The Great Debate UK
Peering into a murky crystal ball for 2010
-Jeremy Batstone-Carr is director of private client research at Charles Stanley. The opinions expressed are his own.-
It’s that time of year again! The time of year in which the writer’s desk, never a pretty sight at the best of times, becomes clogged with the product of the investment community’s crystal ball gazing.
Needless to say the vast majority is effusive in its enthusiasm for risk assets (turkeys don’t vote for Christmas) and makes an aggressive and fairly convincing case as to why equity markets will never go down again…ever!
However, for the Bob Cratchits of this world (well, our office Christmas party was cancelled) life just isn’t like that. Most investors have learned the hard way that trees don’t grow up to the sky and share prices can go down as well as up.
The EU and Hedge Funds: silencing the dog that didn’t bark
- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School and a co-author of “Verdict on the Crash” published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own. -
We could see it coming, couldn’t we? Those gigantic over-leveraged hedge funds were bound to come crashing down, as their massive bets turned sour, forcing them to default on their bank loans and bringing the banking system to its knees.
from The Great Debate:
Active funds, more high-paid value destroyers
-- James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
While they have avoided the opprobrium heaped on bankers during the bear market, traditional active fund managers have quietly been proving that they too are often highly paid destroyers of value.
Active managers have few bushes left to hide behind, and the release of a new report from Standard & Poor's uproots one of the few left: that somehow they provide protection during down markets, being able to go into cash and defensive stocks.
