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On stage and off, you don't want to tangle with Joyce DiDonato - American soprano extraordinaire and practiced kickboxer too. The 45-year-old diva has been leaving audiences at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden roaring for her singing and performing of the hugely demanding bel canto (beautiful singing) role of the doomed Queen Maria Stuarda - Mary Queen of Scots - in the second of Donizetti's three Tudor operas. There's hardly a more gripping and dramatic scene in opera than the one at the end of Act Two when DiDonato as Maria has a knock-down, drag-out confrontation with Queen Elizabeth I, sung by the up-and-coming Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio. They spit insults at each other, DiDonato hurls "vil bastarda" (evil bastard) at her rival and pulls the tablecloth from under Elizabeth's picnic lunch, sweeping all the food and dishes to the floor - all this in the full knowledge that it will ensure she has her head chopped off. "I feel complet

The past 15 years of bubbles and busts notwithstanding, sometimes it may be best to just assume financial markets have got it right. The central problem facing investors today is how to reconcile patchy and uneven growth in the economy with very full valuations for stocks and other risky assets. What has been a constant tension over the past five years, during which U.S. stocks have more than doubled, was highlighted yet again last week when decent but not outstanding U.S. jobs figures (wage growth for example was poor) prompted investors to underwrite yet another stock market run to record territory. In trying to figure out why financial markets are doing so well and risk is so well bid, there are two broad competing theories. The first explanation is that financial markets are ahead of the curve. In this reading a stronger recovery which will justify rich valuations is just around the corner. If true, companies will see revenues jump along with overall economic growth, and marg

Should seniors pay more for Medicare? Republicans think so; they have repeatedly called for replacing the current program with vouchers that would shift cost and risk to seniors. There's no doubt this is where Republicans will take us if they capture control of Congress this year, and the White House in 2016. Representative Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, advocates “premium support” reforms that would give seniors vouchers to buy private Medicare insurance policies in lieu of traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Under the latest version of Ryan's budget proposed in April, starting in 2024 seniors could opt to buy premium-supported private plans or stay in traditional Medicare. Ryan has argued that introducing competition will bring down costs over time, and capping the government's costs does sound like a tempting way to address Medicare's financial problems. Medicare's trustees project total annual spending will jump

A surge of investment in alternative mutual funds has caught the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which will launch examinations of fund companies targeting funds' leverage, liquidity and other concerns, according to an official. The series of examinations, which will likely begin this summer or fall, will also gauge funds' compliance with securities industry laws and regulations, said Norm Champ, director of the SEC's Division of Investment Management, in prepared remarks published by the agency late on Monday. Among the issues: whether funds are properly determining the value of securities they hold and disclosing risks to investors, Champ originally made the remarks at a seminar for lawyers in New York last week. Champ's remarks (available at 1.usa.gov/1ssp3IS ) include significant details about the imminent examinations, known as a "sweep," which SEC has been discussing since last year. Alternative mutual funds typically emp

Deutsche Bank AG said its asset and wealth management unit was back on track after two years of restructuring, and was growing quickly with new client money pouring in at an accelerating pace. _0"> Michele Faissola, who has led restructuring efforts in the underperforming division, said on Tuesday he was on track to meet a target of 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in pretax profit by 2015, more than double last year's total and more than 10 times its 2012 result. "Our ambition is to be the growth engine for the Deutsche Bank group," Faissola said, in part by winning over super-rich clients in Asia in direct competition with similarly positioned banks such as JP Morgan and Credit Suisse. New client money in the second quarter of 2014 poured into the division at the fastest pace ever, Faissola said, after some quarters in the recent past saw net outflows. The bank plans to report detailed quarterly results on July 29. "The flows are starting to kick in.

Investors poured $72.2 billion into hedge funds worldwide in the first five months of 2014, marking their strongest five-month start to a year since 2007 partly on fears of a downturn in stock and bond prices, data from a survey showed on Tuesday. Hedge funds attracted $16.9 billion in investor cash in May, down from inflows of $19.1 billion in April but enough to push the industry's assets to $2.3 trillion, or just under a six-year high, according to data from industry groups TrimTabs/BarclayHedge. Appetite for hedge funds, which use various techniques to deliver so-called "uncorrelated" returns that are independent from traditional stock and bond markets, has accelerated this year partly on caution toward highly priced stocks and bonds. "Investors in hedge funds are cautious about valuations in other markets, including stock, bond, and real estate markets," said David Santschi, chief executive officer at TrimTabs Investment Research. Fixed income hedge f

A U.S. judge threw out a lawsuit against the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) by a former broker who alleged that disclosures on the regulator's public database violated his privacy rights. The former broker, Alan Santos-Buch, sued FINRA, Wall Street's industry-funded regulator in February, alleging it continues to make details of a 1997 disciplinary case against him available on its website and in a regulatory document. That makes it difficult for him to find jobs, he alleged. Santos-Buch wanted the court to order that FINRA erase the black mark on his record. But Santos-Buch failed to raise "substantial constitutional questions" that would allow his case to proceed in federal court, according to an opinion released late Tuesday by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Instead, Santos-Buch should have challenged FINRA's rules using another procedure available through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, wrote Judge Shira Scheindlin. A