A new study of mutual fund firms' enforcement capabilities affirms what many in the industry have known for some time omnibus accounting practices by fund intermediaries make catching timers virtually impossible. The study, conducted by the...
If there is safety in numbers and comfort in size, fund investors are now putting their need for reassurance on parade. The growth-stock fund companies that raked in the bulk of new dollars in the late 1990s (Janus, Putnam Investments and Alliance...
Soft dollars is a heavily debated topic these days, particularly among the fund managers who shoulder the commissions load. A new study from The Journal of Portfolio Management asked chief investment officers at 72 asset management firms what they...
In the late 1990s, academic researchers began noticing an interesting but disturbing side effect of the roaring bull market: 401(k) investors consolidating their investment positions. Specifically, instead of diversifying their portfolios, many...
How can you build the ideal portfolio? For many advisors, the answer can be summed up in one word: Markowitz. In the 1950s, Harry Markowitz changed the financial world by describing how diversification could help investors control risk and achieve...
Don't tell Brandywine Fund that fleeing stocks for cash is a safe, conservative maneuver. In 1997, at the outset of the greatest bull market of all time, Brandywine had a disastrous experience with a move to cash when it concluded that the markets...
It's common knowledge that mutual fund shareholders lost money in the late-trading and market-timing shenanigans that have recently consumed the fund industry. But shareholders have been losing many times more money over a longer period of time...
Bond investors have reason to fret these days. With the Federal Reserve holding its benchmark rate at just 1 percent, short-term funds pay puny yields. The economy appears to be recovering, implying that rates are bound to rise in the next year...
To measure Janus Mercury's fortunes in newspaper column inches is to believe the fund is a disaster. An aggressive growth specialist, Mercury suffered big losses in 2000 and 2001. That was followed by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer...
To some, choosing the most talented money managers is easy. All an advisor has to do is examine their track records over, say, three to five years, and pick those that have performed the best. After all, that's more or less how we go about...
