24h Market Info

You might be wondering what a CTA is. A CTA is a Portfolio Manager for derivative products such as foreign exchange, commodities or futures. If you’re familiar with traditional mutual funds or hedge funds, you’ll know the investment decisions are made by a specialist in stocks or bonds. These are also called equity and fixed income products.... Read More

If you have a pension, you are probably invested in some way in hedge funds. They have been described as the gated community of investing in part because they require large amounts of available capital - and I mean millions of dollars worth. Because pension plans need diversity and risk, they often benefit from some of this sort of ‘outside of the mutual fund regulatory world’ type of investment approaches. Twenty-five percent of them do. The individual investor often consider the “average investor”has barely any exposure. Mutual funds would like to tap that marketplace and in all likelihood, your 401(k) will be seen as prime hunting grounds for these newer funds.... Read More

This debate will never end. Actively managed mutual funds are not the easiest of animals to tame. Performance relies on a series of variables that few of us could deal with on a day-to-day basis. And in their defense, I want to offer some alternative thoughts to what you might be forming as an opinion.... Read More

The force of the knock across the financial sector over the past 12 months has exposed the weaknesses in the global financial tectonic plates. From New York to London to Hong Kong to Tokyo, the newly formed global network cracked under the strains of the economic quake as the ground shook. Some of the institutional pillars of the financial world shook. Iceland fell; Lehman Brothers and Bear Stern crumbled; Merrill Lynch saved itself by securing an all-stock buyout with Bank of America; Goldman Sachs found comfort in Birkshire Hatherway. The financial landscape remodeled itself nearly everyday as Hedge Fund executives observed through pink pages.... Read More

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Recent market reversals brought about by the Sub-Prime mortgage melt down is clearly a significant market correcting event. No matter if you work in the risk department of a large bank with many employees or a small fund of funds as co-manager, you share the same basic concerns regarding the management of your portfolio(s)... Read More