March 2003

Handpicked: Separately Managed Accounts Can Offer Advantages Over Mutual Funds, but Watch Those Fees

As the popularity of mutual funds waned in response to a variety of factors, most notably perhaps the end of a product life cycle, Separately Managed Accounts caught fire. Spurred on by rapidly lowering investment minimums, assets in SMAs were closing in on $500 billion as 2003 came to a close. Barron’s took my advice to cover this emerging trend and hired me to write a primer on SMAs.

A Who’s Who of Independent Research

In the wake of the “global settlement” — the April 2003 agreement among 10 investment banking firms and the Securities and Exchange Commission — brokers, advisors and investors soon will find lots more independent research reports on their desks.

Early Harvest Bountiful for Investors

In the early summber of 2003, investors were seeing something they hadn’t for a very long time: stock market gains. Changes in the tax laws regarding capital gains, and a desire not to repeat the past leads to that most uncommon of Wall Street cries: Se

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