For investors, it’s a perfect time to go back to the basics - The Washington Post

Great stuff!! Way to go Barry!

For investors, it’s a perfect time to go back to the basics - The Washington Post: " I am going to suggest you take a different route: Focus on 10 basic, simple truths that many investors seemingly ignore. Some of you are unaware of these realities; others understand them intellectually but cannot act on your knowledge. These are the simple things that amateurs and

Dark pools in the news: looks at Wall Street's secret trading exchanges (Dark Pools)








A look at Dark Pools: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/business/2014/09/26/cnn-orig-what-is-wall-street-dark-pool-paul-lamonica.cnn.html



and from Bloomberg:


"The biggest banks created the venues partly to avoid paying stock exchanges for processing trades between their clients. They’ve attracted scorn this year for allegedly letting the speediest traders feast on slower

So what is the CEO to average worker ratio? 511 or 4? Depends on what you report.


CEO Pay Continues to Rise as Typical Workers Are Paid Less | Economic Policy Institute:

NOTE:  This not as an argument against high CEO pay (have made that before), but to show how a study is done influences the reported findings.


We've all seen the headlines of how CEO pay is rising so quickly.

First from the Economic Policy Institute's

Same article:

"The CEO-to-worker compensation ratio

Active vs. Passive in Global Investing | Financial Planning


Active vs. Passive in Global Investing | Financial Planning:


"The S&P Report, called the SPIVA U.S. Scorecard, which also evaluated the performance of active vs. passive management for domestic funds and for bonds, found that in the international sphere over the past year 70% of global equity funds, 75% of international equity funds, 81% of international small-cap funds and 65% of emerging

Gross Loses Pimco Power Struggle With ‘Stunning’ Exit - Bloomberg


Gross Loses Pimco Power Struggle With ‘Stunning’ Exit - Bloomberg: "The surprise decision by 70-year-old Gross, whose personal wealth is estimated at $2 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, marks a turning point in one of the most remarkable careers in money management. Gross personally oversaw more money than any investor on the planet, and was synonymous with the firm he co-founded in

Tesco Error Triggers New Profit Warning - WSJ

Investor beware. Accounting, despite all it does wonderfully, is never perfect and whether fraud or user error induced, there can be painful missteps for all of us who rely on the accounting system.

Tesco Error Triggers New Profit Warning - WSJ:
"Tesco's newly installed chief executive, Dave Lewis, said on Monday that the company has uncovered a "serious" accounting issue.

The issue involved

Evidence of learning in the stock market


This is a bit of an old article, but the idea of stock market learning came up in class on Wednesday and ethics all of last week, so I will mention market learning in the context of governance.

Short version: it used to be that you could get a higher return by buying firms with good governance (Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick, 2003)  (as measured by the Gompers-Ishii index) and shorting poorly

Alibaba's Governance Leaves Investors at a Disadvantage - NYTimes.com


Alibaba's Governance Leaves Investors at a Disadvantage - NYTimes.com:



 "In Alibaba, control is going to be locked forever in the hands of a group of insiders known as the Alibaba Partnership. These are all managers in the Alibaba Group or related companies. The Partnership will have the exclusive right to nominate candidates for a majority of the board seats. Furthermore, if the Partnership

Biggest pension shunning hedge funds a green light for liquid alts


Biggest pension shunning hedge funds a green light for liquid alts:




"The California Public Employees' Retirement System, commonly known as Calpers, announced Monday it is eliminating its $4 billion exposure to hedge funds for reasons largely related to high fees."

In a related article on Main St, Hal Bundrick writes:



"“We are always examining the portfolio to ensure that we are

Blackstone Unit Wins in No-Lose Codere Trade: Corporate Finance - Bloomberg

Blackstone Unit Wins in No-Lose Codere Trade: Corporate Finance - Bloomberg: The unit of Blackstone Group LP (BX) structured the loan in a way that would lead to a payout on swaps it held, according to three people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. The contracts were triggered on Sept. 18 after Codere delayed an interest payment

CEO Pay More Closely Matches Firms' Results - WSJ.com


CEO Pay More Closely Matches Firms' Results - WSJ.com:


"The study is among the first to assess how the rising popularity of performance-based restricted stock is affecting CEO pay. Performance-based stock is the fastest-growing segment of executive pay, accounting for 27.4% of the value of compensation granted to CEOs in 2012, up from 18.8% in 2008, according to a separate study by the Journal