In September 2006, an SEC official gave a remarkably prescient speech to an obscure organization (well, obscure to me, anyway). Martha Mahan Haines, chief of the SEC's Office of Municipal Securities, presented a short speech to about 400 women...
Despite current laws that reduce the estate-tax bite, survivorship life insurance is making a comeback as an estate-planning tool among some advisors. With Democrats in control of Congress, and a good chance that a Democrat will take the White...
With credit markets jittery and the economy on the lip of recession (or in recession, depending upon whom you ask), real estate funds have plummeted. During the 12 months ending in January 2008, the category lost 21 percent. Should investors stay...
Academics have long scorned actively managed mutual funds. Instead of spending money on managers who attempt to beat the market (however that is defined), academics argue, investors should stick with index funds. Lately the index proponents have...
Competing fiercely for the attention of investors, fund companies have brought out a wave of specialized offerings. Many of the choices which include mutual funds and exchange-trade funds focus on hot-sounding industries, or growing areas of the...
With markets soaring last year in places such as India and Turkey, investors poured cash into international funds. Of the $6.6 trillion invested in equity funds, about one quarter is in overseas portfolios, according to the Investment Company...
When markets turn down, the hated short sellers appear. The volume of short sales bets that stocks will drop spiked after technology shares began collapsing in 2000. Not surprisingly, short volume has climbed again in recent months. But in the...