U.S. broker Charles Schwab’s launch this week of 8 new exchange traded funds (ETFs) could be a watershed event for providers and users of ETFs and mutual funds. What’s remarkable is that they have fixed their management expense ratios (MERs) even lower than the Vanguard ETFs and are allowing their ...

Having ranted before on securities lending and how it adds to the systemic risk of the financial system and how the division of the spoils appears to shortchange retail investors, there is a modicum of satisfaction in seeing the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) commence an investigation into the practice. ...

In my last column, Securities lending wake-up call, I discussed securities lending, the practice whereby investment fund managers lend out securities to mainly hedge funds to sell short. As mentioned, the practice raises risk levels, dampens the value of securities at times, and generates sizable lending fees that are often ...

One thing I left out of the June 4 column on the investment-fund practice of securities lending is the role of incentives. Specifically, goes the argument, investment funds that take a large percentage of the revenues generated from securities lending may not be so bad after all since they have ...

There apparently is a rumor going around that Vanguard Group may buy Barclay’s iShares family of exchange-traded funds before the June 16 deadline that Barclays’ has for shopping the asset around (hat tip to Preet Banerjee). There will be a big break-up fee of $175-million (U.S) to pay CVC Capital ...

I have been thinking for a while about posting on “securities lending,” the practice where mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) lend out securities in their portfolios to mainly hedge funds for short selling. But Jason Zweig’s May 30 column in the Wall Street Journal beat me to it and ...