Exchange-traded funds are exceptional tools for allocating client portfolios, but they can lose their effectiveness if implemented incorrectly.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i>: The Fed continues to hem and haw on raising interest rates. Plus: Options-based funds get it done, hedge funder spills the beans on 2015, and the outlook for oil prices is all over the map.
Top-rated fund manager, with better record in bonds than stocks, fond of bold pronouncements.
<b>Breakfast with Benjamin:</b> Where the price of oil is likely to settle. Plus: On the responsibility of retirement plan sponsors and mutual fund directors; don't get blown away by the new jobs report and banks pass stress tests with flying colors.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i>: OPEC might be rethinking their strategy of flooding the market with oil to crush the fracking industry.
Traditional, institutional, buy-and-hold asset allocation model isn't the best fit for all clients.
Most respondents in new survey say they have a financial plan, on the right track but their confidence may be misplaced.
For investors worried about how stocks will react to rising interest rates, last week's trading may provide some guidance. To wit: Following the biggest one-week jump in 10-year Treasury yields in more than a year, investors are selling the highest-yielding companies in the S&P 500.
In trying to capitalize on the news of mergers and acquisitions, hedge funds are being outdone by an exchange-traded fund clone.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i>: Supply and demand math could mean $10 oil. Plus: Eric Holder takes a parting shot at Wall Street, SEC filings show how hedge funds did and didn't navigate the markets, and it's hard to bet against sin stocks.
Money manager Seth Klarman identified opportunities last year in energy after oil prices plunged. But with bargains drying up, the $28.5 billion Baupost Group's cash balances grew and the bargain hunter challenged the Fed's easy money policy.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i> features the Federal Reserve being caught between a rock and a hard place on rate hikes. Plus: Greeks vote to kick the can down the road, Obama's tax grab looks like a blueprint for the future, and a billionaire tells Americans to spend less money
Though high yielding, companies undervalued and have upside to dividends and share prices.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i>: The energy sector has the highest level of short interest since 2008. Plus: Apple's market value tops $700 billion and already talk turns to the $1 trillion mark, Carl Icahn says Apple is already there, and is it time to rethink filing taxes online?
The vast majority of these funds are new, and they require scrutiny in context of other assets.
Find out which separately managed accounts fared the best in the fourth quarter of 2014, across each major sector.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i>: A stronger dollar and record valuations for global stocks have kicked the precious metal to the curb.
<i>Breakfast with Benjamin:</i> Real estate might not deliver as expected. Plus: This week, we'll really know how the drop in oil affected companies and consumers; in currencies, it's not all about the Swiss franc; it's budget day in Washington; and all the Super Bowl ads, in case you missed them.
Today's <i>Breakfast with Benjamin</i> includes gold hitting its highest level since September. Plus: Obama wants to tak 529 plans to fund free community college, emerging-market-debt managers emerge from the wreckage of 2014, and it's time to change some passwords.
Some strategies stay aggressive right up to target date while others dial down risk; each group has its reasons
