Forget lengthy disclosures. There’s nothing like punctuation to ward off investors.
According to Bank of Israel research published Tuesday, the simple addition of an exclamation mark to the names of some mutual funds led to significant declines in net flows as retail investors grew warier. The bank calls it the “Exclamation Mark of Cain.”
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Daniel Fagan, MSPFP, MPA, AIF, is managing partner at Radiant Wealth Management, an independent firm in Connecticut specializing in financial planning for academics, physicians and high net worth families.
He previously spent 17 years at TIAA advising faculty at top universities including Yale, UConn, Wesleyan and other leading institutions.
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Russell Curzon has over 20 years of commercial experience in the payments industry. As vice president of commercial sales at Nuvei, Curzon and his team are building Nuvei's market share in the UK and Ireland and helping businesses with Nuvei's next-generation payments technology.
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As Gen Z navigates student debt, housing costs and a slew of other financial pressures, many have become disillusioned with the possibility of retirement. Financial advisors say that can make planning difficult, but not impossible.
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While conventional theories on decision-making hold that investment strategies should be made following rational analysis of qualities like risk, return, or fees, the research paper published Tuesday shows presentation can shape investment behavior.
The paper draws on a study of a 2010 Israel Securities Authority reform that required fund managers to add an exclamation mark to the names of mutual funds allowed to hold high-yield corporate bonds beyond their maximum exposure to equity investments. Only the risk salience was affected, not the fundamentals or information available.
However, the name change also created another impact.
Funds that added an exclamation mark boosted junk bond holdings significantly. “We leave
the further investigation of this behavior to future research,” the researchers wrote.
