« March 2008 | Main | January 2008 »
Friday, February 29, 2008
Funds News and Views
- Index Funds & ETFs Keep Gaining Market Share Vs. Active Managers - Features
- "Index mutual funds have gained about one percentage point in market share in the past nine years to 9% heading into 2008. The real growth has come from ETFs, which jumped from 3% of the U.S. market in 2002 to 7% by the end of last year."
- New ETF's Target "Fund of Fund" and "Target Date" Strategies (STT)
- "State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) has announced ...that its State Street Global Advisors "SSgA" has filed an SEC application for exemptive relief for a series of actively managed, target-date exchange traded funds (ETF)."
- Have you ridden your international stocks as far as they'll go? - MarketWatch
- "...there is growing concern over how a U.S. recession would affect the rest of the globe, sparking questions about whether it is time to adjust portfolio allocations."
- Vanguard readies its next act for fund investors - MarketWatch
- "...with a new chief executive coming on board, questions are being raised about whether Vanguard will continue as a firm that's mutually held by its fund shareholders."
- TheStreet.com : The Best Mutual Funds for a Jittery Market
- "Every month, TheStreet.com Ratings ranks a huge list of open-end stock mutual funds based on our proprietary risk-adjusted return model. Sometimes the funds that steadily outpace all the others can be quite revealing."
- You'll want to get in at the beginning on new Dodge & Cox fund - MarketWatch
- "Look at any mutual fund with a long-term track record so good that it has almost become a household name and you'll come to one undeniable conclusion: It sure would have been great to have owned the fund from the very beginning."
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Funds News and Views Roundup
- Making the Big Switch from Mutual Funds to ETFs - Seeking Alpha
- "All things must pass. And for me, that means an era of investing through index mutual funds. It's not that I've become fascinated with some star manager. I'm still an indexing geek. It's just that recent events make it illogical to keep buying higher-priced versions of the same benchmarks I've been investing in up to this point."
- Three New ETNs Give Access To Commodities, Private Equity
- "Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers has thrown its hat into the growing market for exchange-traded notes, as the rivalry between ETNs and exchange-traded funds intensifies."
- More Signs Of The Negativity Bubble
- "More signs of the negativity bubble surface on a daily basis."
- Index your way to wealth
- "Getting 'average' or middle-of-the-road returns, which an index fund by definition produces, is not bad when two-third of actively managed funds trail behind."
- We're Too Gloomy - Forbes.com
- "This year, and for the rest of your life, the U.S. market and economy won't head markedly one way while the foreign world collectively goes the other. We're too intertwined globally. Since the foreign economy is twice America's size, and is strong, America should do well in 2008--better, at any rate, than people expect."
- Staying on track with your mutual funds during market corrections
- It's natural to be concerned when markets fluctuate more "than normal, but well-diversified investments such as mutual funds can go a long way to protecting you during turbulent periods. ...Here are some helpful tips to keep you focused:..."
- Does mortgage mess affect my mutual funds?
- "Even amid the subprime crisis, not all mortgage-related investments are bad. ...Some are very high quality and some aren't, based on the underlying mortgages, and they have different yields."
- Beware Of Phrases Like "cheapest In 20 Years"
- "My point is ...to remind investors that current valuations are based on investor expectations of the future, not historical data."
- Mutual Funds Get Off to Rough Start - WSJ.com
- "Mutual-fund markets in the U.S. and globally may be in for a shock if redemptions in January persist through the year. The sharp declines in stock markets during the first few weeks of the year prompted investors in the U.S. to withdraw a net $32.9 billion from stock funds in January, the worst month of outflows since July 2002, according to estimates by AMG Data Research..."
Friday, February 22, 2008
Funds News Weekend Reading
- ETFs for Tomorrow
- "Today, we're looking at ETFs with expenses of less than 1% that have performed the best over the past year. We'll then combine that information with the views of the collective intelligence of the professional and novice investors at Motley Fool CAPS and see which funds our participants have rated as the best."
- Enhanced Index Funds Turn In Lackluster '07 - Features
- "Two-thirds failed to make it into at least the top half of their respective categories, according to data from Morningstar Inc."
- Willing to go the distance?
- "Jonathan Chevreau presents a set-it-and-forget-it plan for younger investors with a long time horizon and high risk tolerance."
- Comparing Bond Etfs
- "[TIP was the top performing bond ETF over the past year]. It has slipped a bit during February, but is holding over its 50-day moving average."
- Fund favors Canadian Pacific, National Oilwell, Parker-Hannifin - MarketWatch
- "MFS manager focuses on stocks with strong earnings growth and momentum"
- Top 5 Tax saving Mutual Fund Schemes
- "So let’s have a look on the top 5 tax saving funds worth investing for purpose of claiming tax benefit under Sec. 80C of Income tax Act."
- Losing funds can still cost you a bundle in capital-gains taxes - MarketWatch
- "Many mutual-fund investors will get an unpleasant surprise from their tax preparer this year: A bill for the distributions they got from their funds, even though those funds may have had a disappointing year."
- Is The U.S. ETF Industry Falling Behind?
- "In the past, the model in Europe was to see what was successful in the U.S. and then replicate it. Increasingly, however, there's some great innovation taking place overseas."
- Auction-Rate Headaches - WSJ.com
- "The $330 billion auction-rate market became the latest casualty of the global credit crunch last week when dozens of auctions on such debt failed to generate enough investor interest, causing interest rates to soar."
- Good Funds Reopening
- "...fund reopenings are at record levels. According to Morningstar, 120 fund share classes reopened to investors, the highest annual level on record. Just last month, 22 fund share classes reopened. Here are a few funds that have recently reopened or that plan to soon:..."
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Fund News Review
- Risk aversion at seven-year high, Merrill survey shows - MarketWatch
- "The outlook for equities darkened in February, with fund managers more risk averse than at any time in the last seven years, according to Merrill Lynch's monthly survey."
- ETF INVESTING: Dow ETF Looks Like A Diamond In The Rough
- "'The Dow hasn't looked this cheap to us since September 2002 when the index stood at 7,592,' wrote Morningstar analyst Jeffrey Ptak, noting that three years later the benchmark stood at 10,569."
- Just two ETFs give you a diversified investment portfolio...
- "...one way to start is by simply investing in the Standard & Poor's 500, by buying an ETF or mutual fund that tracks the index. ...For the bond portion of you portfolio, consider ETFs that own broad baskets of bonds."
- Five ETF Sectors to Recession-Proof Your Portfolio
- "When will the government finally admit what we've all suspected for some time now - that the recession has already started? We can't answer that, but what we can tell you is that now is the time to start thinking about how you can protect your portfolio. The last thing you want to do is wait until it's too late. Here are a few sectors that have been bucking the trend:..."
- Fund Manager Jerry Miccolis' ETF Picks - Seeking Alpha
- "Each year, Brinton Eaton reevaluates expected returns looking forward about five years for different asset classes. Its staff also tests correlations along with a variety of risk-and-return characteristics."
- State Street's Rochte Assesses ETF Future
- "He doesn't see ETFs as a replacement for funds, but rather as a complement to them. Rochte also sees the 401(k) market as critical to ETFs' success."
- Squeezing Lemon Funds - Forbes.com
- "The simple fact is that bad fund managers and bear markets constitute a lethal combination. So, if you have lemon funds in your portfolio, what do you do about it? I think the answer is quite simple. You swap out your high-cost underperformers for low-cost, index-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs)."
- Mutual Funds Find an Enemy From Within - WSJ.com
- "A number of mutual funds are devoting chunks of their portfolios to other mutual funds as well as to exchange-traded funds, which resemble traditional mutual funds but trade on an exchange like a stock."
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Fund News and Views Update
- If You Can Eat It, Likely It's An '08 ETF Leader
- "The slumping market sapped assets from ETFs in January and led investors to shift into commodity, fixed-income and leveraged portfolios, according to State Street Global Advisors' January ETF report."
- ETFs for Tomorrow
- "Today, we're looking at the best-performing ETFs over the past three months and then combining that information with the views of the collective intelligence of the professional and novice investors at Motley Fool CAPS. We'll see which funds our participants have rated the best."
- Investor's Business Daily: Ivy Fund Clings To Dominant Players
- "Talk about quiet. Dan Becker has been managing money for 14 years but hasn't talked to the press. Until now."
- Bond ETFs Hold Steady While Stocks Decline
- "Fixed-income exchange traded funds have been a bright spot for investors unhappy with the broader market's direction."
- Fringe category may hold answer
- "Looking for a way up in a down market? Leveraged and short exchanged-traded funds may be your answer, SmartMoney.com says."
- ETF Industry is Growing Globally
- "The Exchange Traded Fund universe continues to expand globally. For U.S. based investors who are serious about diversifying outside domestic markets – and away from the sickly U.S. dollar – that’s a very good thing indeed."
- Multi-Asset Class ETFs Introduced
- "Claymore Securities has introduced three new funds. All are designed to follow broad markets representing the value of the U.S. capital markets as a whole. The investment strategy of the funds is new to the ETF universe because they combine exposure to multiple asset classes in one package."
- Bank stocks could be a good bet with rates low - USATODAY.com
- "...consider buying an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, that owns a basket of bank stocks. That way you get exposure to the industry but you avoid the risk that one particular bank doesn't recover well."
- The Warren Buffett Mutual Fund
- "...you can get more affordable access to Buffett and his collection of subsidiaries and equity holdings ...for smaller sums. How so? Via mutual funds that hold Berkshire shares in their portfolios."
- What is your Mutual Fund Costing You
- "If you don’t know and haven’t considered these fees and what they take from your retirment savings then you should look into this and the sooner the better. How do you find out this information."
- Risk Adjusted Return: Compare Mutual Funds on a Common Basis
- "Using risk-adjusted returns to gain an understanding of the relative performance of mutual funds then validating the comparison with the Sharpe ratio is a good strategy for the average investor for comparing mutual funds."
- Story-Stocks.com: Why Mutual Funds Fail To Beat the Market
- "With history as my guide, I can confidently proclaim that the vast majority of mutual funds will underperform the market over the next five years. There are a number of reasons for this. Let's look at a few:"
- Buy the Market -- Cheap!
- "Consider the simple index fund, ...It's performing as efficiently as possible by replicating the market's performance for the lowest possible expense. Let's repeat that last part -- the lowest possible expense."
- The Global Effect of Mutual Funds
- "Amazing how Globalization can change a man’s portfolio."
- Stagflation-Fighting ETFs for Your Toolbelt | ETF Trends
- "If you're among those who believe we're on a path to stagflation, Wasik suggests two investments in particular: commodities and treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS). These are investments that combine income and price appreciation, and they rise with inflation expectations."
Monday, February 11, 2008
Funds News and Views Roundup
- The Best Of The Very Best Mutual Funds
- "24/7 Wall St. looked at the "Best Funds" lists of the publications that have for years devoted a tremendous amount of their editorial effort to evaluating mutual funds. We conducted a "meta-data" study to find out which funds were on more than one list. The number was very small."
- A Low Cost, Fully Diversified All ETF Portfolio
- "This portfolio has a reasonable expense ratio of 0.31%, pays a generous 3.3% dividend and an empirical back test shows it would have outperformed the S&P 500 (SPY) by more than 52% over the past 5 years."
- This Week's ETF Winners & Losers
- "Exchange-traded funds tracking the financial sector were among the worst performers of a sluggish week following several downgrades of major finance names."
- The Global View On ETFs - Research
- "Morgan Stanley's Institutional Equity group released its global industry review of the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) marketplace for 2007 on January 31. And the report, written by Deborah Fuhr and Shane Kelly, contains some fascinating data."
- Van Kampen Fund Sticks To Its Guns
- "The market's overall direction is irrelevant for bottom-up stock pickers such as the Van Kampen U.S. growth team. It stays fully invested during volatile periods."
- The Fed Won't Save Us, But Here's How to Make Money - Barron's Interview with Jeremy Grantham
- "Jeremy Grantham, "one of the grandest of thinkers and most eloquent of oracles," tells Barron's that today's bear market is like none we've seen -- the difference being unprecedented financial globalization and a first-ever global bubble in virtually all asset prices."
- New mutual fund taps alternatives market
- "A new mutual fund is purchasing alternative investments -- a strategy designed to defy market volatility when stock and bond prices are plunging."
- Green Mutual Funds
- "With the success of the US-based renewable energy fund, Guinness is now launching a UK-based version. It will be the first in a series of funds dedicated to energy, Asia and innovation. According to Tim Guinness, 'These are areas at the heart of the forces that will transform the world over the coming decades. As such they provide the greatest potential for high investment returns.'"
- Stagflation Threat Needs Portfolio Protection: Opinion
- "Not seen in a generation, stagflation requires special investments to combat its punishing impact on your portfolio. You will also need to chuck the conventional wisdom on what works in a recession."
- The Delicate Art of Picking Mutual Funds
- "Are you feeling overwhelmed by the task of sorting through a multitude of mutual funds to offer clients? Think of narrowing down the appropriate funds as a funneling process."
- ETF Asset Flows
- "BND, the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF, only launched in July and already has over $1 billion in assets. It's one of just three ETFs launched in the past 12 months to break the $1 billion mark."
- Commodity ETF Jumps As Wheat Hits Record
- "The market may have lost its appetite for stocks, but it's hungry for commodities, especially wheat."
- Mutual fund and ETF performance, analysis and more
- "Depending on how you look at it, stocks are either on sale or have set sail. Either way, there's a disconnect among investors nowadays about how to weather increasingly stormy global markets."
- Five reasons to dump a mutual fund
- "New managers, strategy shifts, poor performance and other warning flags -- To paraphrase Woody Allen, your relationship with a mutual fund is like a shark: It has to keep moving forward or it dies. Sometimes with fund investments, what you have on your hands is a dead shark."
- Meltdown in financials stocks hammers dividend-focused ETFs
- "Dividend ETFs yield to pain in financials stocks Popular income funds slide on subprime mess, but may offer recovery play"
- Competitive yields make muni ETFs attractive - InvestmentNews
- "...because the yield paid out by muni ETFs is free of federal taxation, the effective income is greater than the taxable yield currently offered by Treasuries, which means that assuming the highest federal individual income tax rate of 35%, the Van Eck ETF offered a tax-equivalent yield of 5.38%."
- Vanguard edges American as top mutual funds seller - InvestmentNews
- "Propelled by sales of its exchange traded funds, The Vanguard Group Inc. regained its status as the nation's top-selling fund company last year, edging past rival American Funds, which had been No. 1 since 2002."
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Funds News Review
- The 25 Best Mutual Funds - Kiplinger.com
- "These no-load funds are Kiplinger's top picks for building a market-beating portfolio."
- Morningstar's Take on the Economy
- "Although calling a recession is a slippery business, Morningstar stock analyst and former Fed economist Bill Bergman did point out in early December that several indicators suggest a recession is likely getting under way, and he offered some stock picks that can block and tackle well in a tough economy."
- Is It Too Late To Get Into A Bear Fund?
- "The S&P 500 is down 14% from its October peak and 8% this year. And not a single one of the basic cap-size categories of stock funds tracked by Morningstar is up."
- Active PowerShares Stock ETFs Get SEC Green Light
- "The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has given notice that it's ready to let four ETFs hit the market and be advertised as 'actively managed exchange-traded funds.'"
- Oil-service ETF slides on growing fears of sharp economic...
- "The ISM nonmanufacturing reading is 'a shocker' and the component parts showed 'broad-based deterioration from December,' said analysts at Moody's Economy.com. 'Oil markets are growing concerned that the U.S. economy is near or in recession. A U.S. pullback would weigh heavily on demand for oil,' they said."
- Is This ETF Really Good Through 2018?
- "Morningstar has just selected the ...Rydex Russell Top 50 ETF (XLG) as its Best ETF for 2018, but there may be cracks in that reasoning."
- Financial Advisor and Investment Guide for Exchange Traded Funds
- "While the ETF industry continues to evolve, most investment research about it doesn't."
- New Mutual Funds Offer Short and Magnified Exposure to...
- "ProFunds Group, the largest provider of short and leveraged funds, ...launched two new mutual funds that offer investors easy ways to get exposure to Chinese stocks."
- Active ETFs to Come With Trade-Offs - WSJ.com
- "Long-awaited actively managed ETFs are on the cusp of reality. But changing the way exchange-traded funds operate may diminish some of these funds' biggest advantages."
Monday, February 04, 2008
Funds News Roundup
- Tricks and Trends in ETF Investing
- "Scism and Badal identify four trends in ETF buying: foreign focused ETFs are hot; U.S. ETFs making bearish bets are, too; investors like diversity ...and bigger companies with experienced sales forces ...had 34 of the 50 biggest ETFs that launched in 2007."
- ETFs Branch Out
- "Break out the champagne. Exchange-traded funds had a banner year in 2007. The industry gained 10% in assets in the fourth quarter alone, climbing to $608 billion. It was an impressive showing given a fairly challenging quarter in the markets, with the S&P 500 index dropping 5% and the dollar continuing to weaken."
- Dodge & Cox reopens 2 mutual funds as returns slip
- "Dodge & Cox Funds, one of the most popular U.S. mutual fund families, said it will reopen to new investors its flagship Stock fund and its Balanced fund, which invests in stocks and bonds, after performance lagged its peers for the first time in more than a decade."
- This Week's ETF Winners & Losers | HHH ITB MSFT UYG XHB XLF YHOO
- "Homebuilder exchange-traded funds were the best performers of the week following another interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve that dropped the fed funds rate to 3%."
- Internet ETF soars on Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo - Forbes
- "The Internet Holdrs ETF (HHH) soared in early trading Friday, boosted by a sharp rally in shares of Yahoo Inc. after Microsoft offered to buy the Internet giant for $44.6 billion."
- Advisors See the Glass Half Empty, According to ETF Provider Survey
- "Exchange traded fund (ETF) provider Rydex has released the latest numbers regarding advisor confidence, and it doesn't look good."
- Bottom Fishing: 3 ETFs with Historically Low P/E Ratios
- "...for those who may fancy themselves as long-term value seekers, it may be difficult to ignore some the of the low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios on a variety of ETFs."
- Best Mutual Funds - Top Mutual Funds 2008
- "Below are the top 10 mutual funds ranked by returns thus far in 2008."
- Watch Out For These 6 Slick Mutual Fund Marketing Tricks
- "According to a study by Henrik Cronqvist of The Ohio State University ...U.S. mutual funds spend about $6 billion a year on advertising. ...I highlighted a number of things I think investors should be aware of before dropping that hard earned money."
- As ETFs Narrow in Focus, The Risks Increase - WSJ
- "While some of the new ETFs are quite useful to small investors, a number of them come with substantial risks."
- Claymore Plans To Cut Its ETFs By Nearly One-Third - WSJ
- "In one of the earliest signs of the shakeout unfolding in the hotly competitive exchange-traded-fund industry, Claymore Securities Inc. announced Friday that it has decided to shut down nearly a third of its 37 funds."
- Unscrambling the Alphabet of Fund Fees - New York Times
- "When stock markets climb, the fees associated with equity ownership are easy to shrug off. But with the stock market ailing in 2008 ...mutual fund investors are right to wonder and worry about the costs they are paying to own their shares."
- Mutual funds set reopening record
- "Last year, 120 fund share classes reopened to investors, the highest annual level since Morningstar Inc. of Chicago began tracking the data."
Friday, February 01, 2008
Weekend Fund News Reading
- January ETF Performance Report | ETF Trends
- "The major indexes took a beating this month. The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 4.6%. The Nasdaq ended down 9.9%, and the S&P 500 ended down 6.1%." Includes full ETF performance report (pdf)
- More Baskets For Your Eggs - Forbes.com
- "This year appears to be every bit as treacherous as 2007. With diversification as the watchword, keep all of my 2007 picks--then add four more ETFs to the mix. These new ones are:..."
- Janus manager sees bargains among international tech stocks - MarketWatch
- "Forays into emerging markets boost Brent Lynn's international-stock fund. "Go-anywhere" is how Brent Lynn describes the Janus Overseas Fund he manages, and he'll go anywhere for it."
- Larry MacDonald's Investment Ideas
- "The rapid proliferation in exchange traded funds (ETF) is making it more of a challenge to choose ETFs to invest in. Here are a few screeners that may help with sorting through what’s available."
- Expense Ratios - Is your ETF changing on you?
- "While lower fees, minimal taxable distributions and trading flexibility are all important attributes of ETFs, let’s focus on one aspect of financial cost associated with ETF investing; a fund’s expense ratio."
- ABC News: Striking It Rich as a Small-Time Investor
- "The Secrets to Finding a Great Low-Fee, Low-Cost Index Fund Revealed"
- Fidelity Canada's Lemieux is Mutual Fund Manager of the Year - MarketWatch
- "Lemieux, manager of Fidelity Canada Fund ...has put this country-specific portfolio on the map with consistent, chart-topping results and careful attention to risk.
- Investing Insights The Trouble With ETFs: Part II - BusinessWeek
- "There are many reason why tracking error ocurs, so look at last year’s list of ETFs with big tracking errors to get a better understanding of how it happens."
- Five Perpetually Winning Mutual Funds
- "The New England Patriots will look to complete a perfect season by winning the Super Bowl on Sunday. Five of the open-end stock mutual funds we rate already have done twice as well with back-to-back perfect seasons of monthly A+ ratings in 2006 and 2007."
- ETF Securities launches short and leveraged ETCs for 33 commodities and indices
- "ETF Securities, which has pioneered exchange-traded commodities in Europe, has announced plans to launch 33 short and 33 leveraged ETCs based on 23 individual commodities, the Dow Jones-AIG Commodities Index and nine sub-indices on the London Stock Exchange."
- Bloomberg.com: Opinion
- "Lower expenses, the failure of most active-mutual fund managers to beat their benchmarks, the growing number of thematic and specialty ETFs, and the funds' flexibility suggest they will attract investment that otherwise would flow to actively managed mutual and hedge funds."
- Fancy Exchange Traded Funds for all Appetites
- "With the markets in recession mode, here are some ETF’s that you might consider:..."