Historically, the asset management industry has been merely an easy way for money managers to get rich at your expense. Even today, 401(k) fees alone rob us of $60 billion a year. But investors have caught on and are demanding lower fees -- and lately, they've started getting them.
Remember the flash crash? That was the 20 minutes on May 6, 2010 when the Dow lost almost 1,000 points before partially recovering. A new analysis by iShares suggests what may have caused the flash crash and includes three proposals to keep it from happening again.
It looks like no-commission trades for exchange-traded funds are here to stay. Several of the largest ETF brokerages -- including iShares, Invesco Powershares and Charles Schwab -- say they don't plan to charge commission anytime soon.
Retail investors who think they're missing out on the big money because they don't have a million bucks to get into a hedge fund should consider themselves lucky. Hedge funds had their best year in a decade in 2009 -- and yet they couldn't even beat the broader market.
