The initial public offering market is showing signs of life again. And the optimism following the strong debuts for Reddit and AI cloud infrastructure company Astera Labs appears to be spreading. Case in point: A closed-end fund that invests in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Fortnite maker Epic Games, OpenAI, fintech giants Stripe and Chime and other
A well-articulated sell strategy—and the discipline to stick with it—are among the most important qualities a patient investor can have, but they’re often overlooked. Most investors can explain why they bought a stock, but few can say, before they buy a stock, what would cause them to sell it. The managers of the MFS International
Tax day is almost here, and, thanks to higher interest rates, many investors are finding they earned a lot more income from their portfolios in 2023—and now they owe the government a piece of it. “That’s a good thing,” says Mary Ellen Stanek, co-chief investment officer at Baird Asset Management. “But it means investors need
Egypt, the Middle Eastern giant with a population of 114 million, is too big to fail, particularly at this moment. The United Arab Emirates, International Monetary Fund, and European Union forcefully underlined this point over the past week, pledging some $40 billion in investments and loans. President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s government responded with drama
Commission-based “load” mutual funds and the financial advisors who still sell them seem passé, like riding a horse and buggy to reach your investment goal instead of a zippy new exchange-traded fund. Yet there are excellent load funds run by top fund managers at big shops. Of the 10 largest mutual fund families, six have
Successful small-cap growth-stock fund managers have a problem. Rapidly growing small companies tend not to stay small for long. They become midsize companies that the manager has to sell. To solve this problem, managers invented the curiously named “smid-cap” fund category that holds both small- and mid-cap stocks. One of the first and best funds
Goodbye shock therapy. Hello, chain saw austerity. That’s the label Argentine President Javier Milei’s detractors have devised for his dynamic first month in power. Investors are pleased, so far. “The probability of success for Milei is larger than of failure,” says Alejo Czerwonko, chief investment officer for emerging markets Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management.
Optimism over artificial intelligence powered the stock market in 2023. It also helped some sustainable funds turn in a surprisingly strong performance. Based on data from Morningstar Direct, the top five sustainable U.S. equity mutual funds in Barron’s annual survey outperformed the S&P 500 index, returning an average 35% against a gain of 26%, including
Walt Disney is caught in a contentious battle with multiple activist investors. Shareholders should come out ahead no matter who the winner is. Right now, there are no fewer than four activists taking aim at the House of Mouse. That should come as no surprise given that Disney stock has lost more than half its