As a handful of brave souls find out every four years, running for President of the United States generally involves opening up your personal life to intense examination by opponents, the media, and general public. Generally, the scrutiny focuses on personal histories–arrests, affairs, and lawsuits make for juicy reading. But being a public servant can also mean opening up your financial records to the public–especially if you’re potentially in a position to profit from insider information on regulatory developments.
A recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal revealed the unusual composition of the portfolio held by Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate who is known as a critic of the Federal Reserve and opponent of big government. The asset management strategies of the Texas Congressman, who is also a physician, are anything but traditional. Paul’s portfolio, which he indicated was worth between $2.4 million and $5.5 million, has little in the way of large cap stocks or U.S. Treasuries. Instead, his bets are primarily geared to perform well in the event that the U.S. economy collapses or inflation accelerates–meaning that his personal portfolio is largely consistent with his political views. [click to continue…]
First, the good news: all those fears about runaway inflation following from the massive injections of capital into financial markets appear to have been overblown. Now for the bad news: the alternative may be much worse. For months wary investors have been eagerly watching CPI reports, fearful of the release indicating that price increases are [...]
March 9 may very well go on to become a day that lives in infamy, the point at which the U.S. stock markets bottomed out and the economy turned the corner. To this point, it looks to be the point at which investors finally put the worst recession in a generation behind them and a [...]
It’s been an interesting week in the world of ETFs: U.S. unemployment hit 10.2%, the highest since 1983, while gold traded around $1100/oz. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web:
by Andy H on November 5, 2009 | Updated June 24, 2010
As the stock market continues to rise, seemingly running ahead of fundamentals, more and more investors are becoming concerned that the stocks are becoming overvalued, and that a downward correction may be just around the corner. While safe haven investments such as the U.S. dollar and gold are popular picks for investors looking to profit [...]
In the week during which the Obama administration will unveil details surrounding its plan to revamp the regulation of the U.S. financial sector, calls for increased oversight of the ETF industry are picking up steam as well. Scott Burns, director of ETF Analysis at Morningstar, recently laid out a case for increased regulatory requirements for ETFs [...]
Deutsche Bank announced it is expanding its ETF product offering in France, launching 14 new ETFs under its “db x-trackers” line. The new funds, which will be listed on NYSE Euronext’ Paris exchange, are significant because they represent the introduction of several new features to the French ETF market.
