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How Swine Flu Fears Are Affecting the Market
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2009 Comment (6)The market has been in flux this morning following news of a possible flu outbreak. Not surprisingly, commodity prices have been affected, including grain prices and hog and cattle futures. "For the moment, nothing else… not even rationality… means anything," according to Dennis Gartman of the Gartman letter (via FT Alphaville). Here's why.
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Gen Y Members Aren't Financial Misfits
Tweet Share on Facebook April 24, 2009 Comment (29)Despite Generation Y's apparent spending priorities and debt issues, this group is tucking away more money than the nation overall. According to a recent survey from Money Management International, a credit and debt counseling nonprofit, 44 percent of Gen Ys say they're funneling more money into savings (Americans as a whole say they're saving 36 percent more.)
Maybe we shouldn't beat up on Gen Y so much. Case in point: "Characterized by their sense of entitlement, casual clothes, Blackberries and high expectations, Gen Y has presented Generation X and Baby Boomer employers with the problem of managing and retaining them as employees," writes MMI.
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Forget Relocating: More of Us Are Staying Put These Days
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2009 Comment (1)Whether it's that we're short on cash or short on job opportunities, fewer Americans are moving. According to the Census Bureau, the national mover rate declined from 13.2 percent in 2007 to 11.9 percent in 2008, which is the lowest since the bureau began tracking this figure in 1948.
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Reasons to Run From Leveraged Funds
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2009 Comment (3)Let's say you think the S&P is bound to go up--way up--in the coming months. Why not double down with a leveraged fund that gives you double the return of the S&P? Or on the other hand, if you're convinced that a sector is going to fall hard, why not bet against it with a fund that returns three times the opposite of that sector's index?
It's not as simple as it sounds. Kiplinger columnist and investment adviser Steven Goldberg (a former colleague of mine) explains the arithmetic behind these funds and why they often return a lot less than you'd expect. The most important thing to know is that they only deliver the performance of a single day, not of a year or even a month. That fact makes a huge difference. Consider his example:
The Vanguard REIT Index fund tumbled 50% through April 7. Now, suppose you were smart enough to buy a fund that goes in the opposite direction of the Vanguard fund, namely ProFunds Short Real Estate fund. Its objective is to return the inverse of a REIT index. Your gain: Not 50%. Not even 25%. Instead, you lost 11%.
The story delves into the specifics of the strategy and includes several other examples that illustrate the hazards of investing in leveraged and inverse funds. Goldberg's conclusion: "Like cigarettes, these funds tell you on the package exactly what they do. And just as surely as cigarettes can cut years off your life, these funds can reduce your wealth substantially. You're better off at the craps tables."
Leveraged and inverse strategies are popping up in ETF form as well. Here's a look at one of the newer offerings, which seeks to triple the return of a given index.
For a quick primer on exchange-traded funds, see 10 Things You Didn't Know About ETFs.
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The Big Guys Are Loading Up on Stocks
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2009 Comment (1)Not to suggest that if everybody's doing it so you should you, but a just-released Citigroup survey reported that almost two-thirds of institutional investors said they're looking to add more stocks to their portfolio. That's up 10 percentage points from Citi's December survey.
According to Citi, they favor the tech sector and expect utilities to perform worst in 2009 (in December, they expected financials to perform the best and consumer discretionary to perform the worst.) Attitudes about growth stocks have also changed: In mid 2007, 80 percent believed that growth would outperform value, but in December only 40 percent stuck by growth.
Other interesting results:
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More Reasons to Invest in Index Funds
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2009 Comment (4)Think your mutual fund manager can outrun the pack? You better really believe in him or her, because data spanning the past five years shows that nearly three-fourths of active managers have lagged their indexes over the past five years.
According to the just-released S&P Indices Versus Active Funds Scorecard for year-end 2008, the S&P 500 generated higher returns than 72 percent of actively managed large cap funds from the beginning of 2004 to the end of 2008.
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Is This a Bear Market 'Head Fake' or the Real Deal?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 16, 2009 Comment (1)Is this rally for real? Investors are basking in the fourth rally of the current bear market--and this one has yielded the biggest gain for stocks since the markets began to tank in 2007, according to Citi global equity strategists.
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What It's Like to Be a Tax Collector
Tweet Share on Facebook April 15, 2009 Comment (2)Ever wonder what a day in the life of a tax collector is like? The book Confessions of a Tax Collector sheds some light. In this Time Q&A, author Richard Yancy--who spent more than a decade collecting overdue taxes from individuals and businesses--talks about the narcissistic pleasures of tax collecting ("I was master of the universe for eight hours a day, or at least the little universe that was assigned to me"), using a fake name on the phone to avoid off-the-job harassment, and the experience of being assaulted by a tax payer:
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The 401(k) Match Cut: What It Means For You in Dollars
Tweet Share on Facebook April 14, 2009 Comment (1)It's a controversial move, but many companies are slashing costs these days by suspending their 401(k) match. You might be curious how much they're actually saving by doing so. According to Hewitt Associates, more than $1,500 per employee per year (that's assuming the average employer match of 50 cents to the dollar up to 6 percent of pay.)
The savings equates to $25 million a year for a large company, $10 million for a midsize company, and $2 million for a small company. But here's what it means for a younger worker earning $50,000 a year who contributes 6 percent of his/her salary: $16,000 less for retirement, according to Hewitt.
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David Dreman: Stocks Could Double in 5 Years
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2009 CommentDavid Dreman, a well-known contrarian stock picker and chairman of Dreman Value Management, doesn't want to sugarcoat the economic climate (in fact, he thinks we're in a depression, although not like the Great Depression.)
Still, in the latest issue of Forbes, he writes that even if stocks drop another 15 percent to 20 percent, "they are likely to at least double from their current levels over the next five years. Trying to catch the market bottom is a loser's game."
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