UK's First Bitcoin Heist: a Midsomer Mystery

Moulsford, Oxfordshire

The English village of Moulsford, the setting for several Midsomer Murders, just experienced the UK's first Bitcoin robbery. Four hooded men in black broke into a cyber-currency trader's house, tied up his wife, and forced him to transfer "a fortune in Bitcoin" to them.

The Thames Valley Police are investigating, although without the help of Detective Inspector Barnaby. 

The Guys Who Give Tulips a Bad Name

Christian Day, a professor at Syracuse University law school…has written about bubbles and panics. He said that comparing Bitcoin to the tulip craze was unfair to tulips…. 

            – John Schwartz in The New York Times

Those of us who find cryptocurrency mania difficult to fathom can learn from Nellie Bowles' fascinating sketches of the young guys who are busy creating cryptocurrency investment opportunities in San Francisco.  (Not that 20-somethings appear young in that milieu. See Bowles' earlier magazine piece on the city's teenage techies.)

Worried that clients will lose their shirts on Bitcoin or alternative cryptocurrencies? Then suggest they buy a sweater for emergency use. Hodlmoon.com will provide one stitched with the logo of whatever cryptocoinage they're betting on.

Bring Back the Three Martini Lunch!

OK, full disclosure. Even in his young, Mad Men days your obedient blogger could never do more than one martini. I don't even like martinis. But I'd happily quaff one at a business lunch rather than go with the new flow –  wooing clients at cardio workouts.

Sorta, Kinda But Maybe Not Really Fiduciary

Some investment advisers are fiduciaries, others sell products. Telling the difference has never been easy.

Leading discount brokers, for instance,  invite investors to talk with representatives who aren't paid commissions. Does that make them fiduciaries? Not in the view of The Wall Street Journal.

Investors who seek advice from discount brokerage firms might assume the counsel they get is impartial, given how these firms have rejected the old Wall Street model of working on commissions.

In fact, advisers at some of the biggest discount brokerage firms make more money if they steer clients toward more-expensive products, according to disclosures from the firms and people who used to work at them. That means customers could end up with investment products and services that are costlier than they need.

Fidelity's reps, for instance, get a small cut (0.04%) when a customer buys ETFs. Their financial incentive is more than twice as great (0.10%) if they sell managed accounts or annuities. Reps especially proficient at directing customers to pricey products get bonuses.

Fidelity, Schwab and TD Ameritrade all pay incentives to representatives for referring clients to registered investment advisers. "These advisers charge clients an annual percentage of their assets, and the discount brokerage firms receive up to 0.25% annually on assets committed to the advisers."

This year, at long last,  the SEC is expected to weigh in on the fiduciary issue. But the emphasis appears to be on disclosure rather than behavior. (Why should brokers call themselves "financial advisers"?) Knut A. Rostad of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard asks, "Are commercial sales rules increasingly redefining the very meaning of fiduciary advice?"