Salient to Investors: Vanguard attracted a record $24.3 billion from clients in January, mostly into stocks, and more than 40 percent greater than the previous monthly record in January 2012. ICI said US mutual fund inflows are on track for the biggest month on record for deposits in January. IndexUniverse said ETFs attracted
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: From January 1, 2013, UK advisers will be banned from accepting commissions from asset managers and instead charge clearly delineated fees. In 2009, the Review of Financial Studies said the cost of investing in British funds is higher than anywhere in the developed world aside from Scandinavia and Canada – and average 2.21 percent of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A fund is highly correlated to its benchmark index if its R-squared reaches 90: at 95, it is considered a ”closet” index fund. The steady rise in correlations among all stocks is making it more difficult than ever for actively managed funds to differentiate themselves from their benchmarks. Morningstar
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Morningstar reported that investors withdrew $300 billion net from actively managed U.S. equity stock funds in the 3-yr period through July 31, while buying a net $140 billion of passively managed funds and ETFs, and bond funds took in $734 billion. $3 trillion-plus is invested in equity mutual funds and ETFs.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Gundlach at DoubleLine Capital said: Equities won’t repeat the poor performance of 2000 to 2010, when the S&P 500 fell 14 percent. Equities are superior to fixed-income as an inflation hedge. Stocks’ unpopularity is positive. The S&P 500 isn’t cheap – the Chinese stock market is better value. Mutual-fund investors withdrew $313 billion from U.S.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Profits are moving U.S. equity prices more than any time since the bull market began 3 1/2 years ago. Bloomberg data show: S&P 500 companies rose or fell an average of 4.4 percent the day after releasing results since July. Daily swings in the index narrowed to 0.4
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The value of transactions in S&P 500 Index ETFs is about to exceed the turnover for all of the index stocks for the first time. Bears claim the increase in ETFs shows investors are giving up on picking stocks; bulls claim it shows that individuals and institutions still want to own equities
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