Category Archive

This is the time of the year when mutual funds and ETFs declare their annual distributions. If you are tracking the sell stops for your positions, it’s imperative that you adjust the “high” numbers. For example, let’s say that you bought an ETF/mutual fund earlier this year or last, and it reached a high price of $10 since you bought …

The best laid plans sometimes don’t work out. Unexpected events kept me from completing Sunday’s article on the subject of retirement, which will appear a week from today. Regular posting will resume on Monday.

Recently, a reader emailed and wanted to know if it was a good idea to go short the market after his 7% trailing sell stop had taken him out of a position. While the short answer is clearly no, I want to elaborate on that issue. The trailing sell stops fulfill the purpose of controlling the downside risk of your …

My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpThe bulls went on a rampage this week and pushed the S&P; 500 to a 3% gain. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs has moved above its trend line (red) by +5.89% (last week +5.36%) and remains in bullish mode. The international index has broken above its long-term trend …

Just as I was wondering yesterday as to where the driver to move this market higher might come from, I received the answer load and clear. ADP’s report, that private employers had added 93,000 jobs in November, which was better than expected, set the tone early on. Other data, such as the ISM, suggested that manufacturing is holding up nicely, …

As I have posted from to time, market direction may be more influenced by external circumstances than internal ones. That proved to be true yesterday, as another early morning sell off put the major indexes in a hole again. A stronger dollar, supported by ongoing European debt problems, put the bears clearly in charge. The bulls staged somewhat of a …