Economy & Markets
The important economic and stock market news that advisors need to know.
Volcker Tells Charlie Rose: The 'Volcker Rule' Still Works
By Marlene Y. SatterLobbying efforts notwithstanding, the Volcker Rule orohibiting banks from proprietary trading is still effective, according to no less an authority than Paul Volcker, for whom it was named.
October 26, 2011
Balanced-Fund Returns Stable Over TimeAverage returns for funds with an equal mix of stock and bond allocations have historically been statistically equivalent during recessions and expansions, according to a Vanguard report released in early October that focused on balanced funds historical performance from 1926 through June 2009. The reason for this performance record, Vanguard...
October 26, 2011
Crisis or Not, European Notes LaunchDespite increasing credit risk to European banks, some firms introduced exchange-traded notes (ETNs). ETNs are debt obligations tied to the performance of an index, currency or commodity.
October 26, 2011
Economic Jump-StartThe principle of homeopathic medicine is to let like be cured by like: treat an illness by giving patients minute quantities of medicines that produce the same symptoms. But treating indigestion with a 10-course meal is not a good idea. This is why throwing borrowed funds at the current economic...
October 26, 2011
The Lessons of Starvation EconomicsThe U.S. economy was worse off before now, worse even than in the Great Depression. In 1620, when our Pilgrim Forefathers arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, per capita GDP was nearly zero. Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradfords journal of those early years, records the economic scarcity prevailing at the time:
October 26, 2011
Funds Decline Nearly 17.5 percent in Q3’11In the third quarter of 2011, equity funds posted declining results for the second quarter in a row and dropped 17.44 percent, reports Lipper, with world-equity funds (20.44 percent) trailing three other broad Lipper categories: mixed-equity funds (10.08 percent), U.S. diversified-equity funds (16.67 percent) and sector-equity Funds (15.36 percent). The...
October 26, 2011
Measured PaceBack in 1976, while other teenagers had started obsessing over the newest style of music, punk rock, 16-year-old Louis M. Ricciardi was grooming himself to be a financial advisor. Hipping classmates to the Rule of 72, he was touting the benefits of investing at a young age.
October 26, 2011
A Lost Decade for Advisors?It has been called the Lost Decade for stocks, the period from January 2000 to December 2009 that saw the stock market decline for the first time since the decade that started in the 1930s.