Investing

> When deciding on which Exchange Traded Fund to buy, there are different methodologies from which to choose. Carl wrote about the differences in construction in his post called Cap-Weighted vs. Equal Weighted. As he mentioned, there can be important biases built in to the products which could provide benefits or downfalls in different markets. For instance, the equal weighting [...]

> In my book, Buy and Hold is Dead (AGAIN), the Case for Active Management in Dangerous Markets, I devote an entire chapter to portfolio tax planning. The tax chapter is called, The Tax Tail and the Portfolio Dog. The title refers to an old saying about taxes that basically means that investors shouldn’t let tax considerations outweigh value considerations [...]

>Lately it seems that there’s general agreement that some sort of economic recovery is underway, thanks to the massive doses of financial stimulus that have been unleashed to halt the recession. Now, the debate has shifted to whether or not we will experience a typical post-recession recovery pattern, or whether we will enter a “new normal” of permanently lower levels [...]

> In case you missed it, the Shanghai SE Composite (a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the daily performance of all A and B shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange) entered a bear market in two weeks! From 8/4/09 to 8/19/09, the index fell almost 21% which is the classic measure of a bear market. It has certainly been one [...]