Salient to Investors: If you ask your adviser to whom he or she owes their first legal duty of care, and you don’t get an immediate answer “you, as my client” then the chances are that they are not acting as a fiduciary. You can’t be a part-time fiduciary. The first
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The annual CPI reported figure of 0.1% is a lie and has become a manipulated statistic using academic theories to systematically under-report the true level of inflation – between 4% and 10% – in order to cut annual cost of living adjustments to Social Security and other
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Most oil drillers are spending money faster than they make it; an average of $1.17 for every dollar earned in the 12 months ended on June 30, 2014. Only 7 US-listed firms in the Bloomberg Intelligence’s E&P index made more money than it cost them to keep
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Robert Battalio at Notre Dame said: Dark pools have existed forever: shut them down and new forms will arise elsewhere because money managers are too fond of them. Order flow will always have multiple venues to execute on because one size does not fit all. Brokers favor
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Convicted felon Sam Antar says stock-picking sets you up as a mark for the unscrupulous because investors live on hope and it is the criminal’s job to take advantage of that hope. Antar said criminals are as short-sighted, if not more so, as the rest of us –
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Managed futures turned out to be good for brokers and fund managers but not for investors. During the decade ended in 2012, over 30,000 investors put $797 million in a managed-futures fund called Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Spectrum Technical LP, which already had $341.6 million invested during
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Megan McArdle writes: The Department of Labor is reported to be moving toward making brokers et al “fiduciaries” to their clients, so they would have to offer advice in your best interest, and avoid conflicts of interest such as accepting fees to put you into low-return, high-fee
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William D. Cohan writes: The appalling but unsurprising news that Robert Khuzami, the former enforcement director at the SEC is joining a prominent Wall Street law firm at a $5 million-plus salary is the latest example of the corrupt relationship between money and power in the US. Senator Carl Levin said this
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The New York Times reported that every time an American opens a can of soda, beer or juice they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars. The allegation is that investment banks
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William D. Cohan writes: Senators Elizabeth Warren and John McCain are wrong in believing that the 2008 financial crisis was caused by commercial banks taking undue risks with depositors’ money, though it is true that they courted too much risk, Causes of the financial crisis were many and
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