Happy New Year! I still have some unfinished business from 2006. My preference is to pay attention to people who have actually done or experienced what they are writing about. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blog, an article, a book, or investments for that matter. To me, it increases credibility. This really hit home a few days ago when …
The Safety Premium
Wall Street has been all giddy last week over the nice 2nd half-of-the-year rebound rally, after the heart stopping pullback during May/June 06. With the S + P 500 having managed to gain almost 14%, the question is being asked how a Trend Tracking approach to investing in the market has fared. Well, in my practice, on average, we gained …
Watch Out for the Media
This is the time of the year when the media is having a field day again. Over the next couple of months, you will find headlines such as the following: 10 top stock picks for 2007 The perfect portfolio for 2007 My best stock for the year ahead 2006 losers ready to rebound 10 stocks for 2007 and beyond It …
Are ETFs better than Mutual Funds?
With the explosion of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), one of the more frequent questions I get is whether ETFs are better than mutual funds. The issue has been somewhat distorted by several large investment management firms and newsletters proclaiming that “we will never buy another mutual fund.” I think that this is a little extreme, because there is a place …
Should Financial Services Professionals be Compensated via Commission?
OK, so I am somewhat biased because I run a fee-only advisory practice. However, over the past 5 years, I have received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from some of my 17,000 newsletter readers complaining about being misled by unscrupulous stock brokers, who were more interested in their financial well being than in their clients’. Calling up a client …
Are 3 and 5-year Mutual Fund Performance Data of Value?
One of my newsletter readers had an interesting question. He asked: “One of the most commonly used and maybe the best advice is to look at the 1,3,5 year perfomance and the rating among peers. Then why don’t the funds at the bottom lose all potential new customers and all the owners sell? Are there some hidden factors?” Well, the …