The WSJ featured a story on the discrepancies between an ETF’s performance and the underlying index it is supposed to track: True believers in index funds are eyeing a problem churned up during the market’s turbulent passage over the past two years—tracking error. That is where a fund’s performance veers from the index it is supposed to track. This is …
Bumping Against Trading Limitations
With the markets having corrected three straight days in a row last week, some readers are getting close to having to execute sell stops and/or contemplating how to reenter the market should this downturn to be short-lived. Reader Bruce had this to say: Preparing for a market exit, I have been reading up on the short-term trading rules for funds …
The Rating Game Scam
Long time readers continue to ask why I no longer feature muni bond funds in the StatSheet and what I think about munis in general. While we’ve owned some muni funds back in 2006/07, I no longer support them in view of the busted real estate and credit bubble. It’s no secret that states, counties, cities and municipalities suffer from …
Sunday Musings: The True Picture
Mark Hulbert wrote and interesting story called “Lost and Found.” Here are some highlights: The “lost” decade? Maybe so. But, if so, this is not the first time over the last two centuries in which a decade has been lost. And on each of those prior occasions, the stock market “found” itself soon thereafter. am not the first commentator to …
Glass Ceiling Still Intact
On December 9, 2009, I posted in “Tough Overhead Resistance” that the TTI had closed the 2 exhaustion gaps made in 2008. This coincided with continued resistance of the 1,100 level of the S&P; 500. Here’s the TTI chart I posted back then: While the S&P; 500 has pierced the 1,100 mark, that level still appears to be a tough …
No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 1/21/2010
My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpThe bears took over this week and subjected the major indexes to a spanking not seen since the lows of March 09. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs has now crossed its trend line (red) to the upside by +4.41% keeping the current buy signal intact. The effective date …