You’ll pay far higher expenses for a fund with similar stocks but worse performance. A few years ago, a guy with a famous last name who ran a socially responsible investment fund asked me to lunch. I was hesitant because I figured he was planning to yell at me for a column I had recently written: “Stocks Weren’t Made for Social Climbing.” I ...

Capitalism is blamed, but ‘opportunity gaps’ are more often the fruit of state policies. Often when I make the case for free-market capitalism, I’ll get a head nod or two and then the inevitable comeback: “Yeah, but inequality.” Forget all the great things that capitalism has done, the smartphones we carry, the broadband we use to stream ...

Breakthroughs in health and data could match the consumer boom of 100 years ago. Does history rhyme? A century ago, the ’20s boomed, driven by consumer spending on homes, cars, radios and newfangled appliances like refrigerators, sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. Most Americans couldn’t afford the upfront cost of a lot of these goods, ...

Its asset purchases are squeezing nonbank lending and sinking long-term bond rates. What’s going on with the bond market, especially what the Journal has called “the relentless demand for longer-term debt securities”? Over the past few weeks 30-year bonds yielded less than 2% interest. That inverted the yield curve as short-term rates were ...

Look beyond the unsettling news out of Beijing lately and behold the stirring of the Chinese consumer. China sneezed and the world caught double pneumonia. So far in 2016, oil prices and global markets have taken a pounding as China’s economy slows. The Dow is down 6%, and the Shanghai Composite lost 24% in January. Plus, the yuan has plummeted ...

Richard Feynman’s idea has a big-time corollary: space exploration, 3-D printing and self-driving cars. On Dec. 29, 1959, the physicist Richard Feynman delivered a famous speech at the California Institute of Technology titled “There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” He predicted almost limitless possibilities if we could “manipulate and ...

Obama’s Labor Department wants retirement portfolios to divest their fossil-fuel holdings. The beauty of the stock market is that no one can tell you where to put your money—until now. Last month the Obama administration’s Labor Department issued Interpretive Bulletin 2015-01, which tells pension funds what factors to use when ...

The Ford Foundation vows to fight inequality but will have a hard time beating Henry’s example. On June 11, the $11 billion Ford Foundation announced that it will pour its resources—about $500 million in giving a year—into fighting inequality. “We are talking about inequality in all its forms—in influence, access, agency, resources, and ...

Too many funds are chasing too few opportunities, and many of those will be too expensive. It won’t end well. Private equity is done. Stick a fork in it. With Kraft singles and Heinz ketchup as toppings, there are many signs that private equity has peaked as an asset class.

Sure, private equity is pervasive, which is one of its problems. According to Dow Jones LP Source, 765 funds raised $266 billion in 2014, up 11.7% over 2013. Ever since David Swensen, the investment manager of the Yale University endowment, almost 30 years ago began ...

Thanks to regulation, we basically have an Internet duct-taped to infrastructure from the 1970s and ’80s. All eyes are on the Federal Communications Commission as the agency will vote on Feb. 26 to reclassify the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. But in a less noticed, more amusing vote on Jan. 29 the FCC declared that ...

With mobile users now outnumbering desktop users, a new economic cycle has begun. Early in my career on Wall Street in the mid-1980s, a well-known strategist yelled at me for recommending a tech stock. “What are you stupid?” he said. “Don’t you know we are in the last year of a four-year economic cycle?” I didn’t know, and luckily I ignored ...

What revived the 1990s' economy wasn't higher taxes, but a strong greenback and credible Treasury secretary.

Facing stubbornly high unemployment and slow growth, swelling deficits and a divided Congress, President Obama is surely scrambling for an economic elixir. He has often cited the economy of the 1990s during the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, as ...

The misallocation of capital is one reason the recovery is stuck between lack and luster..

No jobs? No wonder, given what passes for economic thought these days. ...