Leveraged and Inverse Funds

A chart breakdown in the S&P 500. Signs of complacency in a closely watched options gauge.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, suggests investors should abandon portfolios made up of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, a mix that has been a standard for six decades.

Wall Street bond dealers are moving rapidly to the sidelines of US Treasury auctions — the very activity that defines their status at the heart of the world’s biggest bond market.

One of the most lucrative money-making machines in the world of finance is all clogged up, threatening a year of pain for Wall Street banks and private-equity barons as a decade-long deal boom goes bust.

A disaster for bulls, the yearlong tumble in American stocks has in some respects been almost as rough for the other side of the trade.

My firm’s leader had a major unexpected undiagnosed medical issue. He walked out of the office one day and I haven’t seen him for four weeks.

Here are two lessons to double the value of your practice…

Optimists were still to be found in the world of US exchange-traded funds, where more than 400 new ETFs were launched despite a harsh bear market. Funds took in more than half a trillion dollars as more investors learned to embrace their easier-to-trade and tax-friendly structure.

There's only one thing you really need to know about investing in 2023, and it's both stunningly obvious and invariably forgotten: There's no free lunch.

Even after a year in which the vast majority of the wealthiest Americans lost a chunk of their fortunes — and in some cases, lost big — in at least one way, they’re still coming out ahead.

Let's examine the three paths the Fed might take in 2023 and what they mean for stock prices.

The collapse of FTX and the charges against Sam Bankman-Fried have brought many renewed calls for crypto regulation, from both commentators and legislators.

Billionaire philanthropist Chuck Feeney is credited with saying, “I want the last check I write to bounce.” While that is ideal, it’s unrealistic. Or is it?

I’m looking over my previous “trends” article, published at this time a year ago, and some of my ”fearless predictions” were outlandish then but now seem ordinary. That means I did something right.

The boom in stock market options shows no sign of let up, as the number of traded US contracts surpassed the 10-billion mark in 2022 for the first time ever, playing a role in the biggest equity rout in over a decade.

It’s hard to believe that the post-Covid world at one point was supposed to usher in a new consumer-led boom worthy of the “Roaring Twenties.”

Rather quietly, a new age of atomic energy may be approaching. Splitting atoms may not be as exciting as fusing them, or as modish as wind and solar projects.

Lawmakers and regulators are grappling with a question: What, if anything, should they do to civilize a market so rife with abuse?

Being good at what you do is no longer enough to differentiate yourself from other advisors.

Private credit can be an attractive asset that has provided high yield and protection against the risks of rising inflation. In addition, the asset class has a strong credit history – specifically senior, secured, sponsored debt.

The Fed’s repeated manipulation of the price of capital has weakened productivity growth and reduced economic activity. Ultimately it is the citizens that pay the price.

Grayscale Investments’ proposal to buy out certain holders of its flagship Bitcoin trust is the money manager’s latest bid to stanch losses in a fund that’s been a linchpin in the dramatic rise and fall of the cryptocurrency universe.

Stubbornly high inflation, soaring borrowing costs and geopolitical uncertainty hindered dealmaking in 2022, sending global mergers and acquisitions activity down by almost a third compared with last year’s record haul.

Private equity titans including KKR & Co. and Thoma Bravo pursued unorthodox paths to dealmaking this year in response to a challenging environment likely to persist in 2023.

Monetary policy is more like the World Cup than it is like mathematics or great literature.

The economic tea leaves suggest that 2023 could be another challenging year for both stocks and bonds. However, the outlook is more balanced given that equity valuations are much lower and bond yields much higher.

Just two months ago, Elon Musk speculated that Tesla Inc. would eventually be worth twice as much as Saudi Arabian Oil Co. — AKA Saudi Aramco, AKA the biggest listed company in the world with a market capitalization (then) of $2.1 trillion.

The US government is blacklisting Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co. and dozens of other Chinese tech companies, ratcheting up a trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies.

Global Investment Report's 3Q Update of the 2022 hedge fund survey.

Professional speculators with billions in bearish trades on the line endured a rough ride after Tuesday’s report on US consumer prices brought the latest sign that the Federal Reserve is making progress in its battle against inflation.

The pay negotiation season is looking increasingly fraught this year as workers fret about 8% inflation — and their job security.

The Federal Reserve hasn’t had much success so far in wrestling down sky-high inflation, but its monetary tightening campaign is having a major impact in deflating asset bubbles that swelled during the pandemic.

Ever since Elon Musk launched his takeover of Twitter Inc., fans of Tesla Inc. have worried about the genius getting distracted. And during the new Twitter’s first six weeks — has it only been that long? — Musk has certainly come across a bit distracted. Addled, even.

If a crushing bear market, inflation-fueled volatility and slump in inflows was meant to cool the booming US exchange-traded fund industry, issuers never got the message.