For years, reps have been told that separately managed accounts (SMAs), were being The institutional-quality management, tax efficiency, transparency and customization that had made SMAs so popular among high-net-worth individuals would be...
As one A.G. Edwards financial advisor sees it, regulators and broker/dealer management have gone overboard with mutual fund disclosure. Take the case of the B-share class of mutual funds. Right now, B shares are the baddest guys on the Street, the...
Quick: Guess how much money investors in Putnam Investments mutual funds were cheated out of in the market-timing scandals. Hint: It wasn't the $110 million Putnam agreed to pay the SEC and Massachusetts's regulators. An academic, hired by Putnam...
Most of the cash flowing into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has focused on a few big funds, especially ones that track popular benchmarks, such as the S&P 500. Such funds are excellent choices for advisors seeking a core holding for clients. But...
A recent New York magazine article declared 2005 a golden age for video games, and anyone who has played Resident Evil 4, Madden NFL 2005 or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas can agree. What remains to be seen is whether this golden age extends to the...
FundAlarm.com may not be a household name, but the Web site, founded by Roy Weitz in 1996, has an influence more powerful than the 125,000 user hits the site receives a month, (about a third of them are on the site's discussion boards). It is a...
The editors of Trusts & Estates are pleased to announce the addition of Jeffrey L. Evans to the advisory board's Investments Committee. Evans, whose article Rating the Quarterback starts on p. 29, is a consultant to the New York based Institute...
The market may have been flat for much of 2004, but it didn't affect investors' enthusiasm for mutual funds. Total assets in the nation's mutual funds grew by $177.5 billion, or 2.2 percent, to $8.1 trillion in December, according an Investment...
Robert Isbitts, president and chief investment officer of Weston, Fla.-based Emerald Asset Advisors, is re-examining his hedge fund investing strategy for his well-to-do clients. The problem? When he included the instruments in his wealthy clients...
Herd mentality has always been a powerful force in investing circles, and with billions of dollars now running to hedge funds, many clients might feel tempted to join the stampede. The fact remains, however, that hedge funds are not right for...