Wall Street
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Don’t Be A Wall Street Patsy
You want to know the truth? The truth is that Wall Street has stacked the deck against you.
That's why you need to understand how the game is played. Otherwise you'll end up a Wall Street patsy.
So, here's the truth along with some lessons that will help you play the game like a pro.
First, though, we'll need to debunk a few myths…
Let's start with the myth that the Street lowered brokerage charges for the benefit of retail investors. At one time, these fees used to be obscenely high and fixed.
But, on May 1, 1975, fixed commissions were abolished after brash upstarts like Charles Schwab and disgruntled investors decided to attack The Street's price-fixing schemes.
The negotiated commissions regime that followed lowered the cost of access to the stock market, essentially ushering in the era of the "individual investor."
The influx of these individual investors, many of whom didn't have enough money to create diversified portfolios, soon became a boon for mutual funds – which have since grown like weeds in an untended sod farm.
Wall Street Changed the Game
Since the commission business was no longer profitable, Wall Street moved its retail business to an "assets under management" model.
So instead of making money on commissions the game changed to gathering as many assets as you could into a retail investor's account and charging a fee to "manage" them; in other words, just watch them.
That's one of the reasons why Wall Street advocates a "buy and hold" strategy for retail investors. They don't want you to take those assets away from them.
It's the same thing with mutual funds.
And conveniently, if your broker puts you into mutual funds that are losers, it's not your broker's fault.
Now, it's the mutual fund manager's fault. That way the broker can't be blamed if your account loses money.
Instead, your broker can tell you, "Don't fire me, let's fire the mutual fund manager and let's find you a better fund to invest in. But, no matter what happens, we need to buy and hold and not try and time the market."
That's what retail investors are told to do over and over and over again.
But guess what? That's definitely not what Wall Street firms do.
In fact, while you're being told to buy and hold, exchange specialists, market-makers, hedge funds and every trading desk at every Wall Street bank and firm are busy trading.
Some individual investors began to see how Wall Street was really making its money and started trading themselves.
Of course, that only increased the competition for easy trades as more retail investors traded in and out of stocks.
To continue their advantage over the public, Wall Street fought to do away with the uptick rule. The rule was wiped out so traders could short sell any stock at any time.
But it's the big Wall Street players who benefit from the rule change because they can use their huge capital positions and work with each other to drive down stocks they have shorted.
Who gets hurt? The buy-and-hold retail investors who are told to buy more at lower prices are the ones who get fleeced.
And, who is selling to them?…
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The Markets or the Mattress: I Know Where My Money is Going
The next 1,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in either direction are going to be determined by what happens in two cities thousands of miles from our own shores…
Athens and Berlin.
What's more, the risks associated with Europe's redemption, or its failure, are more concentrated now than they were before the crisis began.
There are two reasons: a) Europe won't help itself and b) Wall Street may still have $1 trillion or more in exposure to European problems.
What makes me crazy right now is that European chatter is what's driving the markets.
Every sound bite from Europe is critical these days. Not because there is anything relevant in the political babbling from financial ministers tasked with fixing this mess, but rather that there is a cascade of events that could take us in either direction.
Fix this mess and the markets will take off for a 1,000 point gain that will leave anybody who is on the sidelines hopelessly behind.
Fail and the markets could tank.
It certainly fits the pattern established in recent months. News leaks suggesting solutions have brought on rallies, while negative leaks have caused a ripple effect that has quickly dumped stocks into the hopper.
Yet, it's not really the numbers that matter at the moment – even with the Fed rumored to be considering another $1 trillion stimulus and reports that the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be seeking as much as $600 billion each.
No. The market swings we are seeing are all about confidence or, more specifically, the near complete lack thereof.
The Mattress vs. The Markets
A recent report from TrimTabs shows that checking and savings accounts attracted eight-times the money that stock, bond and mutual funds did from January to November 2011.
That is a whopping $889 billion that went under "the mattresses" versus only $109 billion that went into the markets.
In fact, CNBC is reporting that the pace of money headed for plain-Jane savings and checking accounts from September to November accelerated to nearly 13-times the average monthly flow rate of the preceding nine months from September to November.
What's significant about this is that the money has headed for the sidelines when the markets have rallied. Usually it's the other way around. Normally money floods into the markets when they move higher.
The other notable thing here is that, generally speaking, up days this year have had thinner volume than down days. This means that most investors just can't handle the swings. In other words, every time the markets dip, they're packing it in.
Pessimism is the Breeding Ground of Opportunity
Bottom line: Investors are making a gigantic mistake – especially those with a longer-term perspective.
The Gilded Age of Wall Street Remains Intact
For decades, Wall Street offered the allure of big league paydays and behind-the-scenes power.
But since the 2008 financial crisis there's been a growing sense – or even hope – that The Street's stride had been broken. After all, demand for a financial system overhaul, regulatory reform, and a crackdown on Wall Street pay must take some toll.
Not hardly. Wall Street hasn't changed its ways and it never will.
Take it from a man who has spent decades on The Street, seeing everything firsthand.
Money Morning Capital Wave Strategist and retired hedge-fund manager Shah Gilani says that in the short-term, firms will have to deal with new rules and slimmer paychecks, but ultimately, they will still find a way to prosper.
"The bloom is off the rose and Wall Street is showing its thornier side, but the Street is still paved with gold," said Gilani. "On any relative basis, unless you're a rock star, star athlete or Hollywood heavy, there's no place like Wall Street to make your fortune. That's not going to change any time soon."
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These Three Men Represent Everything That's Wrong with Wall Street
I've already expressed my desire to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I said last week that I would join in whole-heartedly if I knew exactly what the protesters were trying to achieve.
But I don't know – and I'm not convinced they do, either.
Still, that doesn't mean we should dismiss them entirely. After all, there are millions of Americans who sense there's something terribly wrong with our capitalist system, but they can't pinpoint exactly what it is either.
But I can.
Bad actors have done bad things to good institutions and our capitalist system. Today, I'm going to let you in on who three of those bad actors are.
You see, part of the problem is that when we think of the "bad guys" on Wall Street, or in Washington for that matter, we don't often think of specific people. We talk about "them" as faceless men we might imagine sitting in luxurious high-rises chewing on cigars and laughing as they rake in millions, or even billions of dollars on the backs of hardworking Americans.
I intend to fix that. I want to shed light on the faces of the people who are gaming the system and lay out before you the tools they're using to get away with it.
So, I'm going to start today with three of the biggest perpetrators of the mess we're in.
The Three Bears
There are hundreds of bad actors on Wall Street, but three in particular tell the inside story of how appallingly corrupt our country has become. They are:
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From Rogues to Riches: How ETFs are Lining Wall Street's Pockets – While Picking Yours
Maybe you didn't know that the rogue trader at UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) who lost $2.3 billion last week was trading exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Or that Jerome Kerviel, another rogue trader at Societe Generale SA (PINK ADR: SCGLY) who lost $7.2 billion in 2008, was trading ETFs.
Maybe you didn't know that ETF trading accounts for 35% to 40% of all exchange volume, according to Morningstar Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN).
Maybe you didn't know that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the Bank of England (BOE) are each concerned that ETFs pose potential systemic risks.
Maybe what you don't know can actually hurt you.
ETFs: Growing Popularity, Growing Danger?
Just when you thought that exchange-traded funds were a simple, smart and safe way to diversify out of underperforming stock-and-bond mutual funds, along comes reality.
What these regulators and financial- stability oversight agencies are increasingly worried about is whether Wall Street's presumed good intention in creating these hugely popular investment vehicles is being undermined by unintended consequences.
But, let's not forget, we're talking about Wall Street, where unintended consequences are a rarity. The reality is that ETFs were originally conceived – and are increasingly being engineered – to ratchet up trading for the Street's own benefit.
And while you may not think that affects your investing or trading of ETFs, or your portfolio-diversification plans, you'll be surprised – and maybe even alarmed – to learn that you're wrong.
Let me explain …
Instruments of Diversification … Or Disaster?
ETFs started out as tradable alternatives to mutual funds. Initially, product portfolios consisted of stocks, or baskets of stocks, that replicated such key indexes as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor's 500, or the Nasdaq Composite Index.
The idea was to offer products that mirrored benchmarks – and that traded all day, like stocks. The tradability of these instruments offers effective liquidity that conventional mutual funds lack , with the added benefit that ETFs would also be easy to short.
Product offerings multiplied quickly. In addition to exchange-traded funds based on stocks, product sponsors created ETFs that replicated oil-and-gas, gold-and-silver and diversified-commodities portfolios – all of which were based on futures contracts.
A lot of ETFs started out as a cheaper alternative to futures trading. Futures traders must cover high initial-margin deposits. And positions are marked-to-market daily, which requires immediate additional margin coverage when losses arise. The upshot: f utures trading is too expensive and too volatile for investors who are used to traditional stock market investing.
Today, investors can find exchange-traded funds that offer exposure to all kinds of risk instruments – from currencies and bonds, to thin slices of the yield curve and volatility. And there are even "leveraged" and "inverse" ETFs that multiply risk exposure and allow traders to make all kinds of directional bets.
Miracle on Wall Street: Will a "Santa Claus Rally" Bring Christmas Cheer to Investors?
Seasonal market indicators are often spotty, but the so-called "Santa Claus rally" has some solid statistical backing.
The Santa Claus rally lacks a concrete definition, but the gist of the theory is that stocks perform well in December – particularly in the period between Christmas and the first days of the New Year.
Indeed, December traditionally has been the best month for U.S. stocks. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has posted positive returns in December 77% of the time since World War II, compared to 59% for all 12 months.
Wall Street Bonuses Will Cost Us All in the Long Run
Wall Street firms may not be reaping the record-breaking revenues of 2004-2007, but they're paying themselves the lofty bonuses of that lavish era – and they're doing it at our expense and with the government's blessing.
Wall Street's pay packages, including bonuses, are set to total 4% more in 2010 than in the already record year of 2009, The Wall Street Journal recently reported.
I yield to nobody in respect for the investment banking business – having served as an investment banker for 27 years – but these salaries and bonuses derive from U.S. Federal Reserve subsidies, and are mostly being taken out of the hide of the rest of us.
Wall Street's record bonuses come out of bank earnings that have been pretty robust, though not necessarily record-breaking. This is mainly the result of two Fed subsidies:
To find out how you're paying for Wall Street excess and how the economy stands to lose read on…
What We Can Learn From The Stock Market Genius That Wall Street Loves to Ignore
[Editor's Note: There's a reason Money Morning's Martin Hutchinson is so good at anticipating changes in the global financial markets - he has an intimate understanding of market history. Many of those insights are detailed in his new book, "Alchemists of Loss," in which he also profiles some of the leading thinkers throughout history. One of the most brilliant was stock-market genius Benoit B. Mandelbrot, the subject of today's column.]
Mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractal geometry, died Oct. 14.
As mathematicians go, Mandelbrot was very likely the best of the last half-century. And that brilliance extended to the financial markets. In fact, his groundbreaking insights into the operations of the stock market could have been used to avert the 2008 crash – had those insights only been heeded.
But Mandelbrot – for all his stock market genius – has been largely ignored by Wall Street.
As investors, let's not make the same mistake.
To understand how to profit from Mandelbrot's insights, please read on…
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