Articles (242)

Expectations can be a double edged sword. On one side, expectations represent what is most likely to take place, which can have practical value when talking about planning for the future. On the other hand, it can also set an “anchor” in the minds of investors, which ...Read More

As we come to the end of the year it is important to reflect on some of the lessons learned from 2016. One of the biggest that comes to mind is the importance of discipline when it comes to investing, especially if you are trying to target specific risk ...Read More

If you follow the stock market, you cannot get away from the word volatility.  It is discussed in the media, over the Internet, the front page of the newspaper’s Business section.  All you have to do is Google “today’s volatility” and you will ...Read More

Many readers may call us crazy, but hear us out. The beginning of 2016 has been tumultuous to say the least. Concerns over China’s transition from an export based economy to a more developed economy based on its own aggregate demand as ...Read More

A recent report was released by ThinkAdvisor cited the recent increase in alternative investments making their way into defined contribution plans. According to Cerulli Associates, a research firm based out of Boston, “alternatives have long been used in defined benefit ...Read More

In our last piece, we described why most investors should ignore the never-ending onslaught of unpredictable financial news and tend to three strategies that can be much more readily managed – at least once you know they are there. Hidden in plain sight, these potent ...Read More

A recent article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek about Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund (DEMSX) caught our attention. The title, “Dimensional Winning in Emerging Markets: Riskless Return”, caused us to do the mother of all double-takes, as we ...Read More

A few months ago, we published “The Mutual Fund Landscape—Not a Pretty Picture” in which we presented the results of research by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). To summarize, they found that over the ten year period ending 12/31/2012, less than 20% of actively ...Read More

Capacity adjusted risk is an entirely new way for investors to look at the uncertainty of their ...Read More

The investment meter is a device that shows the scores of the five dimensions as percentages of the maximum possible for each ...Read More

Each person has a unique Risk Capacity™.  The question is, how do we measure this capacity and find the right "bull" for you to ...Read More

"Investing in the absence of an investment policy statement reduces decision making to an individual event-driven process of chasing short-term results, eliminating the expectation of achieving the long-term returns of ...Read More

"To reduce risk it is necessary to avoid a portfolio whose securities are all highly correlated with each other. One hundred securities whose returns rise and fall in near unison afford little protection than the uncertain return of a single ...Read More

"It is a certainty that equity markets will be full of uncertainty. This uncertainty is the reason investors should expect ...Read More

Widely known as the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett is one of the most admired investors in the world. Hordes of investors may bend a listening ear to capture Buffett's every word, but few seem to heed his sage advice to buy and hold. ...Read More

Which equity index offers a price/earnings ratio of 14x, a dividend yield of 2.6%, and annualized earnings growth over the past five years of 12%? The answer will come as a surprise to many investors. ...Read More

Two new bond ETFs are poised to launch this Fall following initial regulatory approval by the SEC, Barclays Global Investors ...Read More

An Interview with Bridgeway's John Montgomery ...Read More

The total combined assets of the 114 U.S. exchange-traded funds were $118.44 billion in May, according to the latest data from Investment Company Institute, the national association of the investment company ...Read More

Although existing exchange-traded funds each track a particular index, they are not all created equal. ...Read More

Although exchange-traded funds have experienced phenomenal growth in the U.S., there are actually more ETFs trading on foreign exchanges - 169 ETFs currently call an overseas exchange home, while 114 funds are listed on domestic U.S. exchanges. However, ...Read More

S&P reported that, on average, funds with lower expense ratios have outperformed their more expensive peers in eight out of the nine domestic fund style categories over a one, three, five, and ten-year annualized ...Read More

An impending Exchange-Traded Fund based on gold is stirring debate over whether it will make gold so easy to own that a flood of new retail investors will send the precious metal ...Read More

Exchange-traded funds have low annual fees and tax distributions, but brokerage transaction fees can remove all the benefits for unwary small investors. Dollar cost averaging in small amounts, a great strategy with traditional mutual funds, is a ...Read More

Exchange-traded fund assets continue to rise in the bear market, topping $110 billion in April, according to the latest figures released by the Investment Company Institute, the trade group for the mutual fund industry. ...Read More

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.69% in May, closing at 8793.12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 5.41% for the year, according to Dow Jones Indexes. ...Read More

Yet another major player is set to enter the ETF industry. Earlier this week mutual fund giant Fidelity filed for its first exchange-traded fund that will track the Nasdaq Composite index. ...Read More

Standard & Poor's released a study showing active sector fund managers have fared relatively well against sector indexes that track thin slices of the market over the past five years. However, over the last three years a majority of active funds beat the ...Read More

Vanguard announced it will levy a 2% redemption fee on sales of shares held less than two months for nine of its international funds: ...Read More

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.99% in April and is up 1.55% for the year. ...Read More

Rydex, the fund family best known for its lineup of sector and leveraged index funds catering to active traders, said it will soon launch an exchange-traded fund that tracks an equal-weighted S&P 500 ...Read More

ETF Advisors announced it would close its four Treasury FITR funds: Treasury 1 FITR (TFT), Treasury 2 FITR (TOU), Treasury 5 FITR (TFI), and Treasury 10 FITR (TTE). ...Read More

New York-based index provider Standard & Poor's released the results of its 2002 annual survey of assets linked directly to its domestic ...Read More

The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets began trading today on the American Stock Exchange under the ticker EEM. The new exchange-traded fund, managed by Barclays Global Investors, is benchmarked to the MSCI Emerging Markets Free (EMF) index. ...Read More

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New York-based index provider Standard & Poor's released the results of its 2002 annual survey of assets linked directly to its domestic benchmarks. Based on the 2002 survey responses, S&P estimates that approximately 90% of the total S&P indexed assets ...Read More

Vanguard announced yesterday that it will transition to new MSCI U.S. equity benchmarks for several of its index funds, a move the Valley Forge-based fund group has been positioning itself for over the past several months, and perhaps years. ...Read More

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.29% in March, and is down 1.33% for the year, according to Dow Jones Indexes. Measuring Europe, the Dow Jones STOXX 50 index was up 3.26% for March, and is down 7.11% for the ...Read More

One thing the mutual fund industry does well is to create a product and then create demand for that product, even when the product may not be one that is in the investors' best ...Read More

The U.S. blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.06% in February - the Dow is off 6.4% for the year. Measuring Europe, the Dow Jones STOXX 50 index was down 5.54% for February; year-to-date the index is down 12.2%. The Dow Jones Asian Titans 50 ...Read More

A visit from one of the world's leading investors casts a fresh light on how markets work and the effects of the war in ...Read More

The combined assets of the nation's exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were $95.66 billion in January, according to the Investment Company Institute, falling from a December 2002 high of over $102 billion. ...Read More

Standard & Poor's Indexes recently developed two interesting benchmarks, and investors may soon have access to them through passive ...Read More

Exchange-traded funds often have lower expense ratios than comparable traditional index funds. However, since ETFs trade like stocks, investors must pay commissions every time they buy or sell ...Read More

Exchange-traded funds generally have lower expense ratios than comparable traditional index funds. However, since ETFs trade like stocks, investors must pay commissions every time they buy or sell ...Read More

Barclays Global Investors (BGI) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) January 2 to launch five fixed income exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on Lehman indexes: ...Read More

In a previous article we looked at the tax benefits of exchange-traded funds, as well as fund swap strategies to harvest portfolio losses. This time we continue on with more ETF ...Read More

There are currently 281 exchange-traded funds listed around the world, with over $140 billion in assets under management, according to a new report by Boston-based indexing giant State Street Global Advisors. ...Read More

After years of development and regulatory hurdles, fixed-income ETFs have finally hit the market. San Francisco-based Barclays Global Investors beat ETF Advisors to the punch with a family of iShares tied to Lehman Brothers bond indexes. New York-based ...Read More

The debut of bond ETFs plus a slew of filings in the pipeline have elevated interest in ETF product development activity. ...Read More

Four new U.S. Treasury exchange-traded funds began trading today on the American Stock Exchange. The new funds, introduced by ETF Advisers, track Treasury securities with one, two, five and 10-year maturities. Called "fighters" - Fixed Income Trust ...Read More

Dow Jones Indexes said Credit Suisse Asset Management has licensed some of its global Sector Titans indexes for ETFs to be launched later this week. The new ETFs will be tied to the Dow Jones Banks Titans 30, the Dow Jones Technology Titans 30, and the ...Read More

UBS Global Asset Management introduced two new exchange-traded funds: the Fresco Dow Jones STOXX 500 (FEU) and the Fresco Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 (FEZ). The new ETFs, which track the European and Eurozone markets, began trading on the New York Stock ...Read More

Finding index funds that make up the building blocks of a diversified portfolio is important, but fitting them together is the real challenge. For our favorite index funds covering various asset classes, please see our editors' picks. ...Read More

This portfolio is a very simple interpretation of slice and dice, with large caps coupled with small value. This portfolio deviates from the total stock market approach by overweighting small value stocks. ...Read More

This portfolio shouldn't be confused with the strategies that involve active funds. The idea of core and more is to lay down a core portfolio and explore by overweighting certain asset classes. Core and more portfolios can take on many shapes and sizes ...Read More

This portfolio is similar to the basic domestic stock/bond split, but this time we add a broad international index fund for further diversification. ...Read More

The lists below single out some of favorite index funds covering the international and emerging markets equity asset classes. Many of the funds are based on MSCI's international EAFE ...Read More

Bond index funds can reduce risk in a portfolio. Indexing bonds also makes sense because of their lower yields compared to stocks. We like short-term bonds because of their low risk and lack of correlation with equity ...Read More

We've been dancing to salsa music and downing piroshki to keep with the spirit of International Week here at IndexFunds.com. Maybe we're just looking for a diversion from the U.S. stock market, which suffered the worst quarter in recent memory. ...Read More