Morningstar

The current surge in dis-inflationary pressures is not just due to the recent fall in oil prices, but rather a global epidemic of slowing economic growth. While Janet Yellen addressed this "disinflationary" wave during her post-meeting press conference, the Fed still maintains the illusion of confidence that economic growth will return shortly. Unfortunately, this has been the Fed's "Unicorn" since 2011 as annual hopes of economic recovery have failed to materialize. However, it is these ongoing views of optimism that have collided with economic realities.

With the SEC moving to head off the risk of a bond market meltdown triggered by a dangerous combination of illiquidity and bond fund proliferation, WSJ decided to see which fund providers are the most at risk in a crisis. The list may surprise you...

News That Matters

Day after day investors are treated to 5-Star Morningstar managers, so-called "strategists", economissseds with entire religions on the line, and circus barkers who proclaim that: a) The US is decoupled from the rest of the world; and/or b) The US is the cleanest dirty shirt; an/or c) There are no indications that the US economy is near a recession. Here are four simple charts - from, just today's data - that destroy this glass half full and rose-colored ignorance of reality...

During Monday's flash crashing mayhem, the fragility of the ETF pricing system was exposed for all to see. While common sense dictates that the extreme market moves, trading halts, and tripped circuit breakers may have had quite a lot to do with the epic divergences between NAV and unit pricing, the real culprit was a "computer glitch" caused by a botched "systems change" last Saturday. The fact that the trouble calculating NAVs across nearly 800 mutual funds happened on the very same day as the flash crash is strictly coincidence. 

Gold has a place in high-net worth individuals portfolios as an insurance policy against systemic risk in the banking system, says Carmignac fund manager Michael Hulme.

You can stop waiting for a global financial crisis to happen.  The truth is that one is happening right now.  All over the world, stock markets are already crashing...

At the peak of bull markets, when stock prices have been rising long enough for people who just recently started paying attention to conclude that they always go up - that’s when retail investors traditionally go all-in to snag some of that apparently easy Dow Jones money. That’s also when markets tend to peak and then roll over, once again transferring a sizable chunk of societal wealth from late-to-the-party “dumb money” investors to the pros who have been here before and recognize a peak when they see one. So it’s interesting to hear that retail investors are departing from the script in 2015.

If you’re into mysteries, there’s certainly no shortage of them around the world. Enjoying them is one thing, solving them is quite another.... Mysterious hounds and mysterious criminals certainly help keep our minds razor sharp as well as entertained. Yet, perhaps the biggest mystery in the world today involves - pension plans. Many people have them, and most people fully know what their eventual pension payout will be. Unfortunately, the average person doesn’t know how their pension plan is actually taped together, and fewer still, appreciate that the “promise” of their “eventual pension payout” is not as guaranteed as they may believe.

...while the media gets overly excited about monthly job growth, the reality is that job growth has been little more than just a function of overall population growth. This isn't something the fosters long-term economic expansions that generate higher levels of prosperity... and if you think low interest rates necessitate high stock prices, that wasn't the case in the 1940s when interest rates were low and stock prices were below their long-term average relative to past earnings.

Ten Members of the U.S. Congress – along with 32 of their staff members – received secret payments from Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company to travel to Baku in 2013, to cover the cost of travel, including souvenirs of “silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs.”

A look at the drivers for the week ahead.  

There is a financial crisis on the horizon. It is a crisis that all the Central Bank interventions in the world cannot cure. It is a financial crisis that will continue to change the economic landscape of America for decades to come. No, we are not talking about the next Lehman event or the next financial market meltdown. Although something akin to both will happen in the not-so-distant future. It is the lack of financial stability of the current, and next, generation that will shape the American landscape in the future.

84% of JPMorgan’s 10-year long-term mutual fund AUM is ranked in the top two quartiles, while 70% and 81% of JPM US equity mutual funds have outperformed their benchmark on a 1- and 3-year timeframe, respectively according to an investor presentation. In last year’s presentation, the bank cited Morningstar and Lipper (who know a thing or two about calculating mutual fund returns) as sources. The only problem is that it later turned out that Morningstar and Lipper had no idea how JPM calculated the returns.

As the dash-for-trash continues in US equities, Neuberger Berman sums up the state of investing currently, "there has certainly been little reward for owning high-return, superior business models that are conservatively financed," as Bloomberg notes, Fed policy has had the “unintended consequence” of boosting the stocks of companies with heavy debt and little or no earnings. Typically after a recession, such companies lose out to firms that generate more cash and have better balance sheets; this time, no “Darwinian” shakeout happened and low-quality stocks ruled. Managers say they haven’t changed, the market has.