go and read more analysis on the BlackRock internet page

Keywords: Returns, Investment Performance, Bonds, Stocks, Dividend Yields

Dealbook New York Times: Some Big Public Pension Funds Are Behaving Like Activist Investors, Nov. 28, 2013

Activist investors like Carl C. Icahn, Daniel S. Loeb and William A. Ackman are getting deep-pocketed imitators.

Some of the biggest public pension funds, which have sought to influence companies for years, are now starting to emulate these investors by engaging with, and sometimes seeking to oust, directors of companies whose stock they own.

Anne Simpson, director of corporate governance at the California Public Employees’ Pension Fund, the largest United States pension plan with $279 billion in assets, says “board coups” this year that led to the departure of directors at Hewlett-Packard, JPMorgan Chase and Occidental Petroleum show “how shareholder activism is evolving from barbarians at the gate to acting like owners.” read more in The New York Times

Keywords: Pension Funds, Shareholder Activism, Pension Fund Performance

Keywords: Investment Strategy, ETF, Passive Index Funds, Actively Managed Fund, Mutual Funds

Wall Street Journal: Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer; We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street, Nov. 11, 2013

I can only say: I'm sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time. read more in the Wall Street Journal

Keywords: Fed, Quantitative Easing, Bank Bail Outs, Bank Recapitalizations, Main Street, Wall Street

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-huszar/3/3a5/b50

Turnkey Analyst: Buffet's Market Timing Signal: Expensive, Nov. 5, 2013

Keywords: Market Timing, Investor Strategy, GDP Growth to Corporate Profits

Abstract:

"We examine the pervasive view that "equity is expensive," which leads to claims that high capital requirements are costly for society and would affect credit markets adversely. We find that arguments made to support this view are fallacious, irrelevant to the policy debate by confusing private and social costs, or very weak. For example, the return on equity contains a risk premium that must go down if banks have more equity. It is thus incorrect to assume that the required return on equity remains fixed as capital requirements increase. It is also incorrect to translate higher taxes paid by banks to a social cost. Policies that subsidize debt and indirectly penalize equity through taxes and implicit guarantees are distortive. And while debt’s informational insensitivity may provide valuable liquidity, increased capital (and reduced leverage) can enhance this benefit. Finally, suggestions that high leverage serves a necessary disciplining role are based on inadequate theory lacking empirical support.

We conclude that bank equity is not socially expensive, and that high leverage at the levels allowed, for example, by the Basel III agreement is not necessary for banks to perform all their socially valuable functions and likely makes banking inefficient. Better capitalized banks suffer fewer distortions in lending decisions and would perform better. The fact that banks choose high leverage does not imply that this is socially optimal. Except for government subsidies and viewed from an ex ante perspective, high leverage may not even be privately optimal for banks.

Setting equity requirements significantly higher than the levels currently proposed would entail large social benefits and minimal, if any, social costs. Approaches based on equity dominate alternatives, including contingent capital. To achieve better capitalization quickly and efficiently and prevent disruption to lending, regulators must actively control equity payouts and issuance. If remaining challenges are addressed, capital regulation can be a powerful tool for enhancing the role of banks in the economy."

Keywords: Financial Institutions, Capital Structure, "Too Big To Fail"

..."Study the roots of our new tech economy, and you’ll find that it differs in important ways from the Internet bubble of the ’90s. That blip was fed by the promise of future billions that we were certain to realize from the web economy. Today’s tech industry, on the other hand, feeds off of three megatrends that are already minting billions by revolutionizing every sector of the global economy, including healthcare, manufacturing, energy, media, and advertising. The first of these trends is the transition from hulking desktop PCs to ubiquitous mobile devices that allow tech firms—most notably Bay Area behemoths Apple, Google, and Facebook—to address their customers’ desires at a proximity never before achievable. The second is the rising urge to incorporate software into every corner of our lives: from booking restaurants (OpenTable), to hailing cabs (Uber), to searching for jobs (LinkedIn), to adjusting our home heating and cooling systems (Nest), to paying for everything (Square, PayPal), to finding a room anywhere in the world (Airbnb). Third is our full-throated embrace of personalized services—from algorithmically determined TV programming (YouTube, Netflix) to geographically targeted advertising (Google, Facebook, Twitter)—that are fueled by ever-larger storehouses of data collected through our mobile gadgets. And all of these forces amplify one another. More mobile devices make for more personal data, which allow for better personalized software that we use more often, which in turn makes mobile devices more attractive—and on and on in a gilded upward spiral." Source: San Francisco Magazine

click here to read the whole article in the San Francisco Magazine

Keywords: Technology, Innovation, Tech Boom

“‘Your No. 1 client is the government,’ John J. Mack, Morgan Stanley MS +0.75%‘s chairman and chief executive from 2005 to 2009, told current CEO James Gorman in a recent phone call. Mr. Gorman, who was visiting Washington that day, agreed.” – Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2013.

The five year anniversary of the ‘financial crisis’ has predictably generated all manner of commentary about its presumed causes. What’s most unfortunate five years later is that ‘financial’ and ‘crisis’ are still used together. It’s unfortunate simply because despite what you read, the crisis was decidedly not financial, nor was it caused by a crackup in the housing market, nor was it caused by the failure of Lehman Brothers. read more in Forbes

Keywords: Financial Crisis, Great Depression, Government, Banking Sector, Government and Market Distortions