Today's <i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i> looks at what's propelling REITs into their position as the year's hottest market sector, plus emerging market stocks' record month, Japan's inflation woes, and much more.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin:</i> Brokers pouncing on 401(k) biz. Plus: The Clintons dodge the estate taxes they support. The Fed wants to add exit fees to bond funds, U.S. banks on the edge of new funding rules, Congress mulls investor confidence on your dime, El-Erian sides with the IMF, and merger mania is alive and well.
Fund performance sagged as assets ballooned and performance sagged &ndash; but the manager says his bad bets were the culprit.
Testing the assumption that mutual fund managers focus on gathering assets to boost their compensation rather than on generating excess returns.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin:</i>Oil spikes as Iraq's stability crumbles. Plus: Hedge funds bristle at Obama's latest executive order, the significance of the Dow at 17,000, how active managers are helping index investors, and quantitative analysis is being applied to golf scores.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin:</i> Buffett doubles down on green. Plus: ECB stimulus gains traction, Apple shares at less than $100, Alibaba IPO risks, when prostitutes become currency traders, and how to buy Scotch for your dad.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin:</i> Bill Gross' controversial new strategy. Plus: BlackRock CEO Fink calls out leveraged ETFs, nobody can agree on the gold-price decline, dealing with lump-sum pension offers, a solar company that makes sense, and the various forms of a caffeine addict.
Surprising comments by Fed chief Janet Yellen on rate hikes gave bond markets a bad scare.
The expansion of iShares Core brings down expense ratios but doesn't eliminate the need for solid due diligence.
Investors considering using ETFs that seek to magnify return of a given index need to understand the risks, says S&P Capital IQ's Todd Rosenbluth.
Money manager relies on individuals saving for retirement, rising stock prices to offset institutional withdrawals.
The financial advice business has changed fundamentally, but money managers who depend on advisers for nearly a third of their revenue are stuck in the past.
The falloff in social media stocks is burning investors who piled into one of last year's most popular exchange-traded funds.
At least 70 mutual funds across various fixed-income categories have more than 4% allocated to stocks, according to Morningstar. On the extreme end, almost half of those bond funds have equity weightings of between 10% and 63%.
Bill Gross's Pimco Total Return Fund sustained its 12th straight month of withdrawals in April as the world's largest bond fund continues to trail its peers.
Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Bill Gross said asset markets from stocks to real estate are not overpriced because the Federal Reserve's long-term policy rate will be half of what policymakers are forecasting.
