Sunday Musings: A Psychological Oddity

Ulli Uncategorized Contact

E-mail exchanges and conversations with thousands of my readers over the past few years have exposed me to an unusual and at times odd behavior when it comes to money and investments. One thing I found was that some investors on one hand are trying to save pennies while on the other wasting dollars by the thousands without even being …

Closed End Funds: Are 9% Yields Worth It?

Ulli Uncategorized Contact

Recently, I read a story in TheStreet.com called “Hot Yields Drive Rebirth of Closed-End Funds.” It did a good job describing the reasons for the renewed interest in CEFs. As baby boomers are aging and moving into retirement, the goal seems to be to generate as much income as possible. While 5% bond yields are common and boring to some, …

No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 6/28/2007

Ulli Uncategorized Contact

My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpDespite higher oil prices, a pre-Fed announcement rally pushed the major indexes slightly higher Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs is now positioned +3.30% above its long-term trend line (red) as the chart below shows: The international index has now moved to +6.69% above its own trend line, as …

ETF Investing: Individual Country ETFs vs. BRIC

Ulli Uncategorized Contact

Selecting individual country funds for your portfolio can be a challenge due to the above average volatility. Additionally, you’ll never know when one country’s bull market run suddenly peters out while another one continues to scale to new highs. A better and more conservative way is to use an ETF which covers an entire region such as emerging markets (EEM). …

No Load Fund /ETF Investing: Are Subscription Newsletters Worth It?

Ulli Uncategorized Contact

Reader Nitin pointed to an article in the NYT called “The Crowd Is Restless, but Maybe That’s a Good Sign.”It deals with contrarian analysis, which simply means that historically the tendency for investors is to be wrong at major turning points. Market tops are reached when there are very few bears left and therefore no money is available on the …