The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, by discouraging companies to go public, will exacerbate the shortage of equities, with a negative effect on the U.S. stock market, although this was not the intent of its authors. The formal intent of the Act was to “protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant […]

Mutual funds are sold primarily on the basis of ‘performance’ measured by historical ‘total return’. The famous Morningstar rating system is based on ‘total return’, in this case ‘risk-adjusted total return’ relative to funds of the same asset category. The average American mutual fund investor is accumulating resources for retirement, say 20 or 30 years hence. […]