84% of high-net-worth investors clueless about RIA designation

How important is it to be a registered investment adviser if nobody knows what it means?
Cash is pouring in for a campaign to educate investors, but it will only provide a starting-point. The campaign has its own termination trigger that will flip once they arrive at 50% IRA awareness from a poll of high net-worth [...]

ETF price wars: A good thing for smart investors

As I’ve noted in recent posts, ETFs’ popularity can jeopardize their integrity. Marketers with a pre-meltdown mentality have raised fees and added money managers — who try to select securites and time the market — in an effort to leverage the brand to gather assets from uninformed investors.
PowerShares stays serious by lowering the expense [...]

The political destruction of your 401(k)

First both Presidential candidates advocate breaking the rules so investors can make withdrawals from their 401(k)s without the agreed upon tax penalties.
Now powerful democrats discuss rescinding 401(k) tax breaks all together.
The first idea would drain 401(k)s of capital, while the second would terminate incentives to save in the first place.
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax [...]

Positive signs for clear-headed investors

A few days ago Warren Buffet caused  a stir with the title of his OP ED in The New York Times.
Today, a less renowned optimist works out some of the details in the same pretty picture.
Reaons to be cheerful in troubled times
These are serious times so let’s get down to business. Here are seven reasons [...]

Wild wild Wall Street

These statistics would certainly be receiving more press had they not been presented in the midst of the global credit crisis.
SEC enforcement actions near record
The Securities and Exchange Commission brought its second-highest number of enforcement actions in its history in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the agency said today.
The SEC brought 671 [...]

It takes all kinds…

This misanthrope definitley qualifies as a member of the class, “uncategorized”.
So long, suckers. Millionaire hedge fund boss thanks ‘idiot’ traders and retires at 37
The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged “idiots” and thanking “stupid” traders for making him rich.
Andrew Lahde’s [...]

Money for nothing: candidates curry favor by promising to break the rules

Let’s put the credit crisis on ice for a second and look at the crisis in political leadership made manifest by the plans to break the rules on retirement savings. Both candidates endorse a plan that exposes pensions and 401(k) funds to perhaps the greatest risk of all: temporary panic.
It comes to this: both parties [...]

What no stock picker wants right now: name recognition

An ETF advocate takes the gloves off and reminds us how rediculous stock pickers can look.
Bear Market Burns Stock Pickers
SAN DIEGO – If you’re one of the unfortunate souls whose investment portfolio is taking a beating this year, then there’s a good chance it’s because you’ve overdosed on underperforming individual stocks.
Some of the best known [...]

More proof that costs matter

When the market goes haywire, the latent troubles with mutual funds become all too clear.
Bear Market Rule No 1 – Cut Expenses – ETFs vs. Mutual Funds
As many investors have found out the hard way, active mutual fund managers have fallen short of their job description. A mechanic who couldn’t distinguish between a six and [...]

Warren Buffett’s OP-ED for NY Times: Buy US stocks now, like me

Warren Buffett is such a good writer, one wishes he would spend more time at it.
Buy American. I Am by Warren Buffett
THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In [...]