To no surprise, Vanguard’s latest ETF offering has arrived and started trading a couple of weeks ago. It’s called the Vanguard Europe Pacific ETF (VEA) and it has 1,134 holdings and a low expense ratio of 0.15%. This is quiet a contrast to the average ETF expense ratio of 0.42%. This new ETF tracks an index of stock performance in …
Special No Load Fund/ETF Tracker Update For 8/6/2007
Yesterday’s rebound, which recovered just amount all of last Friday’s losses, was a welcome relief but huge one day market moves, whether up or down, are rarely indicative of a trend. As I mentioned last Friday, I liquidated a few volatile positions with sector and country orientations. The sell stop points were clearly penetrated and, if this is in fact …
The Subprime Pig: Another One Bites The Dust
I touched on this last week, but the WSJ also had a blurb on Sowood Capital’s admission that its hedge fund had lost more than 50% of its value, or about 1.5 billion. I posted Saturday, that the loss at the time had been 25%. Oh well, things are happening so fast, what’s another 750 million? It’s only mad money. …
Sunday Musings: Doing Well But Feeling Worse
A few months ago, I read Gregg Easterbrooks’ book “The Progress Paradox,” which carries the intriguing sub title “How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.” He draws on three decades of research and thinking to support the idea that almost all aspects of Western life have greatly improved in the past century—yet today, most men and women feel less …
House Of Cards: More Subprime Virus Effects
In a recent post, I talked about Bear Stears’ closure of 2 hedge funds that were essentially worthless. A few days ago, Bear Stearns (BS — hmm, I’m not sure if this is a fitting abbreviation) halted investors’ redemptions from another $900 million Asset-Backed Securities Fund, as worried investors were trying to pull their money out as fast as they …
No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 8/2/2007
My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpToday’s sharp sell-off brought several of our sell stops back into play. We will liquidate those positions on Monday. For more details, please see the above link. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs fell but still remains +1.45% above its long-term trend line (red) as the chart below shows: …