How to Profit From Hedge Funds

Thirty-one members of the 2014 Forbes 400 derived their fortunes from running hedge funds.

How the Wealthy Commuted to Wall Street, 1937

British Patthé has put a treasure trove of old films on YouTube. Here's a sample.

A 65% Estate Tax For Billionaires?

While Republicans work to again reduce the top federal estate tax rate to zero, Senator Bernie Saunders counters with an even more unlikely proposal: an estate tax with rates ranging from 40% (for estates of $3.5-$10 million) to 65% (for estates over $1 billion).

Joseph B. Thorndike comments, "It’s one thing to ask rich people to pay more of the cost of government. It’s another thing entirely to tell those rich people that they are just too damn rich."

The estate-tax charitable deduction now allows wealth to stay in the family by flowing tax free into family foundations. To redistribute billionaire estates through taxation, the deduction would have to go. Can you see that happening?

University Endowments Record Double-Digit Returns

Yale's endowment recorded a 20.2% investment return for the fiscal year ending June 30, keeping up with the torrid pace set by the S&P 500.

Reported results from other university endowments:

Dartmouth, 19.2%

MIT, 19.2%

Penn, 17.5%

Harvard, 15.4%

Originally this post erroneously credited Dartmouth's results to Brown.

Passive Investing vs. Pricey Investing

Vanguard Reaches $3 Trillion In Assets, Matching Entire Hedge-Fund Industry

Background on the inversion mania

From the Tax Analysts blog, which I believe is open to the public. Key takeaway:

Here is the ultimate irony in the story: Investment bankers hired by a foreign multinational confronting acquisition by a U.S. corporation alerted the administration, the politicians, and the country to the imperatives of “economic patriotism.”

It was all part of AstraZeneca's defense against a hostile takeover.

It's Not Easy Being Fiduciary

The NY Times reports on the plight of two Deutsche Bank private bankers who were forced out because they balked at pushing DB products – notably, a fund of funds. (Funds of funds answer the perceived demand for investment products that carry even higher annual expenses than regular hedge funds.)

According to this petition to the Supreme Court of the State of New York – we don't have DB's side of the story – the two found "staying fiduciary" was a losing battle.

As big banks try to grow bigger, sales tends to overwhelm service. One result: a marketing opportunity for smaller, fiduciary-minded institutions. 

Impact Investing

Investing to Make a Difference Is Gaining Ground.

Perils of Going Public, Performed Way Off Broadway

"Trading Practices," a participatory production performed in an old building on New York's Governors Island, dramatizes the rise and fall of a family business. The NY Times finds the show "resourceful, whimsical and wearing."

Too bad the production had to open this summer, just after the upheaval at a New England supermarket chain demonstrated that truth trumps fiction. (Rumors that a top tunesmith-lyricist duo has started work on "Market Basket, The Musical," could not immediately be confirmed.)

Investors Are Only Human

The Strange Allure of Higher Fees.

1954: So Near And Yet . . .

Sixty years ago Container Corp. was running ads featuring contemporary artworks. Some still look pretty cool. This one, for instance, with a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt by Joseph Hirsch.

By contrast, this 1954 Bankers Trust ad shows every one of its 60 years. A married woman with business judgment? Tax savvy? Foresight? Financial literacy? How unthinkable!

Give BT a little credit, though. It was willing to settle for a co-executorship.