September 2008

Mutual Funds Update

* US Treasury guarantees up to $US3.4 trillion for money market mutual fund assets
... guarantee program for up to $US3.4 trillion in money market mutual fund assets held as of September 19 was now in effect ... Money market mutual fund shares acquired after September 19, when the Treasury announced the ... To receive the government guarantee, participating money market mutual funds that had a net asset value of at least $0.9975 ...

* The Cost of Emotional Investing
... return measures the experience of the average investor in a (mutual) fund... Just looking at how your mutual fund performed over the one, three and five year or more ... classes as well as sector, style, regional and thematically focused mutual funds provide telling insight into most individual's inability to achieve and ...

* ETFs Increasingly Popular With Mutual Fund Managers
... mark with investors and get a bigger slice of the mutual fund pie in terms of assets, fund managers don’t appear to ... Last year, 17 out of 20 of the largest mutual fund companies were using them last year... Despite concerns or naysayers, it is evident that mutual funds will continue to use ETFs for their advantage.

* Mutual funds in defensive areas fare better in 3Q
Mutual funds focusing on defensive stocks--health care and consumer staples--were among the few winning categories of funds during the third quarter as more turbulence swept across Wall Street and left investors with shrinking portfolios... Mutual funds in defensive areas fare better in 3Q.

* Troubled banks 101
But just because mutual funds aren't covered by FDIC insurance does not mean you would lose the money you have in mutual fund that you bought through the bank if that bank failed ... As for the value of any mutual funds you acquired through a bank, that would be determined by ...

* Money-market mutual funds see record withdrawals in week
(MarketWatch)-- After one of the biggest money-market mutual funds broke the $1 per share benchmark and the Treasury pledged to insure money-fund assets, investors pulled a record ... Money-market mutual funds see record withdrawals in week - MarketWatch... Money-market mutual funds see record withdrawals in week.

* Warren Buffet Finally Decides to Start Buying Distressed Financials
Mission: Raise $7M from readers to launch a real mutual fund; this is my journey. By providing a transparent platform for a 'virtual' growth mutual fund, I'll create a mechanism by which readers can view my ... This blog will chronicle my stock ideas in my mock mutual fund run via Marketocracy.com; which I'll run in a manner similar to how I'd run a real "long biased" mutual fund ...

* Short-Sale Ban Hits Mutual Funds
A new ban on short sales of financial stocks is hitting many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that make bets against these shares. Mutual funds that bill themselves as "market neutral," "long-short" or "bear" funds often short stocks, which typically means they ... Short-Sale Ban Hits Mutual Funds.

* Mutual Funds and the Promise of 'Principal Preservation'
But investors should be aware that what some mutual funds say about protection of investor principal does not allows match ... A text search of TheStreet.com Ratings' database parsing for mutual funds that include phrases such as "preservation of principal," "stability of ... twocents@thestreet.com (Richard Widows) Mutual Funds and the Promise of 'Principal Preservation.

* ETFS CHALLENGE MUTUAL FUNDS
Tribune Media Services -- By Andrew Leckey, Tribune ... In one corner is the mutual fund, time-honored champion of small investors... you can buy and sell during market hours, unlike a mutual fund in which you trade shares at the end of the ... trade ETFs, annual fees are generally lower than even index mutual funds.

Personal Finance Update

* Bush: Economy 'in Danger' Without Action
* Bush Urges Quick Passage Of Financial Rescue Plan
* Obama, McCain Urge Bipartisan Solution To Financial Crisis
* Cavuto: The Rescue Needs Rescuing
* Money-market Mutual Funds See Record Withdrawals In Week
* U.S. Energy Dept. Reports Ninth Week Of Falling Gas Supply
* Existing Home Sales Dip 2.2%; Home Prices Plummet in August

Exchange-Traded Funds News and Views

* Some Dividend ETFs Are Beating the Markets
Dividend-focused exchange traded funds (ETFs) usually get torn up pretty bad after a bear attack ... allocation to financials (11%) and telecom (4%) has kept this ETF afloat... but the 10% payout on a quarterly basis make this ETF worth owning an income-focused fund... 26, 2008 – One it comes to an exchange traded fund (ETF) buy-and-hold portfolio, it's not a one-size-fits ...

* ETFs to Buy, ETFs to Avoid
Find out how many stocks the ETF owns by checking its portfolio holdings. I would avoid ETFs that own fewer than 50 stocks. B, see how much the ETF will cost you by looking up its annual expense ratio. You should almost always be able to find an ETF that charges less than one-half of 1 percentage point ...

* 6 Emerging Markets ETFs to Watch
Lately, it seem like new ETF's sprout almost every week... Market Vectors Africa Index ETF ( AFK ) - This is one of the riskiest ETFs, yet it is also the most promising one ... Despite the sometimes less obvious nuances between these ETF's, they tend to trade relative to each other, with no one ETF having outclassed the others ...

* Is An ETF Better When Mixed With A Mutual Fund?
So far, mostly target-date retirement funds are investing in ETFs, according to Morningstar, which says that of the 49 mutual ... funds they track, 70% of their assets are invested in ETFs... A drawback of a mutual fund that invests in an ETF is that you lose the flexibility and tax efficiency of an ETF once it is invested into by a mutual fund ...

* ETFs Sell Off Despite Fannie/Freddie Deal
The ETF dropped 7.1... A look at how the industry's most popular ETFs did on Tuesday... You Are Viewing: ETFs Sell Off Despite Fannie/Freddie Deal (Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac,ProShares UltraShort Oil & Gas ETF,Lehman Bros.,iShares Dow Jones U.S ... Broker-Dealers ETF,iShares Dow Jones U.S.

* Three ETFs We Would Like to See
The ETF universe has exploded over the past three years as issuers ... innovation continues today, for better or for worse, with new ETFs being registered each week... investments, we still see a few gaps that we hope ETF issuers will step up and address soon... Of the more than 800 ETFs in our database, only three offer an automated long-short ...

* Regulations Preventing ETFs from Overtaking Mutuals
Part of the reason the ETF industry hasn't taken on mutual funds directly is because they ... Authority—does not allow companies to make direct comparisons between ETFs and mutual funds in their marketing materials. You can use a mutual fund to explain how an ETF works—"an ETF is a hybrid of stocks and mutual funds," for instance ...

Personal Finance Update

* The Lazy Person's Guide to Personal Finance
If you learned anything about personal finance, chances are that you have learned it on your own ... taught in schools; last year, only seven states required a personal finance class as a requirement for high school graduation, according to ... need to take the time to learn the basics of personal finance.

* Money: Personal Finance Roundup
Ben Popken Money: Personal Finance Roundup.

* The week's 10 best Personal Finance stories
In case you missed them, here are the top 10 Personal Finance stories from MarketWatch for the week of Sept... The week's 10 best Personal Finance stories: Sept.

* Save thousands on medical bills
By Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine... Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine Save thousands on medical bills.

Index Funds News

* Vanguard's Total Stock Market Fund New Top Dog
Ever since it opened, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX) has been the flagship for growth at the company ... has now lost its mantle as the biggest at the indexing fund giant. At the end of August, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) had attracted $107.5 billion in assets.

* A New Book From the Bogleheads
I guess we should assume that the Bogleheads are named after Mr. Bogle who virtually invented the idea of index funds for diversification and low fees. A great idea for its time which was the 70s and 80s and 90s when fewer were actually retired and baby boomers were buying nearly anything in the stock market.

* Adviser: Get Out of Index Investing
It was wonderful. In that environment, the best thing you could have done is own index funds... Will index funds beat inflation over the next five years. I think not. The Federal Reserve is far, far more concerned about letting a deflationary economic environment get under way than it is about inflation.

* 4 or 5 funds will get you a diversified portfolio
Vanguard offers a large variety of ultra-low fee no-load index funds... You can pick Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund. For bonds, Intermediate-Term Index Fund should suffice... are contained in the Total Stock Market fund, and the International Stock Index fund includes companies based in emerging countries.

* Which Fund Families Top the Manager Ownership Charts?
Vanguard and Fidelity rank 15th and 17th respectively, though Vanguard's ranking is probably hurt by its large number of index funds, which tend to have low manager ownership. Some families, such as Janus, are also hurt by the presence in their lineup of clone funds that lack manager investment in their own right; if such funds were eliminated from the ...

* Discover the secret of slow
Instead of jumping in and out of the market, dollar-cost average your way in. Every month, without thinking, put the same amount of money into a well-balanced index fund or two. You'll end up buying more shares when they're cheap, and fewer when they're pricey," explains Fischer. Consider this counterintuitive thought.

Exchange-Traded Funds News

* Why ETFs Could Overtake Old-School Mutual Funds
... the radar with only 1 in 20 mutual fund dollars, ETFs have now woken up the major players by taking often ... There are tremendous obstacles still in the way of ETFs getting into some of the biggest (retirement) asset pools, but ... year-over-year, the taxable money is increasingly going into ETFs, and there's now universal recognition, at least, of ETFs by financial advisors ...

* ETFs Dead? Not So Fast
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have seen growth slow over the past three months... While there have been a number of ETF closings in 2008, primarily because of slow asset growth, ETFs are not dead ... ETF providers certainly don't seem to be bearish on their industry... 7, there were nearly 550 ETFs and exchange traded notes (ETNs) in registration.

* Checking In With The ETF Industry’s Growth, With Help From The SEC
The exchange traded fund (ETF) growth scope has widened due to a streamlined global ... support for a proposal to ease the way for new exchange traded fund (ETF) launches... Does a double inverse exchange traded fund (ETF) give clues to which direction the market sentiment will ... 2008 – As time flies on, so does the number of exchange traded funds (ETFs) being introduced to the industry.

* Actively Managed ETF Education is Key
The exchange traded fund (ETF) world became more exciting with the recent introduction of actively managed ETFs this year ... we can contribute to the education of investors, explain how ETFs work, and spread information showing that ETFs are a better alternative to mutual fund investment, ETFs will thrive in the investment world ...

* Three 'ex-ETF' Ideas
Given some of the ETFs that have been discontinued, and others with low assets, it will take some innovative and useful new ETF products to prosper ... Some proposed ETF ideas of my own, that I am surprised have not ... products similar to the idea behind Vanguard's Extended Market Index ETF ( VXF ), but applied globally to international ETFs.

Mutual Funds News Roundup

* Are Mutual Funds a Good Way to Invest for Your Future?
... of investing, there is a lot of wonder circulating around mutual funds. Certain questions such as, “What are the risks associated with mutual funds... is good to ask these questions because asking questions about mutual funds shows that a person means serious business when it comes ... Mutual funds have helped put money in people’s pockets, so mutual funds can be a great way to invest for your future ...

* Time To Put Your Mutual Fund Choices To The Test
It's the same in mutual funds, where investors should go back to school to review their own holdings ... The first thing savvy investors do upon selecting a mutual fund is to write down the reasons for their decision... Chuck Jaffe Time To Put Your Mutual Fund Choices To The Test.

* Charles Jaffe: Give yourself a quiz on your mutual funds
Students are going back to school, and mutual-fund investors should, too, to study their holdings as the calendar year ... The first thing savvy fund investors do upon selecting a mutual fund is write down the reasons for their decision... Charles Jaffe: Give yourself a quiz on your mutual funds.

* Tips to help you pick the right MF- Financial Times-Features-The Economic Times
The net asset values (NAV) of equity mutual funds across the board have taken a beating this year - especially the mid-cap and small-cap focused mutual funds which have a higher co-relation with the market ... Investors who invested in the wrong mutual funds are stuck with them... market conditions, many investors are pulling out investments in equity mutual funds and investing in debt funds and instruments - liquid funds, bank ...

* ETFs a threat to mutual funds, Cerulli says
Despite what mutual fund insiders have been saying for years, exchange traded funds are indeed a threat to mutual funds, according to a report released today from research firm Cerulli ... One way mutual fund managers can combat this threat is to assemble portfolios that ... ETFs a threat to mutual funds, Cerulli says.

* Misbehaving Mutual Funds Give ETFs a Leg Up
... exchange traded funds (ETFs) continues to expand, problems with the mutual fund market contributed greatly to this growth. Chuck Jaffe for the Boston Herald examines the mutual fund world and how five years ago, it was plagued by ... These problems related to mutual fund investing truly reveal the strengths in ETFs.

* Mutual fund assets dip nearly 1 percent in July
WASHINGTON - Total assets in the nation's mutual funds fell by nearly 1 percent last month, dropping by about $91.56 billion, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday... Mutual fund assets dip nearly 1 percent in July.

* The Market's 10 Best Funds ... Revealed
A record $883 billion was added to mutual funds during 2007, and you were likely one of the contributors ... facts are so important that they bear repeating: The best mutual funds of the past 10 years had long-tenured managers who ... Even better, seven of the 10 best mutual funds of the past decade did not charge loads -- the onerous ...

* 2008 Mutual Fund Survey
Our mutual funds report will not only help you identify funds likely to ... Wherever you find Forbes discussing mutual funds, you are likely to see a serious discussion of costs ... Forbes also stands apart from other mutual fund rating services in that we create separate grades for bull ... From several decades of experience tracking mutual funds, it is clear to us that funds that excel in ...

* Target-date Mutual Funds Are Big Draw For New Investment Dollars
Another example, let's say a mutual fund or stock has a beta of 1.5 relative to the ... NEW YORK -- Mutual funds that provide a one-stop offering for investors saving for ... as lifecycle funds, gathered 28% of net money flowing into mutual funds in the first half of the year, according to data ...

* Fund Fundamentals
... or for a nominal cost, there are several reasons why mutual funds are still so popular... explanation: If you have a small sum to invest, a mutual fund can, theoretically, give you broader exposure to more stocks and ... investors who have only a small amount to put into mutual funds.

* Planning Ahead: An Inflection Point For ETFs?
... ago, I was in the cafeteria of a well-known mutual fund company chatting with one of the portfolio managers of a ... Today, I'm sure portfolio managers in mutual fund complexes across the globe are echoing similar sentiments after hearing ... Very few other mutual fund families could attempt this sort of bold action.

Personal Finance Update

* Personal Finance: Surviving the Market Whirlwind
Gail MarksJarvis is a personal finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune... Jonathan Tannenwald Personal Finance: Surviving the Market Whirlwind.

* Spending plan provides blueprint to avoid 'drift'
Questions about personal finance and investments may be sent by e-mail to scott@scottburns.com or by fax to 505-424-0938. The Web site is http://www.scottburns.com to comment on articles, find referenced Web links or discuss personal finance topics. Questions of general interest will be answered in future columns and on the Web site.

* Personal finance: More Americans attempting to pay down debt, poll shows
There are many available on the Web, including one at the Rutgers University personal-finance site at njaes.rutgers.edu/money... Personal finance: More Americans attempting to pay down debt, poll shows.

* The week's 10 best Personal Finance stories: Aug. 25-29
In case you missed them, here are the top 10 Personal Finance stories from MarketWatch for the week of Aug... The week's 10 best Personal Finance stories: Aug.

* Personal finance advice, ideas, tips and financial planning - Money Magazine on CNNMoney.com
Personal finance advice, ideas, tips and financial planning - Money Magazine on CNNMoney.com.

* 10 Tough Ways to Boost Your Bottom Line
When people talk about getting their personal finances in order, they usually try to find the easy way to reduce debt and increase savings... Jeffrey Strain has been a freelance personal finance writer for the past 10 years helping people save money and get their finances in order. He currently owns and runs SavingAdvice.com.

* Personal finance during the crunch
Personal finance during the crunch.