About Writer Bill Byrnes is co-founder of MUTUALdecision, , providing investors with data on the top mutual funds, and author of the MUTUALdecision Blog. He's been CEO, chairman and served on the board of directors of several public and private companies. He holds MBA and JD degrees and is a Chartered Financial Analyst with over 30 years experience in the investment industry.
AI: Alpha And Index Funds A current theme among Wall Street wealth managers is for individual investors to have index funds as their core holdings and to focus the remainder of their assets in high alpha investments, which will produce returns not correlated with the market. A quick digression for those of you who aren't familiar with alpha and beta. In traditional finance, return not correlated with a broad market index...... Source : Debt Solutions
Making Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) Work For You Exchange traded funds are index funds which have advantages over open-end index mutual funds. ETFs trade all day long on the stock exchanges, may be purchased through any broker, have lower fund expenses than mutual funds, and have less likelihood of generating unwanted taxable gains than mutual funds. There are a number of reasons, which we'll discuss, for investing in index funds (Exchange...... Similar Editorial : by . | Source : Learn to Trade
The ABCs Of Exchange Traded Funds Every investor should consider Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). The younger brother of open-end index mutual funds is growing up fast and showing greater versatility. ETFs are open-end index mutual funds that trade like stocks (and closed-end mutual funds). There are three legal structures of ETFs: Open-end mutual fund (the difference between the ETF structure and an open-end mutual fund is the...... Similar Editorial : by optioneer. | Source : Commodity Trader
Too Much Income Can Be Hazardous To Your Financial Health Bonds have higher yields then stocks. Bond funds have higher yields then stock funds. This means more current income for you. Bonds and bond funds are safer then stocks and stock funds, according to conventional wisdom. Bonds fluctuate less in value. That's good, too. So what's wrong with this picture? The interest paid on bonds doesn't grow (they're called fixed income securities for a...... Similar Editorial : by DrMikeTeng. | Source : Affordable Self Employed Health Insurance
2008 Economic And Investment Outlook The economy faces serious challenges in 2008: 1. New home sales are at a 16 year low and may go lower; 2. Inflation will be high for the next few months as energy and food prices work their way through the economy; 3. Retail sales will be weak, as evidenced by the Christmas season; 4. Illiquidity in the credit markets will spread from mortgages to auto loans and credit cards due to financial...... Similar Editorial : by . | Source : Alliance Asset Management
Investing In Energy Funds It's hard to believe with oil approaching $100 per barrel, but the U.S. will consume over 1 billion (that's 1,000,000,000) more gallons of gasoline in 2007 than in 2006. As a certain President once said, we are energy junkies. We keep craving more regardless of the price. Ask yourself this: Are you plugging more stuff into the wall each year? That requires even more oil, natural gas or coal....... Similar Editorial : by Sasha James. | Source : Transportation Asset Management
Indexing For Passive Aggressive Investors Let's dispel the notion once and for all that index funds are only for passive investors. Sure, the original index funds tracked the S&P and were meant for investors who either believed you couldn't beat the market or didn't want to try. Since their beginning, index funds have expanded their breath. You can find a fund which tracks any of the major indices and most industry sectors, such as...... Similar Editorial : by Joshua Konkle. | Source : Best Stock Investment
Recession Investing And The Housing Market Why could the U.S. be heading into a recession? The most likely reason is the housing market- a multi-faceted subject. There's the new home building sector. It's important because it employs so many people, not just in construction but, by extension, in the industries that supply materials to the homebuilders - lumber, concrete, appliances, and even retailers like Home Depot. Think about all...... Similar Editorial : by Gary Ward. | Source : Best Stock Investment
International Investing In The Age Of Turbulence Alan Greenspan writes extensively about the global economy in The Age of Turbulence. He believes there are common dominators to economic success. One is a cultural desire for growth, which includes government integrity, the acceptance of a certain amount of income inequality, incentives to take risk and the willingness to let market forces determine supply and demand. Markets are the antithesis...... Similar Editorial : by Wayne and Tamara. | Source : Best Stock Investment
Gut Check Time-How To Invest And Not Lose Sleep The recent events in the stock and bond markets drew everyone's attention. No doubt you took a look at your investments and, perhaps, worried about one or two. Maybe, you made some changes to your portfolio. Let's take a look at your experience and see if there are some lessons to be learned.Did you lose sleep, literally or figuratively, over any of your investments? This is the gut check...... Similar Editorial : by Yuwanda Black. | Source : Best Stock Investment
Earnings Matter: S&P And Stock Market Investing The S&P 500 is up about 7.5% thus far this year. That's a good return for just over six months. Will it keep going up? Consider this. The earnings of the S&P 500 companies are expected to grow by about 5% in 2007, according to a leading Wall Street brokerage firm. That means if the market was fairly valued at the beginning of 2007 and there were no big changes as to how investors think about...... Similar Editorial : by Skye Thomas. | Source : Equity Group Investment
Danger: Recession Ahead Proceed With Caution The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ are touching their lows for the year, down some 8% - 9%. The definition of a market correction is a 10% decline. A 20% decline is to be expected if there is a moderate recession or the expectation of one. Are we headed for a recession? Let's review the economic facts.Housing, and related, jobs account for 10% of our total employment. Single family housing starts fell 7...... Similar Editorial : by Laura Ng. | Source : Union Money Transfer In
Breaking Down The Financial Breakdown The stock market is gyrating like a yoyo, and with each down stroke it's heading lower. What's an investor to do? Let's start by dissecting the cause-it's not as simple as a slowdown in housing or defaults in the subprime market, and these are unrelated (for the most part) events.The housing market was headed for a correction regardless of the events taking place in the subprime market. New...... Similar Editorial : by Smith James. | Source : Finance Loan Money
The Economic Crises Of 2008 The question on every investor's mind is: are we experiencing a mid-expansion slowdown or are we on the cusp of a recession? Even a recession would be just a bump in the road when compared to the damage to the economy, and the value of our investments, which would be brought about by a decline in the value of our homes or the huge US trade deficit. Given the run up in housing prices, a 10%...... Similar Editorial : by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.. | Source : Business Card Color Printing
A Euro, A Yen, A Buck Or A Pound-Currency Fluctuation Explained Or a Yuan. (My apologies to all you Cabaret fans.) As a mutual fund or ETF investor you need to be aware of the currency risks you're taking when investing internationally. Is your fund hedged against the dollar or not? Do you want your fund to be hedged or not? What difference does it make to you? Let's start with the last question first.Currencies do fluctuate in value, except for the Yuan...... Similar Editorial : by Derek Both. | Source : Forex Trading System Software
