Archives: March 2007

Act Globally...But Don't Invest Locally?

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 28

Move over Peter Lynch. A new study from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business shows that "investing in what you know" doesn't appear to hold true for...

Surprise change at top value shop First Eagle

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 26

Jean-Marie Eveillard was one of the most impressive mutual fund managers of all time when he left the stage at the end of 2004. At that point, his little shop...

Blackstone mints money - well, duh

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 22

So the amazing, stunning, shocking day has finally arrived. Private equity pioneer Blackstone Group filed a registration statement to go public and raise $4 billion. What did we learn from...

Music CD, I'm just not that into you

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 21

There's a fascinating if flawed story in the WSJ today about the decline in sales of music CDs. There's much to and fro about what's behind the drop. The industry...

Hedge fund returns look unimpressive in new study

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 19

University of Texas finance professor John Griffin and Jin Xu (who works at Roger Ibbotson's Zebra Capital Management) have some bad news for proponents of hedge funds in their new...

529s: Yay or Nay?

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 15

A reader writes: "You wrote a short piece on 529s about a year ago, which I just read on the web. I’ve been trying to sort out whether to invest...

M&A helps some stocks avoid the downdraft

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 13

Been paying attention to those lists of takeover candidates? Stocks that best escaped today's market swoon are those in play. Suffering homebuilder WCI Communities (Symbol: WCI) is up 15% to...

Credit crunch far from pre-recession levels

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 13

The debate has raged back and forth over the likelihood of a recession in the United States this year or, perhaps more importantly to the stock market in the short-run,...

Do you trust your adviser?

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 12

Does your financial adviser put your interests first? There's been a lot of chatter lately about this issue. If you saw my story about the plethora of financial designations displayed...

There's more to choosing a broker than commissions

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 09

I have a short piece in this week's BW magazine comparing the no-commisssion trading offers of Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Zecco.com. It's important to emphasize that stock trading...

Beware D.R. Horton CEO's over-the-top quip

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 08

Think stocks in the homebuilding sector are a beaten down value play? After all, the SPDRs S&P Homebuilding ETF fund (Symbol: XHB), which dropped 34% last summer, has since climbed...

Breath of fresh air on corporate perks from KMR

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 02

Via Michelle Leder (who may have a direct connection to the SEC's EDGAR database wired into her brain somehow), we read this morning of a refreshing break from the string...

New closed-end funds arrive just in time for turbulence

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 01

The closed-end fund market has been busy the past few months rolling out some monster new products to feed the need for higher yield. Eaton Vance last November sold $2.6...

Market Musings

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 01

I've received a bunch of emails with commentary on the market's dipsy doodleling. Here are some highlights. (These investors really have some great names, incidentally. Straight out of central casting!)...