google.com, pub-6370463716499017, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 AlfaBloggers Best Bloggers Team Of Asia

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Active in cloud, Amazon reshapes computing





Within a few years, Amazon.com's creative destruction of both traditional book publishing and retailing may be footnotes to the company's larger and more secretive goal: giving anyone on the planet access to an almost unimaginable amount of computing power.
Every day, a start-up called the Climate Corporation performs over 10,000 simulations of the next two years' weather for more than one million locations in the United States. It then combines that with data on root structure and soil porosity to write crop insurance for thousands of farmers.

Another start-up, called Cue, scans up to 500 million e-mails, Facebook updates and corporate documents to create a service that can outline the biography of a given person you meet, warn you to be home to receive a package or text a lunch guest that you are running late.

Each of these start-ups carries out computing tasks that a decade ago would have been impossible without a major investment in computers. Both of these companies, however, own little besides a few desktop computers. They and thousands of other companies now rent data storage and computer server time from Amazon, through its Amazon Web Services division, for what they say is a fraction of the cost of owning and running their own computers.

"I have 10 engineers, but without A.W.S. I guarantee I'd need 60," said Daniel Gross, Cue's 20-year-old co-founder. "It just gets cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper." He figures Cue spends something under $100,000 a month with Amazon but would spend "probably $2 million to do it ourselves, without the speed and flexibility."

He conceded that "I don't even know what the ballpark number for a server is - for me, it would be like knowing what the price of a sword is."

Cloud computing has been around for years, but it is now powering all kinds of new businesses around the globe, quickly and with less capital.

Instagram, a 12-person photo-sharing company that was sold to Facebook for an estimated $1 billion just 19 months after it opened, skipped the expenses and bother of setting up its own computer servers.

EdX, a global online education program from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, had over 120,000 students taking a single class together on A.W.S. Over 185 United States government agencies run some part of their services on A.W.S. Millions of people in Africa shop for cars online, using cheap smartphones connected to A.W.S. servers located in California and Ireland.

"We are on a shift that is as momentous and as fundamental as the shift to the electrical grid," said Andrew R. Jassy, the head of A.W.S. "It's happening a lot faster than any of us thought."

He started A.W.S. in 2006 with about three dozen employees. Amazon won't say how many people now work at A.W.S., but the company's Web site currently lists over 600 job openings.

Amazon's efforts are just the start of a global competition among computing giants. In June, Google fully introduced a service similar to A.W.S. Microsoft is also in the business with its offering, Windows Azure.

If only for competitive reasons, Amazon does not say much about A.W.S. However, it is estimated to bring in about $1 billion to Amazon. Its three giant computer regional centers in the United States, in Virginia, Oregon and California, each consist of multiple buildings with thousands of servers.

There are others in Japan, Ireland, Singapore and Brazil. And the pace of its expansion has quickened. It opened four of those regions in 2011 and is believed to be building a similar number now. Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, is interested in setting up cloud-computing installations for other governments.

According to an executive with knowledge of Amazon's operation who was not authorized to speak publicly, just one of the 10 data centers in Amazon's Eastern United States region has more servers dedicated to cloud computing than does Rackspace, a public cloud company serving 180,000 businesses with more than 80,000 servers.

Eventually, however, Mr. Jassy said, "we believe at the highest level that A.W.S. can be at least as big as our other businesses." Amazon recorded nearly $50 billion in revenue last year. Mr. Jassy thinks A.W.S. is probably less than 10 percent of its eventual size.

The lower cost of computing, along with overnight deployment of machines, drives the business. Germany's Spiegel TV paid A.W.S. to make digital copies of 20,000 programs. It cost less than Spiegel would have paid for the electricity powering its own servers.

GoodData, based in San Francisco, analyzes data from 6,000 companies on A.W.S. to find things like sales leads. "Before, each company needed at least five people to do this work," said Roman Stanek, GoodData's chief executive. "That is 30,000 people. I do it with 180. I don't know what all those other people will do now, but this isn't work they can do anymore. It's a winner-takes-all consolidation."

All that data running through Amazon's cloud also has value. People leave bits of data about themselves that others then analyze. At any given time on A.W.S., there are about one million uses of a powerful database, called Elastic MapReduce, that is used to make predictions. Some suggest a new movie or video game to play, while others log behavior for advertising, credit history or suggestions about whom to date. (Companies have to permit their data to be analyzed, and Amazon says it applies the same security standards it uses on its retail site.)

The efficiency of this hyper-aware environment is already remaking jobs for many and will most likely dislocate more. "You can now test a product against millions of users for just a few thousand dollars, or start a company with just one or two people," said Graham Spencer, a partner at Google Ventures, which invests in data-heavy start-ups that rely on such cheap computing. "It's a huge change for Silicon Valley."

That vision is in line with the way Mr. Bezos sees A.W.S., say executives who have worked with him. "Jeff thinks on a planetary level," said David Risher, a former Amazon senior executive who now heads a charity called Worldreader, which uses A.W.S. to download books to thousands of computers in Africa. "A.W.S. is an opportunity, as a business. But it is also a philosophy of enabling other people to build big systems. That is how Amazon will make a dent in the universe."



Happy Landings ..........

Capt Shekhar Gupta
CEO
AeroSoft Corp
W : www.aerosoftseo.com
www.aerosoftseo.com
http://www.aerosoft.in
http://www.aerosoftorg.in
http://www.aerosoftcorp.in
E  :  shekhar@aerosoft.in
 














 


 
Cloud computing market may grow 70% this year: IDC
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Active in cloud, Amazon reshapes computing
NDTV
Within a few years, Amazon.com's creative destruction of both traditional book publishing and retailing may be footnotes to the company's larger and more secretive goal: giving anyone on the planet access to an almost unimaginable amount of computing ...
See all stories on this topic »
VMware Focuses On Private Cloud, Dumps Unpopular Pricing
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CloudSigma Shortlisted for 2012 Cloud Computing World Series Awards
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Zurich, Switzerland - August 28, 2012 - CloudSigma, the only international, customer-centric, pure-cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider, today announced that it has been shortlisted in the third annual Cloud Computing World Series Awards ...
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Cloud Computing: The Cloud's Roller Coaster Ride of Hype to Productivity
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Sony to Boost Research Spending on Cloud Computing, Displays
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Softbank Telecom and VCE to offer cloud computing solutions to enterprises in ...
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Ken Miyauchi, representative director & COO, Softbank Telecom, said the relationship with VCE extends our VMware expertise and will help more companies lower costs and improve efficiencies through virtualization and cloud computing. Softbank Telecom ...
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telecomlead.com
Does the US understand cloud computing?
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The average American consumer doesn't understand what cloud computing is or how it works, according to a national survey. The survey, undertaken by Wakefield Research and commissioned by cloud-technology firm Citrix, showed that many U.S. ...
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Strategic Alliance between Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the country’s largest airline by passengers carried, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG



The civil aviation ministry has approved a strategic alliance between Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the country’s largest airline by passengers carried, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG that will enable them to sell seats across each other’s networks, in the process pushing state-owned Air India deeper into the red.

The blanket approval for the code-sharing arrangement between Jet and the German airline could be a step towards the Indian carrier joining Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline network.

Code sharing is an agreement between two airlines that allows each to book seats on the other’s flights as it would on its own.

Teaming up: Jet Airways wants to cover almost the entire Lufthansa network in Europe and North America, and other routes. In return, Lufthansa will be able to book seats on Jet’s domestic flights. Photo: Hindustan Times
Typically, the arrangement is restricted to a few select sectors, but Jet sought approval to cover almost the entire Lufthansa network in Europe and North America, and other routes. In return, Lufthansa will be able to book seats on Jet’s domestic flights.
“This will help them expand their market. We have granted them in-principle approval for it this week,” said a aviation ministry official, who declined to be named.

Jet did not reply to an email and phone calls seeking comment. Lufthansa declined to comment.

Lufthansa had mentored Air India to join Star Alliance, which has since denied entry to the government-owned carrier on grounds that it hadn’t met some membership conditions, Mint reported on 2 August. Air India had rejected these claims.

Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal and Star Alliance’s chief executive officer Mark Schwab had met earlier this year to discuss plans for Jet to join the network; Jet applied to the aviation ministry on 16 July seeking approval to join the club, which would make it the partner of choice for other members of the alliance flying to India.

Teaming up with Lufthansa could ease Jet’s entry into Star Alliance.

The aviation ministry, as per standard protocol, sought Air India’s views on Jet Airways’ request to co-opt Lufthansa. Air India “strongly opposed” the move, an official at the flag carrier said on condition of anonymity.

“It’s miserable to see what is being done,” the Air India official said.

Air India, in an estimate to the ministry, said it risked losing Rs. 92 crore annually on just one single route—Mumbai-Munich—as a result of the code sharing between Jet Airways and Lufthansa. The approval covers several dozen more routes.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh told Parliament last week that Air India’s loss on international routes had reached Rs. 1,700 crore in the three years from 2009-10.

Steve Forte, a former Jet Airways chief executive officer, said a blanket code sharing arrangement could mean Jet was preparing to sell a stake to a foreign airline when the Indian government changes rules to allow it. At present, Indian rules permit foreign investment of up to 49% in domestic carriers, provided the investor isn’t an airline.

“Perhaps Jet is getting ready for foreign participation, particularly in view of Goyal’s reversal on his previous position of being against it,” Forte said adding, “Whatever the reason, both airlines can advertise a larger network and it should be somewhat detrimental to Air India.”

Jet will be able to attract more passengers to its domestic network if it decides to fly to European points such as Munich and Frankfurt from places such as Hyderabad and Bangalore and could even relocate its existing European hub from Brussels to the Lufthansa-fed Munich or Frankfurt, said a foreign airline executive who asked not to be identified.

For Lufthansa, the code sharing means taking on Emirates, this executive said.

“You have to look at who Lufthansa fears...who is threatening to eat their lunch? The answer is, of course, the Middle-Eastern carriers,” this executive said, adding that Lufthansa has realized that it can’t serve all the destinations that Emirates serves profitably.

The executive explained that the German airlines flights to Hyderabad and Kolkata have failed. Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines together fly to 85 cities in Europe, this person explained. “That is obviously very unsettling for a large European carrier.”



Happy Landings ..........

Capt Shekhar Gupta
CEO
AeroSoft Corp
W : www.aerosoftseo.com
www.aerosoftseo.com
http://www.aerosoft.in
http://www.aerosoftorg.in
http://www.aerosoftcorp.in
E  :  shekhar@aerosoft.in
 












 

Government disagrees IATA's claim of IGI being costliest airport in the world
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NEW DELHI: Government today disagreed with the claims of IATA, an international body of airlines, that Delhi's IGI airport was costliest in the world and said as per UN's aviation regulatory body it was placed below the five most expensive airports in ...
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US Federal Aviation Administration to re-examine in-flight electronics use
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Chances are good that you'll still need to put your electronic devices away during takeoff and landing, but the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is forming a combined government-industry group to determine when your computer, smartphone and ...
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Aviation regulator questions rule change
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The aviation safety regulator has questioned Mumbai air traffic control (ATC) on its recent decision to reduce the distance between two arriving flights by two nautical miles, in its probe into the near collision between two aircraft at Mumbai on ...
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Heathrow third runway: Justine Greening says bold foresight needed for ...
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“We need to look long term,” she said, arguing that the Government had to draw up a policy which would meet Britain's aviation needs for the next 50 years. She added that the Government would look to "start the process of saying well, if we're not ...
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Govt approves Jet, Lufthansa strategic alliance
Livemint
New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry has approved a strategic alliance between Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the country's largest airline by passengers carried, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG that will enable them to sell seats across each other's networks ...
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Demand for aviation staff to surge in SE Asia
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... two decades. Some 185,000 new commercial airline pilots and 243,500 new technicians are expected to be needed in the Asia-Pacific from now to 2030. The region's aviation industry is forecast to have a staggering market value of S$1.7 trillion by then.
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AsiaOne
British Civil Aviation Authority Highly Interested In Pilots' UFO Sightings
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Clarke, seen at right, told the Huffington Post that the Civil Aviation Authority -- a different government department from the MoD -- kept separate records of UFO cases, "not only by the aircrew, themselves, but also anything unusual that was seen by ...
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Division of Aviation reminder for pilots about the Democratic National Convention
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The North Carolina Department of Transportation's Division of Aviation sent a reminder Monday for all general aviation pilots. The release reminds pilots to do thorough flight planning prior to flying in and around the Charlotte area during the ...
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Civil aviation charges increase to resource loss-making CAA
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The new funding framework affects all civil aviation fees, and levies, which last year totalled $22.16 million. The charges will come into effect on November 1. It will recover an extra $14.1 million over the next three years from commercial aircraft ...
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SIP Systematic Cheating Plan Beware ! How Bank systematically cheats SIP Systematic Investment Plan (SIP)


Beware ! How Bank systematically cheats SIP Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) or SIP Systematic Cheating Plan



Beware ! 

 How  Bank systematically cheats 

SIP Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) 

or 

SIP Systematic Cheating Plan 




A special SIP series for members who want to do SIP on an Agents calls.  Systematic Investment Plan is  not a 100% systematic is what I am going to talk .  

There are a number of Bankers who cheat people. As they have big sales tragets.
  




BEWARE OF HDFC ULIP policies. They are cheating people without giving proper facts.
I recently bought a ULIP from HDFC, the manager informed me the commission charged by the bank is 2.5% of the total investment.
After a week I got the recipt of the ULIP and it showed investement of only 40%. The remaining 60% was missing. When enquired from the bank, they say the commision is 60% for the first year, 50% for the next year & 3 rd year is nil, but if you continue the policy after 3 years then again the the commision starts from 60%.
Be very careful of these cheats.

the policy is a crap. one manager in the bank cheated us will all false information.
We gave a complaint and is of no use.
we lost hard earned one lakh because of them.
we went to put 25000 in some other ulip plan other than hdfc, that buy made us put 1, 00, 000 in HDFC ulip, telling that 1st year alone, pay 1, 00, 000 and from next yera pay ionly 10000.now they are telling there is nothing like that and every year we need to pay 100000 and they took service tax as 30 %. do never believe this bank's people, they have employees ONLY to cheat people like us.

HDFC agents told me that if we continue the policy after 3 years for 2 years more, it will yield us profit..
but when you say that the commission again they take is 60%, so what to do in that case?
Should i continue after 3 years or not
and also should i reduce the premium for my 3rd year..as the value for my money is constantly decreasing
Please suggest

HDFC ULIPS are cheats.

Their ULIPS are not performing.

I invested 50, 000 in first year, the bank agent did not tell anything about the 30% comission.. and the investment is worth 28, 000+

I did not invest any more for second and third year.

I will not be surprised they wrap up their business.

Cheats Cheats Cheats !

Big time cheaters they are! I paid premium for 4 years, and the NAV changed from 60+ to 80+ still when I check my balance, it is couple of thousands loss!!! because of their charges and for 2nd year reinstantiation of the lapsed policy they cheated me big time by cutting down my units as per the latest NAV for the whole amount I paid for 2 years

its not survival of the fittest, its the survival of the wittiest..
An agent also cheated me three years back that i am making a smart investment,

they took almost 50% (300000) of my total investment at the time of surrendering after 3 years...Imagine, this is not at all ethical..

any way this is a good lesson learned..its not too late now to cancel or surrendering your ULIP policy, mark my words...

Better to get some small interest in FD !! from my returned/ surrendered amount.


Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks, please read the offer document before nvesting. Investors may note that securities, which offer higher potential return, will usually display higher volatility. Equity securities by nature are volatile and prone to price fluctuations on a daily basis due to macro & micro factors


Happy Landings ..........

Capt Shekhar Gupta
CEO
AeroSoft Corp
W : www.aerosoftseo.com
www.aerosoftseo.com
http://www.aerosoft.in
http://www.aerosoftorg.in
http://www.aerosoftcorp.in
E  :  shekhar@aerosoft.in
 

Mutual funds must launch direct plans and offer higher NAV MUTUAL FUNDS MUST LAUNCH DIRECT PLANS AND OFFER HIGHER NAV













 


 


Mutual Fund Scams

10600


Many financial planners sing about the virtues of mutual funds. They will tell you mutual funds are great long-term investments with high returns and very low risk. In reality, the only thing mutual funds are good for is lining the pockets of people who sell and run them. Before you invest in a mutual fund, consider the following.

There Are More Mutual Funds Than Stocks

At last count, there were over 17,000 mutual funds in the US. That’s more than all the stocks listed on the US exchanges.

Crazy High Fees

Mutual funds carry very high fees compared to other investments. You have purchase fee, redemption fee, exchange fee, account fee, management fee, fee for going to restroom, etc. Just buying a mutual fund puts you in the red from the get-go. The SEC does not limit the size of sales load a fund may charge, but the NASD does not permit mutual fund sales loads to exceed 8.5%. That is a crazy high commission. It means your mutual fund needs to increase in value by 8.5% just so you can break even!

Ah, but what about the backend loaded funds? They can be even worst. Sure, all your money goes into the fund but now you’re locked in for up to 10 years if you wish to avoid paying a load. If you need the cash before then, you have to pay a commission on not only the amount you invested but also on the gain as well! What about “no load” funds? There is no such thing. All funds have a load on it. The financial planner will get his commission for selling you the fund. If you do not pay the commission, then the fund pays it. Guess where the fund eventually takes the money from?

You Are Last In Line

Even before the fund makes one dollar, money comes off the top to pay the fund management company. It doesn’t matter if the fund makes or loses money, the fund company gets a percentage of the fund’s net asset value. Some funds have very high management fees – up to 2% of the fund value. That’s another 2% you have to make up to get back to square one.

Then we have the fund manager. This hot shot is supposed to turn your life savings into a fortune. For the work they do, mutual fund managers are among the most overpaid people in the world. Everyone on Wall Street makes far too much for moving money around, but mutual fund managers are the most reprehensible. Fund managers earn $500,000 to over $1 million a year including bonuses – but 70% of them can’t beat the market. In other words, you are paying them for a 70% chance of losing money. Oh, they will spin any profit as a gain but the question remains, if you cannot even match the market, are you making any real gains?



It Is Possible To Make A Loss and Still Pay Capital Gains Tax

During a crash or market correction, the mutual fund value will drop. This drop can panic many investors, who will then pull their cash out (fees and backend loads be damned). If the fund is fully invested, the fund manager will have to sell some of the holdings in order to pay off the people redeeming fund units. While a normal investor would sell their losers and keep the winners in a down market, the reverse happens in a mutual fund. The fund manger will sell off the winners to pay off the people cashing in their fund so he can look good at bonus time – fund managers don’t get big bonuses for selling holdings at a loss. While this is good for the fund manager, it triggers a capital gain to you. So you are paying capital gains tax on a fund that is declining in value! Talk about getting double screwed!

Still Want To Invest?

If you still want to invest in mutual funds then do yourself a favor and stick to the low cost index funds. Index funds are like mutual funds except the fund manager doesn’t decide what to invest in, the index the fund covers does. For example, an S&P 500 index fund would only hold shares in companies that make up the S&P 500. If S&P drops a company from their index and adds a new one, the index fund must sell the dropped shares and buy shares of the newly added company. This is one reason why Google had to do a 2nd $4 billion offering. They got included in the S&P 500 and the index funds needed to buy their shares in order to maintain their proper holdings. The fees and expense ratio on an index fund are lower and their fund manager isn’t paid as much as a mutual fund manager – any idiot can manage an index fund.


Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks, please read the offer document before nvesting. Investors may note that securities, which offer higher potential return, will usually display higher volatility. Equity securities by nature are volatile and prone to price fluctuations on a daily basis due to macro & micro factors


Happy Landings ..........

Capt Shekhar Gupta
CEO
AeroSoft Corp
W : www.aerosoftseo.com
www.aerosoftseo.com
http://www.aerosoft.in
http://www.aerosoftorg.in
http://www.aerosoftcorp.in
E  :  shekhar@aerosoft.in


Mutual funds must launch direct plans and offer higher NAV MUTUAL FUNDS MUST LAUNCH DIRECT PLANS AND OFFER HIGHER NAV
















 

Big mutual funds split with management at Citigroup, JPMorgan
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BOSTON, Aug 28(Reuters) - Several leading mutual funds disclosed voting against management in high profile proxy battles at companies like Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Chesapeake Energy Corp, showing for the first time that they were part of ...
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Sebi directive sends small fund houses to small towns
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A reasonable reform for money market funds
Washington Post
THE $2.6 TRILLION money market mutual fund industry functions much like commercial banking: Clients can access their funds readily and write checks while earning slightly more interest than they would on an actual bank account. This advantage is due in ...
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Top 5 Zacks #1 Ranked Fidelity Mutual Funds - Best of Fund Family
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With over $1.5 trillion of assets under management and a wide variety of mutual funds spanning across a wide spectrum of sectors, Fidelity Investments is one of the largest mutual fundcompanies in the world. The company provides investment advice, ...
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Fidelity's Abigail Johnson to head all main operations
Reuters
BOSTON (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments said Tuesday Abigail Johnson was promoted to run all of the company's main businesses, the strongest signal yet that she could be the next leader of themutual fund powerhouse founded by her grandfather. Abigail ...
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Investors add an international touch to their portfolio
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According to the Association of Mutual Funds in India's half yearly data, more than 94 per cent of total folios in international feeder funds were owned by retail investors as on March 31. This number has increased from 93 per cent in the previous year.
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Paul Ryan's Jumbled Mutual Fund Portfolio
TheStreet.com
According to disclosure documents, the presumptive GOP vice presidential candidate and his wife Janna have up to $3.2 million in assets, and much of the portfolio is stashed in mutual funds. The couple's documents are posted at opensecrets.org, a Web ...
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In a Harsh Climate, Funds Get Creative
Morningstar.com
To avoid potential legal issues, the typical mutual fund prospectus is remarkably broad (or, some would say, annoyingly vague). After slogging through pages and pages of technical details, an investor might conclude that the fund can do anything it wants.
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An Investor's Guide to Fees and Expenses
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The priciest mutual funds are so-called "alternative" funds, which have an average asset-weighted expense ratio of 1.33 percent, according to Morningstar. Alternative funds buy up commodities or other assets that, in theory, will perform differently ...
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