Mutual fund investors adore Morningstar. The Chicago firm publishes rankings for most of the funds that have lasted for three years or more. It awards anywhere from five stars (top rung) to one star (the cellar), based on past performance, minus sales loads and adjusted for risk.
Money pours into the four- and five-star funds. They’re [...]
Goldman Sachs is the gift that keeps on giving. Financial reform was getting as watered down as a carafe of cheap wine until the SEC charged Goldman with fraud. That put Wall Street’s owned-and-operated Senators on the defensive. Maybe—just maybe—Jill and Joe Investor will catch a break. Brokers might have to be more careful about [...]
I’ve written before about the risks in individual stocks. A company can look fine, but you never know what’s going on inside it. Nor can you predict outside events that could drag it down.
Latest cases in point: BP, now fighting a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, after one of its leased rigs [...]
