Ritholtz: 10 Trends For 2013

Barry Ritholtz over at the Big Picture also publishes what I believe is a weekly business column for the Washington Post.  Last weekend he did a column called 10 Trends to Watch in Finance for 2013.  Barry summarized his column over at his blog on Monday and I'm reprinting them here with a few comments from me where appropriate.  

According to Barry, the ten overall trends are:

1. ETFs are eating everything.  {ETFs in my opinion are still in about inning three of what I think will bring at least a decade of growth and change ito the investment management business.  2012 is the first year that I think the mutual fund industry really took note of this.}
2. Financial sector continues to shrink (advisers leaving large firms)  {This point is well taken.  I run my firm with one person besides me.  I can outsource virtually everything else that at one point I would have required an employee to do.}  
3. Increased pressure on fees and commissions.  
4. Hedge fund troubles (legal + performance) {Hedge funds increasingly going to have a hard time justifying a 2% management fee plus 20% of the profits when index based strategies can be had for pennies on the dollar.}
5. Dispersal of financial news away from MSM.  {Example is CNBC where the quality of the programming has declined substantially.  I wouldn't advertise on it unless it was free.  Most people that have it on like me have the volume muted for most of the day.  Advertisers don't like that.}
6. Demographics = huge driver.
7. The death of Buy-&-Hold has been greatly exaggerated.   {Not sure I agree with Barry on this point.  Prefer Jim Cramer's mantra of Buy and Homework instead.}
8. What Hyper-Inflation?
9. Has Bond Bull Market Ended? Are Rates Spiking?
10. The Fed (+ other Central Banks) still hold the system together.

Link:  Ritholtz:  10 Biggest Trends in Finance Today.