Leveraged ETFs have been known to stray of course by not exactly tracking the underlying index they’re based on. In “Are ETFs More Risky Than You Think?” this area is explored a little more in detail: Unlike mutual funds, which are managed to try to get the best return, exchange-traded funds are meant to accurately reflect an entire index of …
Junking Greece
Just as Wall Street had settled in on Tuesday to watch the Goldman Sachs grilling before a Senate committee, S&P; stepped into the limelight by downgrading Greece’s debt to junk and reducing Portugal’s by a notch. That put the dollar and Treasuries into rally mode, while stock markets around the world headed south. A mid-day rebound attempt fell short as …
On Rising Interest Rates And Commodities
The WSJ featured and article titled “Rising Interest Rates Might Be a Buy Signal for Commodities:” The Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate in February, and market gauges are pointing to more increases in coming months. Does that mean it is a good time to buy commodities? According to new research, the answer is yes. In fact, periods of …
Waiting For A Japan Comeback
The Japanese economy has been stuck in a deflationary scenario for the past 2 decades, while the stock market has been in a bear market for the same period. Sure, there have been rebound rallies, but eventually they have all succumbed to even lower prices. It has been a buy and holders nightmare, but a good trading environment. The NYT …
Sunday Musings: Another Buy Signal
Hat tip to reader Phil for pointing to “A Very Friendly Trend,” in which Mark Hulbert discusses a rare buy signal that was generated a couple of weeks ago: If the trend is your friend, as the Wall Street cliché goes, then the stock market has been an incredibly friendly place of late. I say this not just because the …
Tax Benefits Of ETFs
The NYT is discussing the various benefits of ETFs in “The Low-Cost Power of Exchange Traded Funds.” One section caught my attention, which I like to hone in on and that’s the tax advantages of ETFs over mutual funds: There is another cost advantage to E.T.F.’s that leads analysts to predict continuing expansion: taxation is less severe. “E.T.F.’s are substantially …