Financial News

02 February 2018

Hannah Murphy and Philip Stafford

The word blockchain has been the equivalent of financial fairy dust in recent weeks, adding tens of millions of dollars to the market value of companies, including former camera pioneer Kodak Eastman, that have announced a project involving the technology or simply added it to their names.

28 January 2018

Owen Walker

Pension schemes that used active fund managers over the past quarter of a century were rewarded . . . but only by 16p a year for every £100 they invested.

by Aime Williams 29 December 2017

 After years of bankers bearing the brunt of political criticism over executive pay, housebuilders look poised to take centre stage as the new villains.

01 November 2017

Source: Newspaper

Boards will always need to apply judgment and a sense of proportion.

30 October 2017

By Rana Foroohar, Source: Newspaper

Does corporate governance matter? Or, to be more precise, do investors really care about it? This is a question that I have been pondering for two reasons. First, huge amounts of passive investment has made questions about corporate decision making irrelevant for many investors. When you are just tracking the index, you are not looking at what a company is really doing on the ground and whether its leaders are making the right calls. You are simply passing the buck to the market.

14 October 2017

By John Authers, Source: Newspaper

 Markets are suffering from a serious case of passive aggression. Or at least that is what many now believe.

Passive investing - in which funds merely match an index and make no active attempt to choose stocks or other securities - has transformed markets over the past 25 years. In the US more than a third of stock funds assets are passive, while index funds dominate flows of new money into the market.

11 October 2017

By Chris Giles in Washington, Source: FT.com

Central bankers usurped the titans of Wall Street as the masters of the universe almost a decade ago. They rescued the global economy from the financial crisis, flooding the world with cheap money. They used their powers effectively to get banks lending again. Their actions raised asset prices, keeping business and consumer confidence up. Financial markets and populations hang on their words. But never have they been so vulnerable.

25 September 2017

By Robin Wigglesworth, Source: Newspaper

 For the past decade, cheap index funds have outperformed the vast majority of equity managers. But as central banks withdraw money from the financial system, active investors believe it is their moment.

04 September 2017

By James Kynge, Source: Newspaper 

Funds that uphold ‘environmental, social and governance’ standards tend to outperform those that do not. Investors from Swiss Re to large pension funds are taking notice, so does it pay to be ethical?

02 September 2017

By Attracta Mooney, Source: FT.com

The world's biggest investors rebelled more at company meetings globally this year compared with last year, as asset managers came under mounting pressure to tackle businesses over high pay, board diversity and bad management.

17 August 2017

By Dan McCrum, Source: Newspaper

By many measurements, today’s stock markets are overvalued. Yet amid the flood of central bank money, investors are struggling to work out when or if a crash will come and have rationalised the high prices.

 24 May 2017

By Tom Gosling, Source: FT.com

"High and unwarranted executive pay is an issue that needs to be addressed for the benefit of society as a whole." So said the UK parliament's business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) select committee in its recent report on corporate governance, reflecting the mood of the times.