Weekend Reading – BlackRock launches 0.12% TER Global Equity ETF & Xtrackers cuts fees across ETF range

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Weekend Reading – BlackRock launches 0.12% TER Global Equity ETF & Xtrackers cuts fees across ETF range

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Team Bankeronwheels
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Banker on Wheels Resources

Interactive Brokers 2026 Review: Read It Before Investing (Banker on Wheels)

<strong> Interactive Brokers 2026 Review: </strong> Read It Before Investing (Banker on Wheels)

Interactive Brokers is a Top Tier platform. Passive Investors – Will appreciate very competitive ETF trading commissions and FX rates and no ongoing platform fees. Family subaccounts and the ability to put investing on autopilot using monthly standing orders largely justify opening an account. The beginners amongst them might find its interface and features complex, though. Semi-active Investors – Will find that the platform is a treasure trove to invest in a variety of assets, including Emerging Market Equities and Bonds, as they scale the learning curve. Advanced Investors – For investing geeks, it opens the door to running a family hedge fund by unlocking access to U.S. markets including Factor ETFs, advanced portfolio management techniques including synthetic leverage or margin loans.

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Portfolio Construction

Asset Allocation

Global Small Caps: Why Investors Shouldn’t Ignore Them (Morningstar)

<strong>Global Small Caps:</strong> Why Investors Shouldn’t Ignore Them (Morningstar)

If you’re cynical about whether the small-cap rally of 2026 will last, I don’t blame you. The month of January has long been associated with strong returns for the asset class, but overall performance in recent years has disappointed. Previous rebounds—like in November 2024 when smaller companies were considered a “Trump Trade”—fizzled. Within a few weeks of the election, large was back in charge. What has been especially frustrating is that small caps have underperformed in conditions typically considered favorable. They’ve lagged during times of economic growth, falling interest rates, and market recoveries. This is an asset class once believed to possess a long-term performance advantage.

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Understand Financial Markets

Corporate Bonds: Decomposing return sources (Liberty Street Economics)

<strong>Corporate Bonds:</strong> Decomposing return sources (Liberty Street Economics)

The U.S. corporate bond market is an ideal laboratory for studying the relationship between risk premia and maturity because of its large size (standing at roughly $16 trillion as of the end of 2024) and because the maturities are well defined (in contrast to equities).Overall, the evidence from the market highlights that risk premia, while modest in absolute size, play a meaningful role in shaping the term structure of returns. The upward-sloping profile of both the risk-free rate and the risk premium generates a sizeable term premium, with the latter accounting for a nontrivial share of long-term yields.

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How To Invest

When You've Won the Game, Stop Playing: What Great Investors Taught Us About Portfolio and Purpose (Excess Returns)

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In this episode, we explore one of the most important but overlooked questions in investing: what is the purpose of your portfolio? Through a series of powerful clips and reflections from Aswath Damodaran, Meb Faber, Ben Hunt, Cullen Roche, Corey Hoffstein, Daniel Crosby, Larry Swedroe, and Wes Gray, we examine how goals like financial freedom, funded contentment, liability driven investing, retirement planning, and multi generational wealth shape the way we invest. This conversation goes beyond beating the market and focuses on preserving and growing wealth, reducing financial stress, aligning money with meaning, and defining what a life well lived truly looks like.

Active Investing

Factors & Deep Research

Managed Futures ETFs: Diversifying with Them (Ritholtz)

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Lots of asset classes promise uncorrelated returns, but few deliver diversification. One that does is managed futures. Sure, they are expensive and spikey, but when all correlations go to 1 – meaning everything is trading in lockstep, as we saw during the GFC and Covid – they seem to be the rare diversifier that works.

Discretionary Investing

Sustainable Investing

Fighting Words: The Energy Transition in 2026 - 98 pages PDF (JP Morgan)

<strong>Fighting Words:</strong> The Energy Transition in 2026 - 98 pages PDF (JP Morgan)

This year we look at energy arguments, battles and debates: the impact of data centers on power prices, the cost of solar plus storage as baseload power, the “primary energy fallacy” that ignores waste heat, the true cost of small modular reactors, Germany’s decision to shut down nuclear, China’s dominance of renewable supply chains, solid oxide fuel cells as turbine alternatives, the misplaced fascination with small country energy transitions, satellite vs factor-based oil & gas basin methane emissions, the mostly profitless EV industry, xAI mobile gas plant permits, and more.

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Alternative Asset Classes

Wall Street

Hard Lessons: Stan Druckenmiller. Invest, then investigate (Morgan Stanley)

Legendary macro investor Stan Druckenmiller joins Hard Lessons for a conversation with Iliana Bouzali, Global Head of Derivatives Distribution and Structuring at Morgan Stanley. Druckenmiller reflects on his early career and how he learned to act decisively and change course quickly when the facts on the ground shift. Hear how he would construct a portfolio if he had to start over today, why contrarianism is overrated, and which stock he regrets selling too early. Watch the full episode and save the Hard Lessons playlist for more pivotal choices from iconic investors.

Bad Bets

ETFs

UCITS ETFs

Cheap ACWI ETFs: Blackrock launches 0.12% TER all-country world Synthetic ETF & 0.14% EM ETF (ETF Stream)

<strong>Cheap ACWI ETFs:</strong> Blackrock launches 0.12% TER all-country world Synthetic ETF & 0.14% EM ETF (ETF Stream)

BlackRock has extended its swap-based ETF roster with the launch of all-country and emerging market equity strategies. The iShares MSCI ACWI Swap UCITS ETF (ACSW) and the iShares MSCI EM Swap UCITS ETF (ESWP) are listed on Euronext Amsterdam with total expense ratios (TERs) of 0.12% and 0.14%, respectively. ACSW and ESWP synthetically replicate the MSCI ACWI index and the MSCI EM index, respectively. Physical ETFs are exposed to a range of structural frictions in emerging markets - including capital gains taxes, foreign ownership limits and rebalancing costs - which can make tracking outcomes less predictable over time.

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NEW UCITS ETF LAUNCHES

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Wealth Management

Personal Finance

Common relocation countries for UK HNWs: BDO wealth report 2026 - 22 pages PDF (BDO)

<strong>Common relocation countries for UK HNWs:</strong> BDO wealth report 2026 - 22 pages PDF (BDO)

Those on the move need to know whether they will be able to function as a family in the new country – and be truly happy there. The survey showed that wealthy families with relocation on their agenda have more disagreements than those that do not. “A 24% capital gains tax bill may still be cheaper than a divorce,” cautions our Tax Partner Richard Montague. For a UHNW with complex financial affairs, relocation is not simply moving from A to B: it is a transition between two potentially very different ecosystems. Structures like trusts, common in the UK, may not be recognised or could even be viewed as tax evasion. Inheritance laws vary widely, and minor issues like the departure date can have a significant impact.

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(Early) Retirement

Financial Advice

Design Your Lifestyle

Personal Development

Movies: The 50 Most Underappreciated Ones of the 21st Century (Time)

<strong>Movies:</strong> The 50 Most Underappreciated Ones of the 21st Century (Time)

TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek curated this list to highlight 50 films from the 21st century that were either overlooked at the box office or unfairly dismissed by critics upon release. The selection spans a wide range of genres and styles, including indie gems like 20th Century Women, vibrant musicals like Idlewild, and even stylish action films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Rather than focusing on established "masterpieces," the list champions "unsung geniuses" and early works from directors who later found massive fame. It features a strong mix of international cinema, such as The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and animated features like Wolfwalkers that deserve a broader audience. Ultimately, the collection serves as a reminder that a movie’s true value isn't always reflected in its awards or opening weekend earnings, but in its lasting emotional impact.

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Health & Wellness

Careers & Entrepreneurship

Travel

Tech & Economy

Economy

Oil: Trade Through the Strait of Hormuz by Country (Visual Capitalist)

<strong>Oil:</strong> Trade Through the Strait of Hormuz by Country (Visual Capitalist)

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, with both exporters and importers of crude oil heavily reliant on flows through the Strait. This visualization maps which countries export crude oil and condensate through the Strait of Hormuz—and, more importantly, which countries import those flows. The data is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and is for Q1 2025. Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz are heavily concentrated among a few Gulf producers. Saudi Arabia accounts for the largest share of crude and condensate exports transiting the strait, at 37.2% of the total.

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Tech & Science

AI Doom: James van Geelen on His Viral AI Doom Scenario (Oddlots)

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Something very unusual happened in the market in the last week of February. It sold off, in part, thanks to an article on Substack. James van Geelen is the founder of Citrini Research, which published a piece a week ago titled, “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis.” It was not written as a forecast of an imminent disaster, but rather as a scenario analysis in which AI capabilities lead to widespread white collar job losses, triggering a deep downturn, and a financial crisis. Nonetheless, the piece went extraordinary viral, gathering all kinds of responses from economists and research shops and even Citadel Securities.

And Finally

Junk Food: The Countries With the Most McDonald’s Per Person (Visual Capitalist)

<strong>Junk Food:</strong> The Countries With the Most McDonald’s Per Person (Visual Capitalist)

McDonald’s has had an unstoppable rise over the last six decades on its path to become the world’s most successful fast food chain, with locations across the world. But which countries have the most McDonald’s locations per person? This world map highlights the classic burger chain’s worldwide presence by counting how many McDonald’s locations each country has per 1 million people. The data for this map comes from the company’s Restaurant Count by Market 2024 report. Burger-lovers and shake aficionados can find the famed golden arches across the world, albeit with relatively more ease in high-density markets like Australia, Canada, Macau, and the United States.

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