Yesterday turned into one of those classic “buy the rumor, sell the fact” situations as the Fed’s unchanged stance on interest rates failed to inspire the buyers. Actually, the bears took over, and the major indexes headed straight south, although the losses were moderate given the size of the rally since the March 09 lows. The initial reaction after the …
The Importance Of Fund Expense Ratios
Reader John had this comment regarding my review of PRPFX last Saturday of: That said I have not always been this enthusiastic about it (PRPFX). The fund’s expense ratios were unacceptably high for a long time and have only recently dropped into a range I am prepared to support. (I refuse to buy mutual funds with expenses greater than 1%. …
Protecting Profits
Reader MD was interested in mutual funds that automatically protect any profits made. He had this to say: I am interested in No Load mutual funds, which use hedging strategies like shorting or buying options to protect the gains realized.Don’t I wish that these types of funds exist. While all mutual funds turn over their holdings several times a year, …
Sell Stops And Mutual Funds
Last week’s discussion about sell stops, whip-saws and distributions generated a lot of reader feedback. As I said, most of these issues have been covered before, but they are important and worth repeating so that new readers get the benefit as well. Reader MD had this to say: A ‘Sell stop’ is an excellent vehicle to hedge your portfolio of …
Sunday Musings: Crash And Recovery
Hat tip goes to Mish at Global Economic Trends for pointing to a link featuring an interview with the author of the well known book “The Black Swan” Nassim Taleb. I reviewed his books sometime last year and being a being a very straight thinker, he had some interesting thoughts in a recent interview on the current state of the …
What Can A Poor Slob Do?
I must admit that reader feedback is an important component in supporting my efforts of generating blog posts on a daily basis. Sometimes, comments can be pretty funny, yet have serious undertones. This was the case when reader Robert questioned the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, and he had this to add: I’m not buying gold, can’t afford it. …