2017-11-27 07:39:00 Mon ET
stock market gold oil stock return s&p 500 asset market stabilization asset price fluctuations stocks bonds currencies commodities funds term spreads credit spreads fair value spreads asset investments
Is it anti-competitive and illegal for passive indexers and mutual funds to place large stock bets in specific industries with high market concentration? Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge suggests that it is illegal for a passive institutional investor to buy-and-hold large equity stakes in a less competitive industry with high concentration, such as the U.S. airlines industry with 4 or fewer key players. In contrast, passive indexers would be safe from antitrust concerns if most other institutional investors stop buying multiple public companies in a specific sector with high market concentration.
The basic rationale relates to the fact that if institutional investors such as index funds and mutual funds hold shares of multiple companies in a specific industry, these oligopolistic firms would tend to compete less vigorously with one another. When senior executives make business decisions in the best interests of their institutional investors, this logic suggests less fierce product market competition and greater price discrimination for consumers in addition to the private benefits of portfolio diversification. The net result would be more stable share prices and more favorable rents and returns to these passive indexers and mutual funds.
Although key critics may disagree with this novel thesis, it is quite controversial to judge whether it is legal for institutional investors to retain major equity stakes in oligopolistic firms in a given industry with high market concentration.
If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.
2019-12-01 10:31:00 Sunday ET

Goop Founder and CEO Gwyneth Paltrow serves as a great inspiration for female entrepreneurs. Paltrow designs Goop as an online newsletter, and this newslett
2019-03-01 13:36:00 Friday ET

Global economic uncertainty now lurks in a thick layer of mystery. This uncertainty arises from Sino-U.S. trade tension, Brexit fallout, monetary policy nor
2019-07-30 15:33:00 Tuesday ET

All of the 18 systemically important banks pass the annual Federal Reserve stress tests. Many of the largest lenders announce higher cash payouts to shareho
2018-03-23 08:26:00 Friday ET

Personal finance and investment author Thomas Corley studies and shares the rich habits of self-made millionaires. Corley has spent 5 years studying the dai
2018-03-02 12:34:00 Friday ET

White House top economic advisor Gary Cohn resigns due to his opposition to President Trump's recent protectionist decision on steel and aluminum tariff
2019-05-23 10:33:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley professor and economist Barry Eichengreen reconciles the nominal and real interest rates to argue in favor of greater fiscal deficits. French econo