By Jason Zweig | Oct. 28, 2016 5:20 pm ET Image credit: “Walk-in Closet,” Wjablow (2014), Wikimedia Commons My “Intelligent Investor” column this weekend looks at why so many professional investors run portfolios that limply hug a market benchmark — so-called closet index funds. For the managers of these portfolios, it’s all about...
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Image Credit: Christophe Vorlet By Jason Zweig | Oct. 28, 2016 12:29 pm ET For fund managers, the days of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” might be coming to an end. For years, many fund managers haven’t done much managing at all. Rather than painstakingly pick what they believe are the best stocks and avoid those they think are the worst, they shadow...
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By Jason Zweig | Oct. 27, 2016 8:07 pm ET Image credit: “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,” Caspar David Friedrich (1818), Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Wikimedia Commons The visual distortion of performance information is one of the oldest stories in the investment-marketing book. For as long as there have been, and will be, investments, the people...
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By Jason Zweig | Oct. 25, 2016 8:07 pm ET Image credit: “Everybody Does It,” the dance of the pickpockets, Albert Levering, Puck, vol. 67, no. 1721 (Feb. 23, 1910), Library of Congress More than a decade ago, people were already warning the asset-management industry that mutual funds were ridiculously overpriced relative to the...
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By Jason Zweig | Oct. 21, 2016 1:07 pm ET Image credit: Poster for “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (Universal Pictures, 1957), Wikimedia Commons One under-appreciated aspect of the index-fund revolution: A growing body of research on what drives stock returns has made it easier than ever for investors to determine whether fund managers...
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