John Oliver on Puerto Rico's debt woes

Turns out that there is more to their problems than meets the eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-mpuR_QHQ

Gawker on Pension Fund Fees.

Gawker media on pension fund fees (and NC in particular).

http://gawker.com/retirees-are-handing-wall-street-billions-for-no-good-r-1767496764

Bogle on the Buffet Hedge Fund bet

Jack Bogle opines on why Buffet is winning the hedge fund vs index fund challenge.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-bogle--here-s-why-buffett-will-win-his--1-million-bet-against-a-hedge-fund-manager-200012224.html

A Plan to Stop the Pension Plan Rip-Off

Via Huff Po.

A Plan to Stop the Pension Plan Rip-Off


Quote:

There's big money to be made from "advising" these plans. A study from The Maryland Public Policy Institute looked at data from 33 state pension funds. In last fiscal year they examined, researchers found these pension funds paid collective fees of $6 billion!The Wall Street firms that collected these fees touted their ability to pick stocks and bonds that would "outperform a given section of the stock or bond market." They were handsomely rewarded for this alleged prowess. Unfortunately, it was a myth.The study found an inverse relationship between high fees and returns. The median five-year return for the pension funds in the study was 12.83 percent. If plans had fired their high-priced Wall Street investment bankers and instead invested in low-management-fee index funds, the annualized five-year return would have increased to 14.45 percent.The study found no evidence that alternative investments, such as hedge funds and private equity, beat the market.

Why I am supporting Ron Elmer for Treasurer

Ron Elmer is running for the democratic nomination for the NC Treasurer.   Ron Elmer is highly qualified for the job.  Here's why:

• He has extensive investment management experience managing institutional mutual funds and index funds.  He's even managed index funds for the State Pension Fund.
• He's very well qualified.  An NYU MBA, a CFA and a CPA.   
• He's not a career politician - he doesn't want to use the Treasurer's office to climb the political ladder.
• He's a really nice guy.

Ron's basic platform is to save the state millions of dollars by bringing the management of the pension fund in house and basically firing all the external managers.   Once in house, he plans to index the entire $90 billion portfolio.    I think that this is a brilliantly simple way that the state can save probably between $500 - $900 Million per year.

Let me state that again:   Ron's plan can save the State at least half a billion dollars per year and potentially close to a billion dollars per year.

This sounds like crazy money, but Wall Street investment firms have been enjoying this payola from North Carolina (and many other states) for years.   It's time to put a stop to this madness.

I've put together a short paper that details my back of the envelope computations which show that these savings are reasonable and there should be no loss in performance of the fund as a result.  In fact, I would expect that the fund will perform better.

Click here for a copy of my report.   

Click here for a copy of a presentation that I did for the State Employees Association a couple of years ago.

And don't forget to vote for Ron and spread the word.

Thanks

The short termism myth

Nice summary of why US financial markets are probably not myopic.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/the-short-termism-myth

HT: Newmark's Door.

How do we know that the market is going to open "up" (or "down")?

This is a pretty basic question that most finance folks will know the answer to.   How does the media know what the market is going to do when it opens?

Turns out, the information is coming from index futures contracts that trade before the market open.  These futures contracts allow investors to bet on the price of the index (Dow or S&P) at some point in the future.   A nice explanation is on investopedia.  You can see the state of futures contracts on most financial pages - CNBC for example.

Today, the prediction was correct.  The market opened above its prior close.