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How much passive investing is too much?

Warnings that index funds have broken the stock market all imply a threshold: a share of the market at which price discovery fails. Nobody making the argument names it. Owen Lamont, writing in the Financial Analysts Journal, argues that no such number exists short of complete passive ownership, and that what actually determines whether prices stay informative is who is left doing the trading. His case, the strongest peer-reviewed research against it, and what the performance

Robin Powell

Can machines identify winning fund managers in advance?

By its own admission, Morningstar's system of star ratings is of limited use in predicting future fund performance. Can machines do any...

Robin Powell

Mar 5, 20214 min read

Link's role in Woodford fiasco laid bare in new book

A new book on the collapse of Woodford Investment Management has detailed the pivotal role played by Link Fund Solutions. Financial Times...

Robin Powell

Mar 4, 20219 min read

DIY trading boom storing up problems for the future

There's been a huge increase in DIY trading during the coronavirus pandemic — particularly among young people. Sparrows Capital's MARK...

Robin Powell

Mar 3, 20213 min read

It's time for some humility from Hargreaves Lansdown

By ROBIN POWELL As a journalist, you have to smile when people in authority blame the media when things to wrong. What they tend to...

Robin Powell

Mar 2, 20212 min read

Can active managers time factor exposures?

By LARRY SWEDROE One of the advantages active managers tout is that they have the opportunity to adjust factor exposures, taking...

Robin Powell

Feb 26, 20213 min read

Three reasons for active managers to feel positive

By CRAIG LAZZARA For at least five years , we’ve noticed that, despite historical performance, active managers regularly proclaim that ...

Robin Powell

Feb 25, 20212 min read

The odds of outperforming through active management

By LARY SWEDROE My good friend Bill Schultheis, author of The Coffeehouse Investor (it was a privilege to write the foreword to an...

Robin Powell

Feb 24, 20214 min read

Which is best for corporate bonds — active or passive?

Robin writes: Here at TEBI, we're not huge fans of corporate bonds. The reason is we like to keep things simple. Equities should make up...

Robin Powell

Feb 23, 20216 min read

Do financial marketplaces provide enough protection?

There's been a huge growth in recent years in online marketplaces. An online marketplace is a type of e-commerce website where product...

Robin Powell

Feb 22, 20214 min read

Who should carry the can for the Woodford blow-up?

To quote the author of an excellent new book on the Neil Woodford scandal, “the cast of players in (his) spectacular rise and crashing...

Robin Powell

Feb 20, 20214 min read

The implications for investors of shrinking markets

Smaller companies are staying private for longer, with a sizeable decline in IPOs over the last two decades. So what are the implications...

Robin Powell

Feb 19, 20214 min read

Woodford underlines the need for proper financial advice

This article by ROBIN POWELL was originally published by the Suitable Advice Institute. It’s easy to let our hearts rule our heads when discussing Neil Woodford. According to a new book, Woodford and his business partner extracted £11.5 million from his failed investment empire, and continued to charge fees even when his funds were suspended. Many of his investors lost life-changing sums of money. Now he’s issued a semi-apology and is in the process of setting up a new invest

Robin Powell

Feb 18, 20214 min read