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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Investing legend <keyword id="578885" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ray-Dalio">Ray Dalio</keyword>'s hedge fund poured millions into <keyword id="302749" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alibaba">Alibaba</keyword>, <keyword id="80487" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="walmart">Walmart</keyword>, and Coca Cola, and sold some positions in Chinese equity ETFs in the third quarter this year.</li><li>The billionaire also invested heavily in McDonald's, Abbott Labs, Procter &amp; Gamble, and <keyword id="92247" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Johnson-Johnson">Johnson &amp; Johnson</keyword>.</li><li>While the fund's largest withdrawal was from an ETF that tracks large-cap US equities, it sold out positions worth several millions in three China ETFs.</li><li>Dalio also pumped over $100 million in two ETFs that track emerging <keyword id="31671" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="markets">markets</keyword>.</li><li>Earlier this week, he said investors should not own bonds or cash right now.</li></ul>Ray Dalio's <keyword id="273844" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bridgewater-Associates">Bridgewater Associates</keyword> poured millions into some of the world's biggest companies and ditched several holdings in China ETFs, <a href="https://fintel.io/i13f/bridgewater-associates-lp/2020-09-30-0">according to a 13F filed with the US SEC</a>. The investor who founded the world's largest hedge fund now owns a position worth $392 million in <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/baba-stock">Alibaba</a>, $195 million in <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/wmt-stock">Walmart</a>, and $100 million in <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/coca-cola_1-stock">Coca Cola</a>, the filing showed. Dalio already owned stock in Alibaba but the other two investments are new. He also invested substantially in <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/mcd-stock">McDonald's</a>, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/abt-stock">Abbott Labs</a>, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/el-stock">Estee Lauder</a>, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/mdlz-stock">Mondelez</a>, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/pg-stock">Procter &amp; Gamble</a>, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/jnj-stock">Johnson &amp; Johnson</a>, and <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/dhr-stock">Danaher</a>. The billionaire, who has long been an advocate of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ray-dalio-china-bull-case-amid-trade-war-with-us-2019-8?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingestgest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">going all-in on investment in China</a>, decreased his positions by several millions in three China ETFs.His largest decrease, of about $309 million, was made in a fund that tracks large-cap US equities - IShares Core S&amp;P 500 ETF. He made smaller reductions, between $12 million to $34 million, to holdings in funds that track Chinese stocks. Dalio has <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ray-dalio-ant-ipo-suspension-reasonable-bullish-china-view-2020-11-1029790990">previously said</a> that not investing in China is "very risky."Read More: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-to-buy-companies-with-improving-sales-growth-jefferies-2020-11">Buy these 15 cheap, unheralded stocks that will take off in 2021 thanks to their accelerating sales growth, Jefferies says</a>He also pumped over $100 million in two ETFs that track emerging markets — IShares MSCI Emerging Markets and Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets.The investing legend said this week that while diversification is one of the most important portfolio strategies, investors <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/billionaire-ray-dalio-dont-own-bonds-cash-investing-stock-market-outlook-2020-11-1029821971">should not own bonds or cash right now</a>. Interest rates on government bonds currently remain at historic lows and investors are raising doubts over the traditional 60-40 portfolio composition.Instead, he recommended diversifying between currencies, asset classes, and countries as the best way to reduce risk without reducing opportunity. Ray Dalio's hedge fund Bridgewater Associates manages about $140 billion in assets as of April 2020.<a href="https://fintel.io/i13f/bridgewater-associates-lp/2020-09-30-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">You can see the investments that Bridgewater Associates bought and sold in the third quarter this year here.</a>Read More: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-to-buy-rotation-value-deutsche-2020-11">Deutsche Bank says you need to own these 6 stocks poised to surge as vaccine progress spurs an economic recovery — including one that could rally by 83%</a>

Ray Dalio's hedge fund poured about half a billion dollars into Walmart, Alibaba, and Coca Cola, and dumped large positions in China-focused ETFs in the 3rd-quarter

<ul><li><keyword id="6354512" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword>’ share price has hit a fresh 52-week high after posting blockbuster earnings on October 14. </li><li>It raked in deal wins worth $3.15 billion in the last three months, including its largest ever deal with Vanguard.</li><li>The company has also revised its annual revenue guidance to between 2% to 3%.</li></ul><keyword id="620690" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys-share-price">Infosys share price</keyword> hit a fresh 52-week high at ₹1,185 when markets opened this morning. Its share price was up by 4% after India’s second-largest IT company posted its highest-ever deal wins in a quarter of over $3 billion. <div type="image" title="infosys share price (3)" msid="78674041" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Infosys share price movement since January&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> However, the share price soon dipped sharply due to market weakness and profit booking. This is the second time this week that Infosys has hit a new high for the year. On Monday, its share price rallied to hit ₹1,146.50. Analysts remain optimistic, upgrading their previous outlooks. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; width: 468pt; table-layout: fixed;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Brokerage on Infosys </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Target price </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Motilal Oswal Securities </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹ 1,355 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">ICICI Securities </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹ 1,350 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">JM Financial </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹ 1,260 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">BOB Capital Markets </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹ 1,210 </td></tr></tbody></table> The coming quarter may be stronger with Infosys increasing its annual revenue guidance to be between 2% to 3% for the current fiscal. According to JM Financial, the company’s deal wins are likely to keep the momentum going over the next six months. “Infosys remains our top pick in the sector,” said the brokerage’s report. <div type="image" title="Infosys revenue growth (1)" msid="78674159" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Infosys revenue growth over the last 2 years&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The company quarterly revenue was up by 4% in constant currency (CC) beating most market estimates. Margins also expanded to 25.3%, increasing by a massive 270 basis points. However, accounting for impact on margins due to wage hikes, promotions and hiring as well as currency fluctuations, JM Financial estimates that Infosys may end the year at a lower threshold. “We note that Infosys is likely to end F21 with margins nearly back to FY18 levels after the investment made through FY18-20,” said its report. <div type="image" title="infosys margins q1fy21" msid="78674168" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Infosys margins over the last five quarters&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/top-stocks-to-watch-infosys-ril-sbi-icici-bank-hdfc-bank-nmdc-jubilant-foodworks-and-others/articleshow/78672560.cms">Top stocks to watch — Infosys, RIL, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, NMDC, Jubilant Foodworks, and others</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/infosys-to-reinstate-wage-hikes-promotions-and-hiring-will-impact-margins-over-the-next-six-months/articleshow/78660576.cms">Infosys to reinstate wage hikes, promotions and hiring — will impact margins over the next six months</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/wipro-share-price-dips-after-earnings-report-analysts-believe-it-will-take-a-while-to-catch-up-to-tcs-and-hcl-technologies/articleshow/78654023.cms">Wipro’s share price dips by over 6% after earnings — analysts believe it will take a while to catch up to TCS and HCL Technologies</a>

Infosys share price hits fresh 52-week high after highest-ever deal wins of over $3 billion

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">REUTERS/Andrea Comas </div></div></div>FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors.
<a href="https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/researchcommentary/article/IWE_InvComBondChiefandSuccessor">Rising Rates Aren't Necessarily Bad For Bond Investors</a> (Vanguard) 
With interest rates expected to rise, investors are worried that 2013 marked a tough patch for bonds where yields would rise and prices decline. But Robert F. Auwaerter, principal and head of Vanguard's Fixed Income Group, thinks the market has already priced in the possibility of rising interest rates that could cause bond prices to fall. The more difficult question is "Will rates rise more than what's been priced in?" And that, he says, is much harder to answer. 
"But it's worth remembering that rising rates are not necessarily a bad thing if you have a long time horizon and the average maturity of your bond fund is shorter than your time horizon [the time until you'll need the money]. For example, if you're invested in an intermediate-term bond fund and you have a longer-term time horizon, you're going to get a better total rate of return with interest rates rising, because you're going to be reinvesting those coupon payments and principal payments at higher rates. It becomes a problem when investors, in their search for higher yields, invest in long-duration assets but have a shorter time horizon. That's where you potentially get hurt."
<a href="https://assetmanagement.gs.com/content/gsam/worldwide.html">Monetary Policy Is No Longer In Sync With Economic and Market Cycles</a> (Goldman Sachs Asset Management)
In the U.S. and U.K. central bank policies have gotten out of sync with economic and market cycles, according to the folks at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. "We think this is particularly true in the U.S., where monetary policy appears more consistent with an economy in the early stages of recovery, while return prospects and volatility in corporate credit and other fixed income risk sectors appear more consistent with a maturing economic expansion."
"In our view, something has to give: either monetary policy is too far behind the economic cycle and needs to catch up, or the market cycle is too far ahead of the economy and needs to correct. We believe monetary policy needs to catch up with growth, and that interest rates in the U.S and U.K. are likely to rise by a significant amount in the next one to two years. A second implication is that corporate credit, non-agency mortgages and other fixed income risk sectors may not offer the same strong returns as in recent years, but returns should still be positive."
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Goldman Sachs Asset Management" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/533dc22669beddc17b27b02f-960/screen shot 2014-04-03 at 4.03.58 pm.png"></a>Goldman Sachs Asset Management</div></div></div>
<a href="https://www.alliancebernstein.com/abcom/segment_homepages/private_client/us/pcus.htm">In The More Normal Market Ahead, Investors Will Need New Signals</a> (Bernstein Global Wealth Management)
As the Federal Reserve begins to pare back liquidity, and with valuations in the stock markets of developed countries are at their long-term historical averages, we're returning to a more normal market. In the more normal market, "investors will need to rely on other signals for direction," according to the folks at Bernstein Global Wealth Management.
"Among the key indicators will be data on global economic health, and we systematically track such releases across all major economies. In a high-consensus environment, we are particularly interested in how the new data stack up against expectations: in other words, the degree of positive or negative surprise from actual versus predicted results."
<a href="http://wealthmanagement.com/business-planning/seven-lessons-advisors-can-learn-startups#slide-0-field_images-526481">What Advisors Can Learn From Startups</a> (WealthManagement.com)
John Kador at WealthManagement.com is out with a list of seven lessons that advisors can learn from startups.
1. "Focus relentlessly on the use experience" - See what a client's experience would be using your website or calling your office. 2. "Outsource as much as possible" - Outsource non-essential tasks like social media outreach. 3. "Organize the work environment for creativity" - "One reason startups are so innovative is that their work environments are set up to foster real creativity, not just someone's arbitrary perception of "professionalism." 4. "Favor transparency" - Younger clients especially value transparency and this helps organizations become "more nimble, more adaptive, and more innovative." 5. "Adopt and test ideas quickly" - "If there's one reason startups disrupt existing businesses, it's that they believe the key to creativity is constant experimentation." 6. "Surround yourself with people who challenge you" - Don't try and be the expert that knows everything about everything, instead look for others that can challenge you. 7. "Exploit social media for all it's worth" - "There's no better bang for the buck than targeted social media, a reality that all startups embrace."
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-bubbles-within-sp-500-2014-4">A Fascinating Way To See Bubbles Within The Stock Market</a> (Goldman Sachs)
Bubbles can be hard to spot, but Goldman Sachs' David Kostin is out with a chart that offers an interesting way to spot bubbles. This shows a composition of different sectors of the S&amp;P 500 by market cap since 1974. Bubbles can be seen when a sector balloons as a percent of the S&amp;P 500. "Financials was only the third sector since 1975 to represent 20% of the market capitalization of the S&amp;P 500," writes Kostin. "However, Financials share of the S&amp;P 500 market cap has declined from 22% to as low as 9% in early March 2009."
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Goldman Sachs" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/533d2d69ecad04be5e27b041-960/cotd-163.jpg"></a>Goldman Sachs</div></div></div>

Retiring Vanguard Bond Guru: Rising Interest Rates Don't Have To Kill Bond Holders

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Keith Gill appears to have nearly doubled his GameStop position to nine million shares.</li><li>Gill previously owned five million shares and exercised call options to acquire more.</li></ul>Keith Gill, better known as Roaring Kitty on social media, appears to have nearly doubled his position in <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/gme-stock?utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets">GameStop</a> stock.According to a screenshot of his E*Trade portfolio <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1df8jno/gme_yolo_update_june_13_2024/">posted to Reddit on Thursday,</a> Gill now owns nine million shares of GameStop.Gill had previously owned 5 million shares of GameStop and 120,000 call option contracts with a $20 strike price that were set to expire next week.With Gill's massive options position in the money, he partially sold the options and exercised some to acquire an additional 4 million shares at $20 each.Gill's portfolio now holds $6.3 million in cash and $262.1 million worth of GameStop stock as of Thursday's close, bringing his total portfolio value to about $268 million.He was briefly worth nearly $1 billion when GameStop stock soared to more than $60 in after-hours trading last week.However, <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/gamestop-stock-profits-share-sale-cash-pile-raoaring-kitty-gme-2024-6">a massive 75 million share offering from GameStop</a> and a surprise earnings release that showed a continued decline in its business dented the stock rally considerably.With Gill owning nine million shares, he stands to earn or lose $90,000 for every penny move in GameStop stock, or $9 million for every dollar move in the stock.Shares of GameStop jumped about 4% in Friday morning trades to $30.19, gaining $1.07, resulting in a one-day paper gain of $9.6 million.Gill now appears to be the fourth largest shareholder of GameStop, based on data as of March 31, owning about 3% of the company.Gill's nine million shares in GameStop are slightly ahead of the 8.3 million shares owned by State Street and behind the more than 20 million shares BlackRock, Vanguard, and GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen each hold. GameStop <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/gamestop-stock-profits-share-sale-cash-pile-raoaring-kitty-gme-2024-6">has sold 120 million shares over the past month,</a> so Gill's ranking in the company's top shareholders will be better known once second-quarter 13F filings are made with the SEC in mid-August.Business Insider could not confirm if the screenshot of Gill's brokerage statement posted to Reddit was authentic.

Roaring Kitty becomes the 4th largest GameStop shareholder after nearly doubling his position to 9 million shares    

<ul class="summary-list"><li>BI spoke to three late starters in the financial independence movement.</li><li>They started to save and invest in their 40s and 50s and set themselves up for early retirement.</li></ul>Gina Murillo was about to turn 50 and had almost $40,000 in consumer debt, with only $69,000 in her retirement savings. Now almost 57, Murillo, who lives in the Chicago area, has a net worth of over $1.1 million and is on pace to reach <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/early-retirement-overrated-financial-independence-fire-return-to-office-balance-2024-6">financial independence</a> within three years.Murillo had her kids in her early 20s, working various jobs to support her family. For much of her adult life, she was a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-doordash-driving-single-parent-walmart-spark-maintenance-competition-2024-3">single parent</a> receiving no child support. She graduated from law school in her early 40s after working as a paralegal, but she didn't love being an attorney for a large firm. At 49, she got a job that nearly doubled her income.She got interested in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-retiring-early-fire-movement-financial-independence-millionaire-savings-work-2024-5">financial independence</a> movement after reading blogs like Mr. Money Mustache. She took a $35,000 pay cut to join a boutique law firm, but it ignited her journey toward financial stability."I realized that if these people could achieve FI in less than 10 years during their 20s and 30s, there was no reason I couldn't do the same in my 50s," Murillo said. "What I lost in pay, I gained in work-life balance."She developed a plan to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/side-hustle-pay-off-debt-save-for-house-2024-6">pay off her debt</a>, saving roughly 40-50% of her net income of between $120,000 and $140,000. She <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fire-movement-financial-independence-retire-early-millennial-goals-saving-wealth-2024-5">tracked every dollar</a> she spent, cut unnecessary spending, and put a portion of her earnings into investments. She paid off her debt within 18 months, then improved her investment strategies to get higher returns. After a few years, she loosened restrictions on her spending habits to include things she valued, though she kept spending low."When I started this journey, I thought I'd never be able to retire," Murillo said. "Now, I'm just a few years away from that."Murillo is one of many Americans who started their <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/financial-independence-retire-early-fire-millennial-income-wealthy-business-owners-2024-4">financial independence</a> journeys later in life but are on pace to meet their <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/financial-independence-retire-early">early retirement goals</a>. While much attention in the community is devoted to those retiring well before 65 or starting their journeys young, Gen Xers told Business Insider they're working to draw attention to "late bloomers" who dug themselves out of years of debt or only started budgeting midcareer.Late starters told BI they could still achieve many of their financial goals despite years of financial instability. All said it took years of hard work to get back on track, though they agreed their strategies aren't out of reach for many Americans.<h2 id="c21a1497-a1d3-4f60-8d13-9a6c47eba807">Embarking on financial independence</h2>Bill Yount, 57, grew up middle class and enrolled in a state medical school, becoming an emergency physician by his early 30s. When he came out of his residency, he was $30,000 in credit card debt with "a smattering" of student loans.Because of his employment success, he said he experienced lifestyle creep. He got married, bought a big house in a nice neighborhood, had two kids, and purchased a new car — which sent him into debt."We got caught up in what I call the 20-year funnel of life: raising kids, dual income family, relatively higher income because of being physicians, but living a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, inflating our lifestyle as our pay went up," Yount said.During the Great Recession, he and his wife sold much of their equities fearing an even greater downturn, which cost them long-term. All this time, they hadn't prioritized retirement savings.By the time he turned 50, he and his wife had a net worth of almost a million. Still, he realized he needed to change things up, aiming to have a couple million saved up by retirement.Yount read dozens of books and listened to hundreds of podcasts relating to personal finance. He began tracking his expenses, especially after his wife went back to work full-time. He adopted a more simplistic investment approach, such as Vanguard total market funds and intermediate and short-term treasuries. He also got into real estate investing, though it wasn't as fruitful as he anticipated.His <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/early-retirement-financial-independence-san-francisco-homebuying-fire-work-balance-2024-6">savings increased</a> to about 40% of gross income, and he lowered his cost of living by moving to Tennessee and downsizing his home by half. He exercised what he called "backwards budgeting," or saving a high percentage of income and then basing spending around what's left.In under a decade, he and his wife grew their net worth to over $5 million. He's used his success to help other late-starts on his podcast and website <a target="_blank" href="https://catchinguptofi.com/">Catching up to FI</a>."As a late starter, you feel isolated, you feel ashamed, you don't want to tell anybody you're not good at talking about money," Yount said, adding: "Late Starters don't feel spoken to in the financial independence movement, and that's when they discover us. They all universally say, I found my tribe."<h2 id="345cdebf-6c35-4a48-802d-a21ad35111f8">Strategies for late starters</h2>Jackie Cummings Koski, 54, grew up "very poor" in South Carolina, raised as one of six kids by a single dad. To fund her college education, she worked 50 hours a week to cover her expenses while attending classes.Her first job was at Walmart in corporate communications before becoming a store manager in Ohio. She got married a year after college, had a kid shortly after, and put a downpayment on a new home after selling Walmart stock.She faced a divorce in the mid-2000s, and she realized her ex-husband saved much more than her. She had just $20,000 in her 401(k), while her ex-husband had $120,000 and more successful investments.As a single mother, she took time to regroup in her late 30s and started learning more about finances while an account manager at data analytics company LexisNexis. Through the organization Better Investing, she took part in a model investment club, learning the ins and outs of investment strategies. She began maxing out her 401(k) and health savings account, then made it her goal to achieve FIRE.She started investing in 2008, which meant high returns on many of her investments as she was able to buy at relatively low prices in the wake of the financial crisis. She invested in growth index funds through Vanguard, which was less risky than individual stocks.She said much of her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/retire-early-financial-independence-fire-family-budget-san-francisco-401k-2024-6">financial growth</a> in her 40s stemmed from people explaining financial topics simply. She previously feared never having enough for retirement, but she mapped out what it would take to get to savings 25 times her expenses after listening to advice from podcasts. She didn't want to lock up her money until she turned 65, so she learned ways to get money out of her retirement accounts earlier.She acknowledged her journey wasn't perfect — she said she could've put more in a brokerage account, sold her backup vehicle, or cut back on certain things. But she said she got to a point where she didn't need to budget every penny and could still spend on vacations.By 47, she reached a million in net worth, which was about 25 times her expenses. She was still not mentally ready to retire, as she never made six figures in any role, so she worked for two more years and retired at $1.3 million.From there, she got a master's degree in financial therapy and personal finance planning, then got her Certified Financial Planner and Accredited Financial Counselor certifications. Over the last few years, she became an advisor board member for various financial institutions, provided consulting services to organizations, became a financial educator for startups, and is a co-host on Catching up to FI. She also wrote the book "F.I.R.E. For Dummies.""Anybody could google something, anybody could read a book, but you don't know what you don't know," she said. "I'm a firm believer that the messenger matters."Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:nsheidlower@businessinsider.com">nsheidlower@businessinsider.com</a>.

Gen Xers who began their financial independence journeys in their 40s and 50s explain how they're on pace to meet their early retirement goals

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">M. Spencer Green/APF. William McNabb III, chairman of Vanguard.</div></div></div><ul><li>Active funds saw $46 billion in outflows in October, the worst month since December 2016, according to new Morningstar data.</li><li>Passive funds, meanwhile, brought in $16.9 billion last month. </li></ul>Actively-managed funds continue to suffer significant capital outflows, according to a new report on US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds from Morningstar. Funds that rely on stock-pickers saw $46 billion of outflows in October - their worst month since December 2016. Active funds have suffered outflows for years as individual investors turn to cheaper, and often better-performing, passive strategies. The outflows "showed that investors aren't immune to market conditions," Morningstar's Kevin McDevitt and Michael Schramm <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/lp/fund-flows-direct?cid=CON_DIR0052&amp;con=15097">wrote in the report</a>. "With <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-fomc-statement-and-interest-rate-decision-september-2018-2018-9">the Fed raising rates in late September</a> and the S&amp;P 500 falling 6.9% in October, investors turned cautious."Vanguard led the way in active outflows, with $4.3 billion leaving the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based firm last month. However, Vanguard also notched first place for inflows to passive strategies, with $13.3 billion during October.Overall, October saw $29.1 billion in outflows across active and passive strategies, the greatest since August 2015.State Street Global Advisors saw the greatest outflows overall, with $7.4 billion, followed by Invesco, with $4.3 billion. October's outflows saw some similarities to the last big capital exodus, in August 2015."Back then, falling oil prices and energy stocks led the decline. Energy stocks are at the tip of the spear once again as oil prices fell into another bear market, but this time around, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-news-ibm-red-hat-deal-2018-10-1027666347">technology shares are also feeling pain.</a>" Last month, fixed income funds were hit particularly hard, with $19.2 billion in outflows, compared to the $2.2 billion in capital that left equity funds. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-nfl-league-usfl-sued-tweet-three-dollars-2017-9">Trump once won a lawsuit against the NFL - but the result was an embarrassment</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Investors are fleeing active funds in the worst month for managers in nearly 2 years

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Scott Olson/GettyFewer active funds are successfully beating their benchmarks.</div></div></div><ul><li>Fewer equity mutual funds are succeeding at beating their benchmarks, according to Morningstar. </li><li>They continue to be trounced by passive mutual funds and cheaper products designed to track an index. </li><li>JPMorgan and Vanguard Group this week announced products that could put the active-management industry under even more strain. </li></ul>Stock pickers have one overarching mandate: deliver more returns than your benchmark index. But fewer of them are achieving that, according to Morningstar's latest <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/lp/active-passive-barometer?cid=CON_RES0036&amp;con=13833">semiannual report</a> on mutual funds, which dives into how active funds stack up against their passive peers. The success rate - defined as beating a benchmark - among actively-managed funds this year through June was 36%, down from 43% in 2017. A smaller share of funds found success year-on-year in fifteen out of 19 categories compiled by Morningstar, with real-estate funds seeing the most success. "Selecting winning active managers is very difficult," said Ben Johnson, author of the report and Morningstar's director of global ETF and passive strategies research."Very few of them survive. Very few of them that wind up surviving also outperform their average passive peers over longer time horizons." One exception has been active foreign-stock funds. Morningstar studied about 4,500 US funds that manage roughly $16.1 trillion in assets, representing about 79% of the overall fund market. Goldman Sachs examined the industry and arrived at the same conclusion: mutual funds are struggling of late."The recent underperformance of overweight sectors (financials and materials) and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mutual-funds-top-overweight-stock-picks-according-to-goldman-sachs-2018-8">stock positions</a> has weighed on fund returns versus their benchmarks," David Kostin, Goldman's head of US equity strategy, said in a note on Wednesday. "A rising equity market and low return dispersion have also created a less favorable investment landscape for fund outperformance than in early 2018." In other words, the tide is lifting most of the boats, making it harder for stock pickers to find big winners.All told, the resurgence and strong outperformance of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-pickers-mounting-comeback-2018-1">stock pickers in 2017 and early 2018</a> may have been short-lived.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Morningstar" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b8048d489c8a12f008b58d5-960/screen shot 2018-08-24 at 123804 pm.png"></a>Morningstar</div></div></div>But beyond active funds' success rates, which are volatile in the short term, the boom of cheaper index funds is enduring. Morningstar's scoreboard on mutual funds' success arrived right after two major Wall Street firms announced plans that could further shake up active management.JPMorgan announced on Tuesday that it will <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgans-free-stock-trading-app-could-prompt-race-to-the-bottom-from-fidelity-schwab-2018-8">launch a stock-trading app</a> which offers free trades in some cases. On the same day, Vanguard, whose founder Jack Bogle is considered the godfather of index funds, announced it would offer a free platform for exchange-traded funds. This price war has already driven some costs to zero and continues to tilt in favor of passive funds. The chart below puts it into stunning perspective: This year, equity ETFs and passive mutual funds have earned $193 billion in inflows, versus $87 billion in outflows from active equity mutual funds, according to Goldman Sachs. "Perhaps the single most reliable metric that investors can use to their advantage to help improve their odds of picking a winning active manager is to select from the cheapest active manager in any given category," Johnson told Business Insider.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Goldman Sachs" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b80379ee361c074048b4fb2-960/screen shot 2018-08-24 at 124931 pm.png"></a>Goldman Sachs</div></div></div> <h2>What active funds are buying and selling</h2>To begin with where money is not going, big tech has fallen out of favor.The largest tech companies - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet - led the stock market to new highs last year and in early 2018. But after the surge returned valuations to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-double-tech-bubble-valuation-one-measure-shows-2018-8">tech-bubble levels</a>, mutual funds began to pare their bets on these stocks. Also, some tech companies gave investors specific reasons to be worried. Notably, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stock-price-after-q2-earnings-2018-7">Facebook came under fire</a> for how its platform was weaponized by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election and for its handling of users' data. "The large-growth category has been particularly difficult for active managers," Morningstar's report said."Nearly two thirds of the active funds that existed in this category 15 years ago survived and just 10.2% managed to both survive and outperform their average passively managed peer."This week, fund managers poured $100 million into tech stocks - a droplet compared to the $22 billion that has flowed in year-to-date, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey. Michael Hartnett, the bank's chief investment strategist, said this confirmed that tech's leadership was slowing. Separately, Goldman Sachs parsed second-quarter equity holdings in 13-F filings and deduced that mutual funds cut their overweight allocations to financials and tech to the lowest level in five years. To find winners, mutual funds in Q2 increased their holdings of healthcare stocks relative to Q1 more than any other sector. And on average, their exposure to bond proxies - telecom, consumer staples, and utilities - was at a five-year high. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Bank of America Merrill Lynch</div></div></div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/is-drinking-diet-soda-unhealthy-2018-8">What drinking diet soda does to your body and brain</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

A group of investors with $16 trillion at stake is struggling to find success, and its survival is in jeopardy

Reuters/Hannah McKayA giant blue whale skeleton is unveiled in the Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum, London, Britain.Here is what you need to know. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-republican-health-care-bill-vote-count-2017-7">The revised Senate healthcare bill is already on the verge of imploding</a>. Two Republican Senators have come out against the bill, meaning Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP leaders cannot afford to lose another vote.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/uk-comments-on-brexit-divorce-bill-2017-7">The UK accepts it will have to pay a Brexit bill to the EU</a>. In a written statement to Parliament, Brexit Minister Joyce Anelay said that "the government recognises that the UK has obligations to the EU, and the EU obligations to the UK, that will survive the UK's withdrawal - and that these need to be resolved." <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/singapores-economy-has-been-growing-very-slowly-2017-7">Singapore's economy is growing a lot more slowly than thought</a>. The economy grew 0.4% in seasonally adjusted annualized terms, missing that 1.1% growth that economists were expecting. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-sends-marketcap-sky-high-vs-bitcoin-price-marketcap-2017-7">Ethereum's share of the cryptocurrency market has exploded</a>. As of June 22, Ethereum makes up 30% of the entire cryptocurrency market, up from 5% in January. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/roku-expects-to-launch-ipo-before-year-end-1499976409">Roku is planning to IPO in 2017</a>. The streaming media player is seeking a valuation of about $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal says. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/13/havaianas-flip-flop-brand-sold-scandal-hit-owners-sell-stake">Havaianas is sold for $1.1 billion</a>. The Batista family sold an 86% stake in the popular Brazilian flip flop brand in order to help pay a $3.2 billion fine related to the corruption scandal that is threatening top officials in the Brazilian government, The Guardian reports.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/f-william-mcnabb-to-step-down-as-vanguard-ceo-2017-7?r=UK&amp;IR=T">Vanguard's CEO is stepping down</a>. F. William McNabb will be stepping down as Vanguard CEO at the end of the year. He'll be replaced by current Chief Investment Officer Mortimer J. "Tim" Buckley and transition to chairman next year before also passing that role to Buckley.<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/indices">Stock markets around the world are mixed</a>. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.13%) eked out a gain in Asia and Britain's FTSE (-0.29%) lags in Europe. The S&amp;P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,446.Bank earnings are coming. Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo all report ahead of the opening bell. US economic data is heavy. CPI and retail sales will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before industrial production and capacity utilization are due out at 9:15 a.m. ET. Data concludes for the week with University of Michigan consumer confidence at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.34%.

10 things you need to know before the opening bell

Hello everyone! Welcome to this weekly roundup of stories from Insider from Business co-Editor in Chief Matt Turner. <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/insider-weekly">Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Sunday.</a>Read on for a first person account of an addiction to <keyword id="1268253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Robinhood">Robinhood</keyword>, drama in the venture capital world, and the coronavirus sticking around forever.Read time: 6 minutes.Hello!Latest: The Senate on Saturday acquitted Donald Trump <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-acquitted-senate-impeachment-trial-capitol-siege-2021-2">after an impeachment trial over the Capitol siege</a>. President Joe Biden said the "substance of the charge is not in dispute" and that we must "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-acquittal-biden-says-substance-of-charge-not-in-dispute-2021-2">end this uncivil war</a>." Get the <a href="https://www.insider.com/">latest here</a>.This week: Whitney Wolfe Herd made history. As Candy Cheng reported, Wolfe Herd not only became a self-made billionaire, but she also became the youngest female CEO to take a company public. From Candy's story:Less than a decade ago, she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tinder, which she cofounded."This is the day that I reclaim my own narrative," Wolfe Herd told Insider.You can read their interview right here. <ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bumble-ceo-whitney-wolfe-youngest-female-ceo-ipo-company-public-2021-2">New Bumble billionaire Whitney Wolfe Herd reveals how she became the youngest female CEO to take a company public</a></li></ul>Separately, here's another newsletter for your radar: Over 2.7 million people start their day with Morning Brew - the daily email that delivers the latest news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. <a href="https://www.morningbrew.com/?utm_source=insider&amp;utm_medium=partnership&amp;utm_campaign=insiderweekly_h12021y_h12021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sign up for their free newsletter here.</a><h2>Robinhood addiction</h2>A schoolteacher from California contemplated suicide after losing money trading on Robinhood. He penned this first person essay for Insider:I have an addictive personality. When I was younger, I frequently played video games for up to 12 hours at a time. I later binged on other hobbies: golf, cycling, cooking, and even reading. But my most self-destructive foray was into the world of Robinhood, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/">Wall Street Bets</a>, and day trading.Despite my obsessive personality, I've had moments of sound, cogent decision-making. When I graduated from college, I learned how to invest the proper way. That is, dollar cost averaging into a Roth individual retirement account, into a mix of diversified index funds that track well-known indexes like the S&amp;P 500. I made a conscious decision to live a frugal lifestyle to save aggressively to secure my future.I work in public education, and despite living on a teacher's salary, in six years I was able to save up a respectable $70,000 by January 2020, of which $45,000 was invested in a Vanguard Roth IRA. I'm in my late 20s, so $45,000 in a retirement account, according to a compound-interest calculator, could grow to $300,000, up to $1 million, tax-free by the time I retire at 65. I was extremely proud of this feat, and saving money became fundamental to my identity.But <keyword id="10658052" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wall-street-bets">Wall Street Bets</keyword> (WSB) popped onto my feed in mid-January 2020, and I started trading options with small amounts on Robinhood.Read the full story here:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/addicted-to-robinhood-wallstreetbets-day-trading-lost-everything-2021-2">I was addicted to Robinhood and Wall Street Bets. I spiraled out of control, wiped out my $70,000 savings, and contemplated suicide. Here's my message to Robinhood and new investors.</a></li></ul>Also read:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-stocks-tilray-aphria-sundial-surge-on-reddit-analysis-2021-2">Reddit traders are piling into cannabis stocks and driving up valuations, but experts say they're betting on the wrong companies</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chewy-cofounder-ryan-cohen-plan-to-revive-gamestop-2021-2">Ryan Cohen made millions when Chewy got acquired. Now the millennial entrepreneur has a plan to turn around GameStop.</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ray-dalio-warning-capitalism-american-dream-inequality-economics-billionaire-2021-2">I just spoke with hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio about the future of global capitalism. I'm worried.</a> </li></ul><h1>Seed-stage VCs are in a fight for their lives</h1><div type="image" title="finance money check tax credit stimulus loan cox 6" height="951" width="1427" msid="80911262" hostid="261"></div>From Berber Jin:When a tiny two-person San Francisco startup named Stytch began pitching venture capital firms for its first-ever round of funding early last year, known as a "seed" round, the partners at venerable seed firm First Round Capital thought they were a shoo-in as the lead investor.Instead another, bigger fund - Index Ventures - wanted a piece of the company and offered to buy shares at a higher price, setting off a bidding war, sources said. Word among the tech industry's close-knit venture community got out about the heavy interest in Stytch, and other big investors entered the fray.The startup still hadn't launched a product yet but investors were attracted to its two cofounders, Julianna Lamb and Reed McGinley-Stempel, who had both worked for the red-hot fintech Plaid. It was Benchmark that won out as the lead investor, sources said. This was eyebrow-raising in the venture world, as Benchmark is best known as a firm that buys in after the seed stage.Read the full story here:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/seed-funds-are-under-existential-threat-from-venture-giants-2021-2">'We're going to f--- you over': Seed-stage VCs are in a fight for their lives against giants like Sequoia and Coatue</a></li></ul>Also read:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/libeo-french-fintech-startup-raises-third-vc-funding-round-in-12-months-2021-2">We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck that French fintech Libeo used to raise $24 million from DST Global partners</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-publiccom-valued-at-about-12-billion-in-round-led-by-tiger-2021-2">Tiger Global is leading a massive $200 million investment in Robinhood competitor Public.com at about a $1.2 billion valuation, quadrupling the company's value in just 2 months</a></li></ul><h2>The coronavirus is going to stick around forever</h2><div type="image" title="Coronavirus vaccine" height="1333" width="2000" msid="80911264" hostid="261"></div>From Andrew Dunn, Aria Bendix, and Hilary Brueck:As the pandemic approaches its second year, the coronavirus has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-variants-infectiousness-mutations-vaccines-2021-1">morphed into a tougher foe</a>.Several mutations that scientists have identified in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-variant-mutation-uk-vaccines-work-2021-2">rapidly spreading variants</a> are particularly worrisome. They raise concerns that these strains will be more contagious or be able to at least partly evade protection provided by vaccines and by prior infections.Let's be clear: No one knows how the next phase of the pandemic will play out. Is a new strain already <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-lack-of-coronavirus-genetic-sequencing-weakened-pandemic-response-2021-2">spreading undetected</a> or lurking around the corner? How effective will these vaccines be in the long run? And just when can we think about returning to schools and offices, or getting together with older relatives again? Despite this uncertainty, most scientists have accepted an unfortunate truth: The coronavirus will likely be part of our lives forever, though the pandemic phase will eventually end. Our best hope is for it to turn into a mild, flu-like illness rather than a deadlier, long-term threat. Read the full story here:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-the-pandemic-end-depends-on-coronavirus-variants-vaccines-2021-2">The coronavirus is going to stick around forever. Get ready for the new normal.</a></li></ul>Also read:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-northwell-health-is-striking-deals-big-employers-whole-foods-2021-2">New York's largest hospital system is bypassing health insurers to work directly with big companies like Amazon's grocery chain - and it could reshape the way workers get healthcare</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biotech-spacs-a-hard-sell-amid-a-booming-ipo-market-2021-2">SPACs have raised $1.3 billion to target the next big biotech startup. They're hitting intense competition and reluctance from startups.</a> </li></ul><h2>ICYMI: Thinking of moving to Hawaii?</h2>From Aki Ito:Back in September, Sandra Kwan left San Francisco dreaming of the perfect Hawaiian life. The past five months haven't disappointed.A senior program manager at LinkedIn, Kwan works 7 to 3 from her apartment, which overlooks Waikiki's surf breaks. In the late afternoons, she catches a few waves or goes scuba-diving or just sits on the beach, a three-minute walk away.Depending on the weekend, she dives with pods of dolphins and reef sharks or scrambles up the island's rocky ridges for panoramic views of the coastline. None of this would've been possible before the pandemic, when she worked out of LinkedIn's office in San Francisco.Kwan's pandemic move has been great for her, and yet it's also one vision of a better future for Hawaii. With the surge in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-asking-employees-to-work-from-home-due-to-coronavirus-2020">remote work</a>, the state may have finally found what it's been searching for: a way for people to live there without a career tied to tourism.Read the full story here:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hawaii-betting-economic-future-remote-work-2021-2">Hawaii may have finally found what it's been searching for: a way for people to live there without a career tied to tourism</a></li></ul>Also read:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mar-a-lago-donald-trump-palm-beach-real-estate-market-2021-2">Inside the glitzy, fractured world of Palm Beach, where Trump's Mar-a-Lago move rankles locals but the wealthy are fighting over mansions anyway</a></li></ul>Here are some headlines you might have missed from the past week.- Matt<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-influencer-marketers-at-brands-list-dunkin-chipotle-seatgeek-2021-1">The top 17 influencer marketers at brands who plan creative campaigns and partner effectively with creators on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-diversity-senior-manager-resignation-inclusion-inequity-2021-2">A Salesforce manager says she quit over 'countless microaggressions and inequity' at the $219 billion cloud-software giant</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-sell-tv-show-to-netflix-pitch-document-guidelines-2021-2">How to sell a show to Netflix with the help of an easily digestible pitch document, according to a workshop by one of the streamer's execs</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-news-started-layoffs-up-to-100-affected-2021-2">Bloomberg News has begun layoffs and nearly 100 people will be affected - read the full memo to staff</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-land-a-federal-judicial-clerkship-legal-law-school-2021-2">How to land a coveted federal judicial clerkship, according to 6 current and former clerks</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-threats-ev-stocks-tesla-nio-2021-2021-2">5 threats that could kill the electric-vehicle stock boom that has sent Tesla and Nio soaring, experts say</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-faces-reckoning-on-race-amid-lawsuits-2021-2">Inside McDonald's reckoning on race amid billion-dollar lawsuits and unprecedented new efforts</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ogilvys-new-global-ceo-andy-main-is-leading-a-big-turnaround">Ogilvy's new chief Andy Main is leading a massive turnaround at the storied ad agency, but some insiders are wary of the new direction</a>

A schoolteacher from California wiped out $70,000 in savings trading on Robinhood. Here's his message to first-time investors.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Reuters/Steve Marcus; Elliott Management; AP Photo/Richard Drew; Ruobing Su/Business InsiderJesse Cohn, center, is the righthand man for Paul Singer, on the right. He's brought a campaign against Randall Stephenson's AT&amp;T.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>The latest campaign for Wall Street hedge fund Elliott Management is a big one, taking on well-known American staple AT&amp;T. The man in charge of pushing the massive company to make the changes the $38 billion fund sees fit is 39-year-old Jesse Cohn, billionaire Paul Singer's right-hand man. </li><li>Other than Singer himself, Cohn is the person most responsible for the transformation of Elliott from a distressed situations specialist to the sprawling, institutional behemoth it is today, with a separate private equity arm and billions ready to be deployed for a new activist campaign. </li><li>Cohn's tactics have ranged from shrewd to aggressive in the 100-plus campaigns the Long Island native has run for Singer.</li><li>Business Insider talked to more than two dozen of his colleagues, competitors, detractors, and friends, who said Elliott's rise mimics Cohn's own personal rise in the firm and in corporate America.</li><li>Sources tell Business Insider that Cohn, and Elliott's activism as a whole, are transforming as the firm positions itself as a long-term investor.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul>Jesse Cohn has been behind some of the ugliest shareholder tussles and boardroom battles in history during his 15 years at Paul Singer's Elliott Management. His strategy of purchasing stock en masse and then demanding an overhaul of a company's business has provoked f-bombs from Detroit businessman Peter Karmanos and paranoia from AthenaHealth founder Jonathan Bush - the cousin of George W. Bush - that Cohn had him followed and photographed.Now, the 39-year-old - who is hooked on HBO's Succession - is setting his sights on his biggest target yet: telecom giant AT&amp;T.Those who have worked on the other side of some of his 100-plus campaigns at Elliott say his track record should strike terror in the hearts of AT&amp;T management, pointing to an uncanny ability to effect change at companies, including layoffs, cost-cutting, and the ouster of CEOs."I wouldn't want to be [AT&amp;T management]," said one long-time adviser to companies' boards of directors. In early September, Cohn sent 23 pages to AT&amp;T's board of directors, criticizing everything from the company's failed attempt to acquire T-Mobile in 2011, to its $67 billion acquisition of DirectTV - a move, he wrote, that produced "damaging results." At the same time, Cohn proposed cuts, saying AT&amp;T's organization was "unnecessarily complicated and inefficient, including a management layer that can be streamlined by reducing spans and layers and title proliferation."Only a week later, AT&amp;T's CEO Randall Stephenson publicly addressed Cohn's observations at a New York conference, acknowledging some of the points Cohn outlined "makes a lot of sense." And, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-explores-parting-ways-with-directv-11568841544">as it was reported in The Wall Street Journal</a>, AT&amp;T has begun exploring a possible split with DirectTV. <h2>An institutional Elliott</h2>The saga unfolding at AT&amp;T is Cohn's latest work, set on a much grander stage than he has ever stood - a new peak for the $38 billion hedge fund's top lieutenant because of the company's size and influence that he's been building to.A review of his career should be required reading for AT&amp;T's board: From falling into finance as someone who didn't know what he wanted to do in his early 20s to becoming Paul Singer's attack dog on some of his most influential campaigns, Cohn has developed a reputation as a feared investor with the means to change America's blue-chip corporations.Conversations with more than two dozen of his colleagues, competitors, detractors, and friends also reveal an evolution. Cohn has developed a more diplomatic touch, as his targets have become larger and overhauls need approval by long-term shareholders such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. People close to Cohn say he has gradually developed relationships with these large Wall Street investors, who hold key votes in any contest over how a large company is managed. He's on the boards of public companies like Citrix and eBay that he led campaigns on, as well as private companies that Elliott's private equity arm has bought outright. Chris Cernich, who once advised these large investors on how they should vote on some of Elliott's biggest proxy fights including oil and gas company Hess, went so far as to say Cohn is perhaps the perfect exemplar of how Elliott has become the most institutional of activist investors.Elliott "is one of the only activist funds that is not an alter ego of the founder," he said, as it maintains a corporate structure, with nine management committee members around billionaire Singer. At the same time, its investments have increasingly been packaged as a play for the long-term good of a corporation. This gives Cohn even more influence when he does go after a company like AT&amp;T. <h2>Cohn almost didn't join Elliott</h2>Fifteen years ago, Cohn almost didn't join Elliott. After spending two years on Morgan Stanley's M&amp;A team, Cohn began to look for hedge funds to join, accepting an offer from Elliott, which was then focused only on distressed situations. Cohn then later received an offer from a more "established fund," according to Ray McGuire, his boss at Morgan who is now Citigroup's global head of corporate and investment banking.It came as no surprise that Cohn had options. Originally a native of Long Island hamlet Baldwin, N.Y., Cohn was a computer whizkid in his youth, attending programming camps in the summer and earning a certification from software programmer Novell for his coding abilities before he could drive. (Years later, he pushed Novell to sell itself for more than $2 billion to Attachmate, where Cohn joined the board).He went to Wharton, where he was a part of a literary society, and graduated in 2002, when he started working for McGuire and prolific Wall Street dealmaker Paul Taubman at Morgan Stanley. There he helped make connections in the software and technology space that he eventually made his mark in at Elliott, sources say.At Morgan, McGuire said Cohn and fellow analyst Arta Tabaee, now a managing director at Clear Lake Capital Group, were always around, popping into his office with new ideas constantly. McGuire described Cohn as fearless and "Summa smart."The idea of joining Elliott ultimately prevailed. After talking his decision over with McGuire, Cohn decided to stick with his gut."I think that was an early, defining moment for Jesse, to honor his commitment," said McGuire, who is still in touch with Cohn today.In the subsequent years, the triathlon enthusiast would build Elliott's activism unit from scratch with a focus and energy that is unnerving to opponents and endearing to colleagues. He finds it difficult sitting still at his desk and often needs to take a break to walk through Central Park, according to those who have worked with him, bringing colleagues with him to strategize about their next investment.<h2>The birth of Elliott's activism</h2>Cohn started Elliott's activism unit in 2005 with a small investment in switchmaker and Cisco competitor Enterasys Networks, which he pressured to sell, doubling Elliott's investment in the process. The initial investment in Enterasys was only $15 million, but to Cohn it was huge, according to people close to him. He took a shine to hunting down the inner details of a business, cold-calling customers, employees, and engineers in the switchmaking industry for insights. The company had loyal customers, but its products weren't reaching enough people, he concluded. His career purpose began to take shape: He loved improving companies. Soon, a whole swath of other small tech companies came in to Cohn's crosshairs. They had compelling products, he thought, but their stocks were underperforming. So he amassed stakes in their businesses, approached their management, and told them they were doing it wrong. Oftentimes it wasn't pretty.In 2006, Harry Knowles was the CEO of bar-code systems maker Metrologic Instruments. After Metrologic underperformed that year, Knowles recalls Cohn approached him in an annual shareholder meeting and told him he would have to step aside and sell the company."He said, 'Hey, let me talk to you,'" said Knowles. "You don't have any choice."Knowles, then in his 70s, thought he was getting old for the job. He cooperated with Cohn in selling Metrologic to private equity shop Francisco Partners and Elliott for $440 million. The newly installed owners hired another CEO to replace Knowles, who in turn fired Knowles' close friends and jettisoned business lines that relied upon Knowles' personal involvement. The process was "painful," Knowles recalls.It wouldn't be the last time Cohn's pressure on companies would contribute to the fraying of relationships among company management.By 2012, Cohn set his sights on Compuware, a Detroit-based software company created by former Carolina Hurricanes owner Pete Karmanos. Karmanos was on his way out of the company after ceding leadership, ready for a happy retirement. But after Elliott bought a stake and pressed for layoffs and cost-cutting, he and his newly appointed CEO stopped getting along.As Cohn bought more and more of the company's stock, multiple expletive-laced arguments broke out between Karmanos and his chosen successor Bob Paul over whether to cut costs, including his own retirement parties that would have cost $1.5 million and rented out the Detroit City Airport, according to a lawsuit later lodged by Karmanos against his fellow board members.Karmanos's temperament soured more when Cohn ratcheted up the stakes and made a bid for the Compuware business as a whole at the end of 2012, phoning up Paul and telling him the bid would hit the press in 30 seconds, according to court documents. After the board declined the bid, Karmanos told a crowd of several hundred people at a business conference that if he were still in charge, he "would tell the hedge fund to go f--- themselves," according to a lengthy account of the matter in the <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/2015/07/25/karmanos-compuware-saga-detroit/30464355/">Detroit Free Press</a>.Testimony from board members in Karmanos's lawsuit detailed an aggressive approach by Cohn.They said Cohn had thick files of personal information on each board member with details on what jobs their spouses had and schools their kids attended. He had the files laid out on a conference room table when the board met with Cohn in Elliott's New York office. Karmanos has said he believed it played a part in intimidating his board into eventually selling.<h2>'We're the aggressors'</h2>Cohn's reputation as an attack dog intensified during his campaign against healthcare technology company Athenahealth.<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/27/paul-singer-doomsday-investor">A feature story in The New Yorker</a> detailed his campaign last year against Athenahealth's former CEO Jonathan Bush, who said an anonymous Instagram user had taken pictures of him with a female friend and sent them to his wife. He wondered if Elliott was behind it - something the firm denies. Bush resigned from the company after a London-based reporter discovered details of domestic abuse in divorce filings from more than a decade ago. Elliott has repeatedly denied the claims made in the lawsuit and past media reports on the firm's tactics, including any insinuation that it placed the story about Bush's history of domestic violence. But sources say the stories played to the firm's benefit. Boards and lawyers are reticent to fight a firm with Elliott's reputation. The stock price of companies Elliott takes a stake in often jump when a campaign is announced. "Part of Elliott's story to their investors and to the media is 'we're the aggressors,'" said J.B. Heaton, a managing member of One Hat Research and a former lawyer that worked on activism cases, who has studied activism's effectiveness.Cohn's ability to create change within an organization has been rewarded by Singer.A couple years ago, Cohn paid $30 million for a penthouse in Manhattan's financial district that spans 6,000 square feet, according <a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/05/03/activist-investor-appears-to-be-buyer-of-30m-duplex-at-30-park-place/">to media reports at the time</a>. <h2>Private equity powers </h2>One weapon in Cohn's arsenal that would make him even more effective came in 2015: a private equity fund Cohn created within Elliott, called Evergreen Coast Capital. The very nature of private equity - buying a company whole and improving its performance over as many as five years - was a departure from Cohn's reputation for seeking immediate change. The fund was started by Cohn <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/75eadbba-03a7-11e9-99df-6183d3002ee1">after Elliott lost out on a bid for a company in which it was an investor</a>: Riverbed Technologies, which Thoma Bravo and other investors bought in 2014. The fund has put billions of dollars to work, taking companies like Gigamon, Travelport and Athenahealth private. With a private equity fund at Cohn's disposal, he could walk into a board room meeting as a shareholder to talk about a company's performance, and then swiftly pivot, turning the conversation into a dialogue about a possible sale of the company to Elliott, one person familiar with his campaigns said.At least one instance where this happened was the sale of LifeLock Inc., a consumer protection company, which, after an initial meeting with Cohn in 2016, was sold to another company where Elliott was a significant investor: Symantec Corp. <h2>What AT&amp;T can expect</h2>At AT&amp;T, of course, executives don't need to worry about a possible buyout. The company is too large to be acquired outright. Instead, Cohn is seeking to extract concessions from the company's management to conduct its business differently, including halting plans for any merger and acquisition activity, outsourcing work, and closing "redundant stores." Labor union Communications Workers of America is fighting back against the proposals."Our position is that this business strategy will harm local communities that rely on the good jobs and advanced communications networks that flow from AT&amp;T investment," wrote labor union president Christopher Shelton in a letter to the AT&amp;T board. Cohn has joined the boards of companies he has pressed in the past, such as Citrix and eBay. While it's unknown if he will end up on the AT&amp;T board, Cohn's current and former board member colleagues say he isn't resistant to compromise once he's able to get a better understanding of the company.Fred Salerno, the chair of cybersecurity company Akamai's board, said Cohn had originally wanted to fire the CEO and sell the company, but relented after meeting with executives. "He's proven himself to be a very collaborative board member," said Bob Calderoni, who leads Citrix's board, which Cohn has been on for four years. Calderoni believes the time on boards has helped Cohn learn that "operating a company is different than investing in a company.""He's willing to listen and learn."Lately, Cohn's been consuming a steady diet of literature, from Bob Igor's book, "The Ride of a Lifetime," which offers a window into how Igor ran the Walt Disney Company as CEO, to "Dreyer's English," a book about writing by a top editor at Random House. A person close to Cohn says the latter book influenced his wordsmithing of the AT&amp;T letter. But while Cohn may be academic and cerebral, he hasn't lost the assertive nature for which he's so well known, people close to him say. Some are not so quick to believe Cohn's turned a new leaf at all. One person who has represented companies said that while Cohn is easier to negotiate with in producing quick settlements, he doesn't for a minute think anyone who gets in his way won't suffer his wrath. "The idea that he's turned a new leaf and he's a nice, kinder Jesse?" the person asked, considering the notion, before then quickly dismissing it."I don't know. Go read The New Yorker article."<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/connectivity-and-tech-pro?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=tmobile&amp;itm_campaign=connectivity-and-tech-pro"></a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ipo-scott-galloway-impact-jp-morgan-softbank-2019-9">Scott Galloway explains who gets hosed from WeWork's IPO disaster</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

We talked to 24 people about the hedge fund wunderkind at Elliott Management who wants to shake up AT&T. Here's why management should be terrified.

FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors.
<a href="http://www.gluskinsheff.com/Home">The Dividend Theme Is Far From Over</a> (Gluskin Sheff) 
Though dividend-paying stocks are trading at 15x trailing multiples compared with 14x P/E for the rest of the market, David Rosenberg says the divided theme is far from over because baby boomers are still looking for a "retirement map".
"Dividend-paying stocks generated a total return of 42% in the past five years, handily beating the 26% return triggered by the rest of the universe. So where we go from here is quite clear. It's not just about 'yield' any more but about the company's ability to grow the dividend over time and do so without resorting to debt markets or sacrificing reinvested growth in the company. It is a fine line but dividend growth is now vital and there are now industrials and consumer products companies (not just utilities and telcos) who fit that bill.
"..What so many pundits are missing –and this is so evident in the bond market as well – is how the secular demographic shifts are causing a semi-permanent reassessment of how much 'income' in general – whether in income equity, long-short strategies or in fixed income – and this theme has many more legs to go, in my opinion."
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324880504578300311439227952.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">A Massachusetts Regulator Wants The SEC To Ban A Mandatory Arbitration Clause </a>(The Wall Street Journal)
A Massachusetts regulator is asking the SEC to ban an arbitration clause found in contracts between advisors and their clients. The clause prevents clients from taking their claims on losses or other damages to court. 
Nearly half of investment advisors surveyed in Massachusetts had the clause in their contracts and Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin wrote to the SEC saying this clause was "troubling and a cause for regulatory concern".
<a href="http://www.advisorone.com/2013/02/11/vanguards-brennan-embrace-innovation-beware-prolif?ref=hp">ETFs Are One Of The Key Reasons That It's Such A Great Time To Be An Advisor </a>(Advisor One)
Vanguard Group's Chairman Emeritus Jack Brennan said this is "the best time ever" to be a financial advisor and this is in large part because of products like ETFs. ETFs he said give advisors time to build their business since they offer diversity and are transparent and tax-efficient. "For 19 basis points, you get the Harvard endowment." Brennan did warn against too much innovation among ETFs for instance actively managed ETFs since that would introduce manager risk.
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-response-to-the-sotu-2013-2">How The Stock Market Has Reacted To Every State Of The Union Since 1934</a> (LPL Financial)
President Obama delivered his State of the Union (SOTU) speech last night in which he called for $9 minimum wage. 
Most SOTU speeches cause a less than 1 percent move in stock markets. Here is a look at the post-SOTU stock market moves since 1934.
<table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><a href="http://lplfinancial.lpl.com/Documents/ResearchPublications/Weekly_Market_Commentary.pdf">LPL Financial</a></td></tr></table>
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/thoughts-on-the-great-rotation-2013-2">Why The Great Rotation Won't Be As Good For Stocks As You Think</a> (Marc To Market)
Those talking about the Great Rotation have argued that money is moving out of bonds into stocks and that there is more money in equity funds now that there was in all of 2012. But Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman disagrees. 
"There is a third asset class that needs to be integrated into the analysis: cash. After surveying the data and various reports, it looks to us that the flows into equities is not coming out of fixed income but rather money market funds and deposits
"Through last week, equity funds (counting ETFs) saw an inflow of around $70 bln (compared with $23 bln in all of 2012). The $30 bln inflows being reported by bond funds is a major argument against the "Great Rotation", though this is a bit off the pace seen last year ($40 bln inflows during the same period)."

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We talked to 24 people about the hedge fund wunderkind at Elliott Management who wants to shake up AT&T. Here's why management should be terrified.

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