Open Editor's Digest for freeRula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.In an uncertain world, you can always count on Alphaville. Whenever there's a study covering active portfolio management, we'll be here to cut and paste.Today's active management comes from Morningstar. Twice a year it publishes an active/passive metric that measures active funds using a composite of passives rather than an index. The idea is to reflect the investor's costs, which indices do not, and capture the true composition of individual portfolios.For 2023, just over 31 percent of active managers outperform their related…
Author: ricardofrancois
A SpaceX rocket, which aims to return humans to the moon and one day to Mars, completed its third and most successful test flight Thursday morning.The Starship rocket, stacked atop a very heavy booster, launched flawlessly at 6:25 a.m. PDT from the company's launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, with all 33 booster engines igniting and propelling Starship into space. Less than three minutes later, the booster successfully separated from the rocket in what Elon Musk's company calls a “hot phase” sequence, meaning the spacecraft's engines lit up moments before separation. The maneuver aims to improve the missile's payload.The spacecraft…
Open Editor's Digest for freeRula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Danish compromise sounds like a plan to avoid calories at coffee time. But this may be the thing that drives the merger of banks and insurance companies in Europe. This settlement dates back to the period when Denmark was EU president in 2012, and was a supposed temporary exception to Basel rules for European banks with insurers. This was a political lure for countries such as France, where the bancassurance model is more common. Instead, this regulatory treatment is likely to…
The rain and snow that has fallen on California and much of the American West over the past few months – at least relative to some of the severe drought years we have seen recently – is a boon not only for water supplies, but also for energy.Or maybe it's a curse (of energy, not water). It depends on who you ask.Much of the electricity that powers lights, refrigerators and cell phones comes from rivers, whose once free-flowing waters flow behind dams and flow through hydroelectric turbines. Colorado River, Columbia, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Rivers – generate about a quarter…
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Under Armor – Shares fell 5.3% on news of founder Kevin Plank's return as CEO of the athletic apparel company. Evercore ISI said Plank's return is a clear signal that UAA's strategy is not working, downgrading the stock to underperform. Robinhood – The financial services platform said Thursday that stock trading volumes in February were up 41% from a year ago, sending shares up about 12%. Dollar General – Shares of the discount retailer rose 5.8% on the back of a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report. Dollar General reported earnings of $1.83…
Stay informed with free updatesSimply subscribe to Technology myFT Digest – delivered straight to your inbox.The first time I heard the term “superfluous people” was when I read the 19th century Russian writers Alexander Pushkin and Ivan Turgenev. In their stories, spoiled, world-weary people of the petty nobility chased women, gambled with their inheritances, and shot each other in duels. Like “the fifth wheel on a wagon,” as Turgenev described them, they could find little purpose in life, and their real-life counterparts would later be drawn into root causes. This elite overproduction is sometimes blamed for fueling the Bolshevik Revolution…
There is perhaps no greater leap a startup can make from seed stage to seed round. Given how big a Series A downside can be, there are several guidelines available. But most of them seem a bit outdated in today's market. For example, the venerable rule that a startup must have $1 million in annual recurring revenue or its equivalent seems outdated today. After all, some companies have been able to raise money in recent quarters with smaller amounts, while others with larger funds have struggled to attract capital. Join Alex Kayyal of Lightspeed Venture Partners, who will be coming…
Open Editor's Digest for freeRula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.Deutsche Bank has cut cash bonuses for senior executives by up to 50 percent in the wake of a failed IT project that caused chaos for German retail customers and attracted a rebuke from banking regulator BaFin.This is the second year in a row that the bank's supervisory board has reduced the payments of the bank's senior employees to reflect shortcomings. Last year, the company eliminated €1 million in executive salaries due to lack of achievement and delays in improving internal controls.The…
For a long time, life in California had certain rhythms.Winter snow in the Sierra. Spring blooms in the desert. Come election season, that's an inherent and often insurmountable advantage for Bay Area candidates seeking statewide office.Drifts piled up from Tahoe to Tehachapis. The wettest months promise a stunning flower display throughout the Southland. But that Northern California advantage? She disappeared in the US Senate contest on March 5.Rep. Adam P. Schiff, whose Southern California district is more than 300 miles away, easily took control of the Bay Area en route to a primary victory over fellow Democrats Katie Porter and…
Ron Coughlin, CEO of Petco Animal Supplies Inc., outside the Nasdaq MarketSite during Petco Health & Wellness Co.'s initial public offering. (IPO) in New York, January 14, 2021.Michael Nagel | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPetco It announced Wednesday that its CEO, Ron Coughlin, will step down, and said Best Buy board member and CEO R. Michael Mohan will serve as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement. Coughlin will serve as an advisor to the board “to support the leadership transition.” Coughlin said in a statement that he is proud of the work he has done over the…