The Wall Street Journal featured an interesting piece titled “For some Investors, Night of Living ETF.” Here are some highlights: Low costs are a selling point for the exchange-traded-fund industry. But more than a quarter of the ETFs on the market are hitting shareholders with high trading costs that escape many investors’ notice. These ETFs typically have relatively few assets …
Bernanke To The Rescue
The markets bobbed and weaved a bit yesterday but Fed chairman Bernanke’s nomination for a second term cheered traders, who are now looking for more economic stability and growth. I must be one of the few who is not impressed by Bernanke’s resume, especially due to the fact that he never saw the housing bubble and subsequent recession coming, but …
Running Out Of Stimulus
An early rally fizzled yesterday as the markets realized that two stimulus programs are coming to an end. The “Cash for Clunkers” program ended late Monday while the “Cash for Shelter” plan is still scheduled to run until November 30th. That program provides tax credits for home purchases. Of course, stimulus is nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul, …
More On Leveraged ETFs
I found this abstract on leveraged ETFs: Leveraged and inverse Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have attracted significant assets lately. Unlike traditional ETFs, these funds have “leverage” explicitly embedded as part of their product design. While these funds are primarily used by short-term traders, they are gaining popularity with individual investors placing leveraged bets or hedging their portfolios. The structure of these …
Sunday Musings: 1929 Wall Street Stock Market Crash
One anonymous reader submitted the following PBS video, which revisits the 1929 market crash. To me, there are some eerie similarities to today’s environment especially when looking at the total disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. Can it happen again? Sure, only time will tell. However, it was not the crash that was devastating; it was the years that …
Reducing Risk
The WSJ reports that “Bond ETFs Draw A Surge Of Funds:” Investors burned by the stock-market meltdown are piling into bond exchange-traded funds in an effort to tone down risk and generate stable income. In particular, ETFs tracking inflation-protected bonds and corporate debt have seen cash fly in the door this year, which reflects the trend of more investors using …