, Columnist
Robot Funds and Consumer Relief
Also Wells Fargo, Uber, IPOs, satiety and repose.
BlackRock.
There's a negative way to look at the news that BlackRock Inc. is laying off a bunch of stock-fund managers to focus more on computer-driven quantitative strategies, and a positive way. The negative view is that it's tough out there for an active equity manager. It's hard to outperform the index. People don't want stock-pickers, and are moving their money to index funds. There is a lot of pressure on fees. It's a declining business, which is why BlackRock is slowly backing away from it. As BlackRock's Mark Wiseman puts it: