properly."

O'Rourke admitted that Direxion does get some "interest from individual investors" who invest in their funds directly, without going through an advisor, but he counters that the fund firm's investment minimum makes sure that most investors are "still fairly sophisticated." And he's serious about the use of Direxion's signature leveraged index funds.

"People automatically assume that these are real high-flying funds, but they're more tools-based" O'Rourke said. "They're not meant to make up 80 to 90 percent of your portfolio; they're a useful tool for decreasing volatility."

It's this "tool" nature of Direxion's products that the firm's new marketing and educational efforts focus on. The new Strategy Series, distributed electronically, focuses on "some of the most-often-utilized portfolio strategies when using our funds properly," O'Rourke explained.

To continue with the educational marketing approach, O'Rourke plans to release more features on Direxion's website, including a correlation matrix and a volatility analysis tool, along with more articles. He also confirmed that Direxion's working on a tool that would actually allow investors to use Direxion Funds to "customize" their market exposure and then receive trade recommendations when that exposure shifts. However, since the model is still in the simulation stages, O'Rourke declined to discuss the details.

For now, O'Rourke said, Direxion is in a "strategic planning phase," but he stressed that, unlike their key competitors in the leveraged index space, they're not focused on simply rolling out more funds.

"We're looking at markets," O'Rourke explained. "We focus more on building relationships." 

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