Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
LewisBraham
Hi Hank,
Your satire came across very well. Don't worry about the user name.
Best,
Lewis
@davidrmoran
RICHARD
Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.
(shows his arm)
Look how I am bewitched! Behold mine arm
Is like a blasted sapling withered up;
And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet …
@shostakovich That depends on how you define legit. There are a lot of activities a business can engage in that are perfectly legal that are still signs of bad corporate governance and mismanagement. Much of Valeant's business I think is legal. The …
The thing is the argument that climate change science is the product of "religious zealots" is a classic rhetorical inversion. Such inversions have their origin with Roger Ailes and Roy Cohn. It is the same inversion tactic that allows for the white…
At its peak Valeant wasn't anything close to being a value stock or a safe one. It was a debt laden ethically compromised company with nosebleed valuations. Amazon, though a strong business, can hardly be called a value stock either by any stretch o…
Interesting development in this regard in the fund world. Schroders runs $520 billion, not small potatoes:
https://ft.com/content/ba3bb744-688a-11e7-9a66-93fb352ba1fe
Or try this if access is difficult:
https://google.com/search?site=&source=h…
Thank you. There was some text that had to be left out for space reasons. One thing was how there is a fee model I think that is more objective than either commission-based or fee-based advice. That is a retainer fee in which the client pays the fin…
@lssegal The problem I have with your "I'm not a scientist" statement is it sounds too familiar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_not_a_scientist
https://nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/why-republicans-keep-telling-everyone-theyre-not-scientists.html…
@lssegal The climate doesn't care about anyone's politics:
https://nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump.html
The changes wrought by carbon emissions will affect every sector of the economy and all of life on earth, …
Ah unions, the old conservative bugaboo. The only problem is they're dying and now have very little power. Only one in ten Americans is unionized and it's one in fifteen in the private sector: https://fastcompany.com/3005101/unions-are-dying-what-co…
I've spoken to a few lawyers about non-competes before and it's true state laws vary considerably about their enforcement and scope. More often than not it is a scare tactic to intimidate workers as you said, MSF. California, North Dakota and Oklaho…
It's an interesting issue as the notion of free labor in economics as opposed to slave labor requires at least some freedom of mobility from employer to employer at will. That mobility could and one might argue should not be geographically bound to …
@Maurice I was expecting you to say that. After the last ugly tribalist war that almost destroyed humanity occurred, people thought differently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Adoption
In Europe one of those basi…
I'm not even sure nation states really exist anymore--certainly not in the way they did back in the last bout of anti-immigrant hysteria. Borders don't exist for most corporations. Why should they for labor? More than half of Coca-Cola's business is…
The thing is with the Internet being such a convenient and inexpensive way to shop, to succeed in retail companies have to do the opposite of what Kmart and Fast Eddie have done. Companies have to make shopping a truly pleasant experience with uniqu…
To understand how speculative stock investing really is, I always find it instructive to look at the par value of a company when it's issuing shares of stock. This is for Facebook in 2014 when it was going to list some shares:
https://sec.gov/Archiv…
Not sure why this is deemed unacceptable while posting about Dunkirk is OK. Both are about the entertainment industry and have nothing to do with mutual funds.
@OldJoe
Yes, I am saying that me-first philosophy filtered down to how the stores were run and essentially destroyed the business. As the articles I posted state, Lampert has been slowly sucking the company dry via buybacks for the benefit of shar…
The plot thickens:
m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_597b6e06e4b02a8434b63e5a
From the article:
While preparing for his move into government, Scaramucci struck a deal — which is still under regulatory scrutiny — to sell his stake in his hedge fund, SkyBri…
@Ted That's pretty funny. I keep thinking of Seinfeld's Jimmy who refers to himself in the third person and, of course, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Given his name, it seems highly likely that one of Mooch's ancestors played the fool in the Commedia d…
New Yorkers like to curse. I'll be honest. The thing that's so disappointing about Mooch and his boss is how bad they are at it. At least if they could get someone who was good at the dozens it would be more interesting.
Also, he refers to himself…
Now he's comparing Obamacare to slavery and Trump to Lincoln trying to abolish it:
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/27/trump-battle-obamacare-reminds-scaramucci-lincolns-fight-abolish-slavery
And here I thought it was the fiduciary rule th…
Good to see Mooch is already fostering a collegial environment among the White House staff:
https://nytimes.com/2017/07/25/us/politics/scaramucci-on-white-house-leaks-fire-everybody.html?src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=…
@Jojo26
The RBC study you referenced looks at the KLD 400 Index. According to MSCI, the index's owner: "The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index is maintained in two stages. First, securities of companies involved in Nuclear Power, Tobacco, Alcohol, Gambling,…
@JoJo26 I hate to say this but the data mining is largely on the other side at this point. The single study you point to looks at one index. In DB's case in the original report I linked to DB looked at over 100 studies and found a consistent pattern…
@Crash I think boycotts can be highly effective from a consumer level of company products, but less so from a shareholder one. If the nuns don't own Exxon's shares, someone else will. I would rather my socially responsible funds have a seat at the t…
@JoJo26
There is no strong evidence that supports ESG outperforming.
There absolutely has been strong evidence for many years:
https://db.com/cr/en/docs/Sustainable_Investing_2012.pdf
This is specifically for the model I'm describing of ranking by E…
What's interesting and not many people understand is there are two important kinds of socially responsible investing. In one version, many call the old model, certain sectors are completely excluded from the portfolio--oil, weapons, tobacco, etc. Th…
@Maurice Yes, except reductive binary arguments--sustainable/unsustainable--are false childish ones. We live in a world of scales and spectrum and there are many shades of grey between sustainable and unsustainable. Last I heard muni bonds weren't u…
@Maurice
If investments were truly socially responsible, then they wouldn't invest in anything related to capitalism. Therefore the only thing left to invest in is government. But no profits, dividends or capital gains there.
I believe Treasury bon…
@Davidrmoran There are obvious differences between these politicians. What I am saying is Mooch's once supporting Dems doesn't strike me as a sign of moderation but more so a hedge fund manager's expedience. (Or does expedience count as moderation …
