(New York)

Markets sold off in a big way when new of the government’s antitrust push against the FANGS came out. The stocks lost $130 bn of value. However, the reaction may be overblown, with each stock needing to be assessed on its own merits, as the antitrust picture would look different for each of them. A managing partner at Andreesen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms, makes an interesting point, saying “The big challenge with these antitrust things is, it’s not obvious what the consumer harm is today”.

FINSUM: We think that point is very salient, as given the fact that it is hard to assert how consumers are being harmed, we expect the ultimate output of these investigations may be relatively light touch (such as a GDPR-like regulation).

(Washington)

Brokers around the country had a very positive reaction to the new version of the SEC’s Best Interest Rule which was approved last week. One of the reasons why, other than the generally light-touch direction of the regulation, is that the new rule seems to suggest that a broker can always be confident in putting money into an IRA when considering a rollover. However, the SEC has just warned brokers against this quick conclusion, saying they cannot short-circuit their analysis.

FINSUM: The way the new rule was structured seemed almost too good to be true for advisors as it appeared to heavily favor rollovers into IRAs. More analysis of the rule will be forthcoming over the next week.

(New York)

With all of the volatility of the last months, bond ETFs are taking on a new life. As an asset class, bond ETFs have surged in popularity in recent years as a much easier and cheaper way of accessing bond market liquidity. Recently, bond ETFs have seen their role morph. Whereas they have often been seen as a safe haven from periods of volatility, they are now being used as a risk management tool, says the head of iShares U.S. Wealth Advisory Product Consulting at BlackRock.

FINSUM: So many of the newer bond ETFs are designed to thrive in volatile markets, not just provide a low volatility safe haven. This means they are more of a proactive than reactive product.

(New York)

If you follow Warren Buffett at all, you will know that one of his main investing philosophies is to buy companies with a wide moat, or a major defensive position in their industry which blocks competitors from grabbing market share. It seems second nature to want to invest in such stocks, however, research suggests they may not perform as well as one would think. The reason why is that wide-moat stocks are often very popular, which means they get overpriced as investors pile in. Because of this, companies that consumers love often have returns that lag lesser companies. “Great companies don’t always make great investments”, says the CIO of retirement for Morningstar Investment Management.

FINSUM: This is a really a matter of timing. At some point these popular companies see a big run up in their stock, so it is more a matter of buying them early than saying they underperform.

(New York)

Jay Powell, head of the Fed, has been working on a year-long project to overhaul one of the Fed’s most important goals. That goal is full employment. The Fed only has two mandates, stable prices in the economy, and maximum employment. Yet the definition of maximum employment is now up for debate. At the core of the consideration is the idea that having a job is different than having a good job. The difference between the two means the Fed may use a different calculation for measuring employment. That potential change has huge implications, as it would likely lead to looser monetary policy both in the immediate future and further out.

FINSUM: We think there is a big difference between the quality of different jobs in the economy which needs to be accounted for by the Fed. The current way of measuring employment was designed when most jobs were permanent and full-time, but with the rise of the gig economy, measuring methods need to shift to account for the changing nature of the labor market.