Coin News

Rob Goldstein, the chief operating officer of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, thinks there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the rise of passive investing.

One, for instance, is the name. 

"We actually believe one of the greatest misnomers is this word 'passive' because we don't believe any investment decision is a passive decision," Goldstein told Business Insider.

Passive investing, which means tracking a market-weighted index rather than actively trading single stocks, has steadily eaten away at active-investment management over the past several decades.

Index investing has been revolutionary for Main Street investors, allowing them to bypass high-fee investment managers, many of which have not performed well. The firms that specialize in index investing and exchange-traded funds, another form of passive investing, have become giants of the industry, meanwhile.

BlackRock is one of them. The giant pulled in more money into its ETF arm in the first half of this year than all of last year, the FT reported.

Business Insider recently met up with Goldstein in his Manhattan offices at BlackRock headquarters. You can read the full interview here, and following is the relevant excerpt on his views on passive investing.

Rachael Levy: Can you speak to how BlackRock views active versus passive more broadly?

Rob Goldstein: Sure. It's incredibly simple in terms of how we view it in that our goal is to construct portfolios that achieve our planned outcomes. And we believe that often, in building those portfolios, you're blending active management and you're blending index product. We actually believe one of the greatest misnomers is this word "passive" because we don't believe any investment decision is a passive decision. You could buy an index fund but you're not doing that passively. You are making a judgment about asset allocation and other things that impact your portfolio. So when we look at it, we look at it really from, "What is the objective the client is striving for and how do you build the most efficient portfolio to get him or her or the institution to achieve that objective?" Most of the time, you see a role for both active product as well as index product in constructing that portfolio.

Levy: So you don't think there's going to be a "death of active" necessarily?

Goldstein: Not only do we believe there's not going to be a "death of active" but I think quite strongly, we've been investing in our active businesses and we've been quite transparent and vocal about some of the investments that we've made.

Levy: In the sense of expanding them?

Goldstein: So for example, we've been very focused on how we could leverage — funnily enough, this could be its own technology discussion — but we've been very focused on how we can leverage technology, big data, and other concepts to generate more alpha in portfolios. That's been a huge thrust of what we've been focused on.

Levy: In actively managed portfolios?

Goldstein: In actively managed portfolios, and obviously technology has changed so many things. I mean, look, you're recording this on your phone. The whole thing is amazing, where the world is. If I would've told you 10 years ago you would have a device that does all those things, you would've thought I was crazy. And the irony is that when you look at the devices on "Star Trek," what you have is actually cooler than many of the devices on "Star Trek."

When you look at one of the major changes, it is this combination of the data that's now available, the technologies that are available to analyze the data, and access to computing power at the price points that you can access computing power and put them together, the opportunities that creates to identify themes, trends, market paradigms is just — it's limitless.

My sales pitch is very simple: BlackRock is a growth company. BlackRock is a growth technology company and we're growing our technology functions. We have a very ambitious plan that we call "Tech 2020." And as part of that, we are looking to extend the 2,000-plus technologists we already have within BlackRock. And we're really excited about the opportunity to take a company like BlackRock, which is already, I'd say, at the forefront of technology in its industry, and, if anything, keep expanding that.

Read the full Business Insider interview with BlackRock's Goldstein >>

SEE ALSO: The biggest investment trend in the world is reshaping Wall Street

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Shiller says bitcoin is the best example of a bubble in the market today

• Gunman Stephen Paddock carried out the deadliest shooting in modern US history from a broken window at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
• Hotel staff did not pick up on potential red flags that Paddock, who stockpiled weapons at the hotel for three days, was planning an attack. 
• Legal experts say hotels will tighten security measures to better prevent violent events.

The Las Vegas shooting — the deadliest shooting in modern US history — is forcing hotels to reconsider their responsibility in keeping guests safe. 

"What happened on Sunday is sort of a larger wake-up call for the industry to take a step back and ask themselves: 'What about my city? What am I doing to make sure that ... my guests are safe and secure?'" Deanna Ting, hospitality editor at the travel-industry intelligence company Skift, told Business Insider. 

Gunman Stephen Paddock stockpiled weapons in his hotel room for three days before firing from the windows of his suite on the 32nd floor into the crowd of 22,000 people across the street, killing 58 people and wounding almost 500 others.

The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, as well as other properties owned by MGM Resorts — including the Bellagio, Monte Carlo, and the MGM Grand — have increased security levels, according to a spokesperson from the company. The Wynn Resort in Las Vegas added new security measures after the shooting, scanning guests with metal detectors and putting bags through X-ray machines.

Many of these heightened security measures will likely be phased out in the coming months. Some things — such as metal detectors and X-ray machines — simply pose too much inconvenience to guests to become common in the hotel industry. 

However, according to legal experts, hotels may be forced to take more preventative measures if mass shooting incidents do not decrease in the US. 

"It becomes more and more foreseeable if you operate certain types of venues, those venues will be seen as opportunities for mass shootings," said Heidi Li Feldman, a professor at Georgetown Law School.

In other words, hotels and other entertainment spaces where horrific mass shootings have occurred may not just need to beef up safety measures to soothe customers. They may need to add new measures to prevent shootings because, if they don't, the hotel could be seen as legally liable. 

"Foreseeability is one of the key components of liability," Dick Hudak, managing partner of the Resort Security consulting firm, said. 

Experts are split on what exactly the best preventative measures are for hotels to take. 

Hyper-visible measures such as X-ray machines and other screenings when guests check in are helpful for creating the atmosphere of safety after a tragedy. In some other countries, such as Indonesia and Israel, where hotels have been targeted in bombings, such security has become the norm. 

In the US, however, there are no common security standards across the hospitality industry. Generally, the trend has been to prioritize convenience, not increased security.

Hudak says that security experts hate tech innovations like mobile phone room keys. While they make the guest's experience more seamless, cutting down on the time that customers spend interacting with staff means fewer chances to pick up on crucial red flags. 

In fact, the long-term solutions that hotels are turning to to increase security are things customers may never notice.

New technology could help hotels better monitor guests. Following the Las Vegas shooting, employees at hotels across the country are likely being retrained to better understand what could signal a dangerous guest and how to react to potential threats. Things like random background checks and even forcing guests to sign paperwork stating they will not bring guns on the premises could help deter wrongdoing — and create legal safeguards for hotels. 

Much of the discussion in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting has been about gun regulation — a topic that many hospitality experts who spoke with Business Insider were passionate about. However, they say that it is also clear that hotels — especially Las Vegas hotels — need to take some sort of action of their own. 

"If Congress isn't regulating gun ownership, it is going to be private parties ... who end up regulating their own premises," Feldman said.

SEE ALSO: 'The room disappears': Here's what experts say Mandalay Bay will most likely do with the shooter's hotel suite

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: A lot of talk of a bitcoin bubble and a few good reasons to believe tech isn't one

For months, stock market pessimists have been saying that US equities are overvalued.

And, as of this past week, they have a major piece of tangible evidence.

The measure in question is the so-called relative strength indicator (RSI), which indicates when the stock market has gotten too stretched in either direction. When the measure exceeds 70, that means it's overbought, and a downturn may be imminent. Meanwhile, a drop below 30 for the RSI indicates an oversold condition.

The RSI for the benchmark S&P 500 climbed above 70 last week, and stayed in that overvalued territory for five straight days. Now, the index's repeated climb to new record highs is in danger — at least if the past 12 months is any indication.

Late last year, the indicator climbed above 70, before peaking on December 13. The S&P 500 was almost entirely unchanged over the next month, slamming the brakes on the momentum that had seen the benchmark surge in 2016 up until that point.

More recently, in early March, the RSI on the index once again found itself peaking above the 70 level. The S&P 500 would drop 1.4% over the next month, despite a 5.6% year-to-date climb through the end of February.

But this is not to say the 8 1/2-year bull market as we know it is in danger. After all, the past two instances of overstretched conditions in the past year have resulted in more of a consolidation period, rather than a full-fledged selloff.

What it does do is provide investors with a reality check — that contrary to recent returns, the stock market doesn't always climb in unstoppable fashion. Adding to positions, especially at these expensive levels, may not be worth the trouble for those looking to put more money to work — at least for the time being.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: The 'Trump trade' is back and Ray Dalio breaks down the bitcoin bubble

The cryptocurrency market has exploded this year with over 1,000 digital currencies now on the market. 

The price of bitcoin, the first and largest cryptocurrency, has captured the most attention, with Wall Street CEOs from JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon to Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein weighing in on the coin this month alone. 

It's up over 450% this year at near $4,400 per coin. 

But bitcoin's meteoric rise doesn't mean that it'll be the top-dog crypto forever. 

Matthew Goetz, a former Goldman Sachs vice president and cofounder of BlockTower Capital, a Connecticut-based crypto hedge fund, recently told Business Insider that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are technologies like any other, and as a result, are susceptible to being usurped by a digital currency with superior tech. 

"Bitcoin is the most entrenched, it has very stable protocol, it doesn't change a lot, and it has a very strong developer base, but at the end of the day it is still software," Goetz said. "There is some chance that something an order of magnitude better than bitcoin, technologically, could come along."

Kind of like how Facebook replaced MySpace as the go-to social media site.

To be sure, Goetz said a bitcoin rival can't just be slightly better. Bitcoin's massive scale would require the hypothetical coin to have substantially better capabilities.

Here's Goetz:

"It's something like Facebook. If someone creates a new Facebook that has slightly better features, say 10% better. That's great, but network effects are strong. So, that new thing isn't going to kill Facebook."

Bitcoin isn't the only crypto that has to worry about competition. 

Ethereum, which has been touted as a bitcoin rival, operates in a slightly different space, according to Goetz. Bitcoin was built to be a currency, whereas Ethereum is a blockchain platform on which other applications can be built. 

"Ethereum is competing on features and now has four competitors," Goetz said. "And it's all about who has the most cutting edge cryptographic technology, who can build features the fastest to make developers come build their smart contracts and decentralized applications on top of those platforms."

Smart contracts are a computer protocol based on Ethereum's blockchain technology that facilitates and enforces a contract or exchange. Just because the developers of Ethereum were the first to introduce this technology to the market doesn't mean they will win-out in the long run, according to Goetz. 

"If you look at other industries across history, there's a real chance that just because the first mover got out there doesn't mean that that's the one that ends up ultimately winning and capturing all the value," he said.

"For some cryptocurrencies that are in a more competitive space, like decentralized file-storage, there are a number of projects attacking that," he added. 

And there are incumbents, he says, such as Amazon Azure and DropBox.

But it's still early days. Goetz says if you liken cryptocurrencies to the internet, then we are still in 1992. Just like bets during the early days of the internet were risky, so too are bets in the crypto market today. 

"You could be right on the thesis that cryptocurrencies are transformative and you could make what you think is the right bet at the time, but remember one time you had Yahoo and then this thing called Google came along," he concluded. 

SEE ALSO: Here's what 6 of the most powerful Wall Streeters have to say about bitcoin

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The head of a $55 billion fund at First Eagle points out the risks everyone else on Wall Street is missing

The Lightning Network isn't yet live on bitcoin, but that doesn't mean developers aren't theorizing the kinds of ambitious apps that it could enable.