Many investors assume actively managed bond funds outperform bond index funds when interest rates rise. On the contrary, the majority of active funds fail to beat their benchmarks in such rate environments.

What could you do with an extra $350,000?

Concerns over slowing economic growth abroad have some investors re-considering their allocation to emerging market stocks. These warnings strike us as mildly amusing, as it was just a few short years ago investors couldn’t get enough emerging market exposure precisely because of their high rates of economic growth. What gives?

Once again, data from USA TODAY and online portfolio tracker SigFig shows active traders dramatically underperform those with a buy-and-hold approach.

Including the current government closure, there have been 18 shutdowns since 1976. The debt ceiling has been raised virtually every year back to 1939, and in some instances multiple times per year. So, what’s the distinction between the two and how are they related? And, what do they tell us about future stock returns?