Author Archives: Jay Franklin

About a month ago, I wrote about Nicolas Darvas, a world famous dancer who claimed that he made $2 million in the stock market. This claim was vigorously disputed by the New York State Attorney General, Louis Lefkowitz. A write-up … Continue reading →

While we at Index Funds Advisors, Inc. do not dismiss the bleak scenario envisioned by the authors of books such as Aftershock or The Day after the Dollar Crashes as completely implausible, there are a number of problems with books … Continue reading →

Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are unsecured-debt instruments that track an index, currency, or a commodity price. According to Morningstar, there are now (as of 2/12/2012) 209 ETNs that hold a total of $17.4 billion in assets, and most of them have … Continue reading →

OK, I confess! I did not make $2 million in the stock market, but that title did catch your attention, did it not? How I made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market is one of the antique books in finance recently … Continue reading →

At Index Funds Advisors, Inc. (IFA), we often get to see how other people are invested before they become IFA clients. If one of these prospects were to tell us that they own commodity futures as part of their investment … Continue reading →

“The easiest way into Wall Street is by the Hall of Delusions through which many have entered who forgot to return. That door stands always wide open. No legend of warning affronts the eye. There ought to be one, and … Continue reading →

Like schlemiel1 and schlimazel2, chutzpah is one of those Yiddish words that lacks a good English counterpart. A good example of it is the old joke about the guy who kills his parents and then demands leniency because he is … Continue reading →

As a blogger, sometimes there is a dearth of topics to write about, and sometimes Christmas comes early. My benefactor for today is Greg Smith, a former executive director at Goldman Sachs who tendered his resignation as an op-ed in … Continue reading →

  “The only consistent data point we have observed over a five-year horizon is that a majority of active equity and bond managers in most categories lag comparable benchmark indices.” -Standard & Poors Indices versus Active Funds (SPIVA ®) Scorecard1 … Continue reading →