Vanguard hits back at Fidelity's loss-leader strategy by courting higher-margin businesses, like China and private equity, and axing low-margin ones like annuities -- Wealth management franchises are next -- and Chinese foray yields $315 million AUM in first 100 days, as ANT files blockbuster IPO

Doing business with Communist China is unwise and unethical. That Communist state is guilty of industrial espionage on a staggering scale. Yet financial firms turn a blind eye in order to acquire a piece of that state controlled market, thinking it to be lucrative and highly profitable. As the saying goes, "profit has no conscience".

That'd be a hell of a debate topic -- the ethics of doing business with China. After all, hardly a minute passes when we aren't using Chinese products and writing hot checks against money we all borrow from China. But, yes, the intellectual theft is real, too.

I am both surprised and concerned about Vanguard's abandonment of its investors in its Transamerica variable annuity fund who invested 32 billion into that Vanguard program which Vanguard represented and promised it would manage, control associate fees and costs, and include as part of those investors' Vanguard Portfolio. How can Vanguard, while still charging its fees to those investors, now say Transamerica will manage the fund without any restriction of fees and costs, which will likely be increased, and remove those investments from those investors' Vanguard portfolios. It's rationale that the investors of a $32 billion program don't count after Vanguard took their money for more than 14 years is clearly wrong, in breach of its obligations to those investors, and SEC regulations requiring it to abide by the terms and conditions pursuant to which people invested in that Vanguard Program. That it is a multi-trillion dollar business doesn't give it the right to say to hell with those investors.