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 …
No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 8/20/2009
My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpDespite a sharp Monday sell-off, the major indexes recovered, and the bulls came out in full force. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs has now crossed its trend line (red) to the upside by +6.16% keeping the current buy signal intact. The effective date was June 3, 2009. The …
A Lesson In Economics
Thanks to reader Robert for sending in this little story on basic economics: An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, …