(New York)

Vanguard, one of the preeminent global fund managers, has just gone on the record warning about a big and growing danger for ETFs. Vanguard says that “predators” are increasingly front-running ETFs at the expense of legitimate investors. Because most ETFs disclose their daily holdings, and are benchmarked to an index, they are susceptible to manipulation by those who trade ahead of the reconciliation. Vanguard hopes that regulators will not approve new rules which would demand even greater transparency in the ETF marketplace, as this could worsen the problem. Vanguard currently only discloses its holdings with a one-month lag to mitigate frontrunning, but could be forced to do so on a daily basis.

FINSUM: This is one of the areas of markets where transparency may actual work counter to the interests of the everyday investor.

(New York)

Investors have been waiting anxiously for a downturn in stocks for several months. In recent weeks the nervousness had risen as we had seemed to reach a period of “melt up”. However, the market has fallen considerably over the last couple of days, including the S&P 500 falling over 1% yesterday. The question is whether the tide is finally turning following the rise in concern over surging bond yields.

FINSUM: This was a pretty scary couple of days, but we have a feeling this is not the beginning of the end given strong earnings coming out.

(Washington)

InvestmentNews has done a broad survey of US financial advisors’ views of Trump and the results are in. The survey was of 745 advisor readers of the site and the study found that Trump was more popular among advisors than the general public. 50% of advisors approved of Trump while 44.8% disapproved. This compares to 39.9% and 55.6% amongst the general public. However, many advisors said they approved of Trump from a financial perspective but disliked his overall behavior.

FINSUM: We are uniquely placed to comment on this given all the reader feedback we get. We would say that, if anything, this poll discounts the president’s support amongst the advisor community.

(San Francisco)

The huge public pushback against Apple’s revelation that it intentionally slowed older iPhone speeds to keep them from crashing is now turning into an ugly, and possibly legal, scandal. The US Department of Justice and the SEC are now launching probes into Apple’s handling of the situation. While the DOJ probe will likely look broadly at behavior, the SEC is looking into whether Apple violated securities laws with regard to its disclosures about software updates.

FINSUM: We have a feeling there is a big fine on the horizon for Apple. The bigger question is whether this hurts their public image and could spark the beginning of the end of the Age of Apple.

(New York)

If you need some more information to understand why the big wirehouses are trying to pull out of the broker protocol, this is it. In 2017, independent broker-dealers snagged 118 wirehouse teams and took almost $28 bn in AUM, up 23% from 2016. The success comes as independents have closed the technology and product gaps with larger rivals, and IPO allotments have become scarce at wirehouses.

FINSUM: Wirehouses are generally growing fearful and are trying to throw up hurdles that keep brokers from breaking away. Hence the pullout from the broker protocol.