ETF investors bail on the financial sector
Breakfast with Benjamin:Finance-focused ETFs suffer huge outflows. What gives? Plus: Prudential Financial's spooky reinsurance bet, investing in obesity, private lawyers give corporate inversions a leg up, and location matters less when the house you're selling is haunted.
- Investors do the math on low interest rates and turn tail on a popular financial sector ETF. More than $900 million pulled from XLF last week to mark the worst stretch since 2009. The prospects are not strong
- Prudential Financial steps out on a limb by providing reinsurance on a $2.2 billion annuity portfolio at Legal & General Group in the U.K. The spooky part of the bet is that the reinsurance is guarding L&G against the risk that pension beneficiaries live longer than expected. I hate it when that happens. Prudential ran the numbers on longevity risks
- Savvy investors tap into the obesity epidemic. Let’s face it, diet fads are interesting, but the real money is made by betting that people will continue eating at McDonald’s. Double down with a healthcare-sector ETF
- Corporate inversions embrace the latest loophole in the form of government lawyers who go private. Where there is a will and a pile of money to be made, there is a lawyer ready to find the way. The incentive to invert is too tempting to ignore
- Real estate nightmares: Trying to put a positive spin on a house that is haunted. ‘Something looked not quite right’
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