Coyote Blog

From the WSJ:

Some $333 billion moved into all U.S.-listed ETFs [exchange traded funds] in 2017 through September, a figure that eclipses last year’s $288 billion all-time high with three months yet to be tallied, according to Morningstar.

Of that amount, 73% has gone into ETFs that boast expense ratios less than or equal to 0.2%, or $20 per $10,000 invested, according to Morningstar data through September. Such low-fee funds account for just 15% of the more than 2,000 exchange-traded funds and notes on the market....

The market for low-cost funds, long dominated by BlackRock, Vanguard Group and State Street Global Advisors, is getting increasingly crowded as other players attempt to muscle in. State Street last month slashed management fees on more than a dozen of its funds. Franklin Templeton Investments, a unit of Franklin Resources, this week announced 16 ultra-low-cost foreign stock ETFs that will undercut the management fees of nearly every rival product currently on the market.

“It’s become insanely competitive,” said Ben Johnson, head of ETF research at Morningstar.” Mr. Johnson said that advisers and other intermediaries are feeling the pressure to emphasize the lowest prices available. “This has upped the ante for providers of products that have really been commoditized.”

If you are a typical investor, you too are likely investing in lower-cost funds, and for most of us that is a great choice.  But large public pension funds are still the #1 largest investors in hedge funds, whose absurd 2 and 20 (2% of the assets invested, 20% of the gains, 0% of the losses) fee schedules still exist, incredibly, despite their systematic under-performance of the market.  I have always wondered how these fees don't get competed down.  But beset by under-funding, public pension funds are so desperate for yield to try to close the gap that they will still fall for the hedge fund pitch.  Which is why your local public teacher pension fund probably helped build a number of the mansions in Greenwich.  You do have to sort of respect folks who figured out a financial model for profiting in direct proportion to government fecklessness.  Talk about hitting the mother load!

One of my theories I have mentioned before on this blog is that the worst abuses of freedom occur when the Left and Right in this country agree.  Here is another great example -- combine the Right's law-and-order drive to hand more power to,  and remove accountability from, police and prosecutors with the Left's need to string up some executives after the Enron collapse -- and you get this:

The DOJ has inexplicably teed up another trial of Brown, who was the only one of the Merrill defendants who was convicted on additional charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for having the temerity of protesting his innocence to the grand jury that originally investigated the Nigerian Barge deal. Brown's new trial is currently scheduled to begin on September 20.

But in the meantime, Brown's legal team has been leafing through enormous amounts of exculpatory evidence that the Enron Task Force withheld from the Merrill defendants in connection with the first trial back in 2005, but which the DOJ has recently been forced to disclose.

The result of the Brown team's effort is set forth below in the Supplemental Memorandum in support of a motion for a new trial for Brown on the perjury and obstruction charges (the downloaded version of the memo is bookmarked in Adobe Acrobat to facilitate ease of review). The memorandum details the appalling length that the Enron Task Force went during the first trial in suppressing exculpatory evidence in favor of Brown and his co-defendants and generally disregarding the rule of law in order to obtain convictions. As the memorandum concludes:

The conclusion is now inescapable that the ETF engaged in a calculated, multi-step process to deprive Brown of his constitutional right to Due Process. (1) They repeatedly denied the existence of Brady material, told this court they had met their Brady obligations and fought vehemently against producing anything [exhibit reference and footnote omitted]. They highlighted only selected material in a veritable garden of Brady evidence "“ much of their selections being vague, tangential or marginal"“while working around clear, declarative, relevant exculpatory material even in the same page, paragraph or document. (3) When ordered by the Court to produce summaries to the defense, they further redacted even the Brady material they had themselves highlighted and withheld the crucial facts that they had highlighted as Brady. (4) They egregiously capitalized on their misconduct at trial by making assertions that were directly belied by the exculpatory evidence they withheld.  .  .  .

The memorandum goes on to set out dozens of Brady violations, including charts that compare the exculpatory statements that the Enron Task Force withheld prior to the first trial with the incriminating statements that the Enron Task Force extracted from witnesses during that trial.

Folks, this is really bad stuff. But as bad as it is, I have not seen any mention of it in the mainstream media.