Alan Young

10 Common Myths About ETF Investing

Excellent article! Should be required reading for Investing 101.

ETF Trends: Weak Rebound in Equities

Not only was volume weak, but most indexes failed to close the gap down from Friday. Not even what you'd call an oversold bounce.
If you're ready to say this bear-market rally is over, I wouldn't disagree.

Fractured Wall Street Fairy Tales #2: Awful News Is the Same as Good News

Mr. Plaehn has it right. Mr. Shaefer is quite right on the fundamentals, but "the market can stay irrational longer than most people can stay solvent." And holding *leveraged* inverse funds makes it worse, since simple sideways volatility quickly erodes their value (as has been illustrated many times by many posters).

Time for California Muni Bond Investors to Take a Stand

Whine, whine. Everyone wants their phat returns-- and 6.6% tax-free is pretty phat -- but no one wants any risk to the principal. Well, guess what: you can't have it both ways.

If you're in the accumulation phase, the short-term behavior of the asset shouldn't matter. Hold the dam' bonds while the market panics about California's nasty politics, and tough it out. In a year or two, they will be worth a lot more.

Actually, I sold all my CA bonds months ago, because I saw this coming and thought the market would price them much lower-- which it hasn't significantly done (yet). But I'm older and can't afford to wait out a downturn.

3 Predictions for PIMCO's ETF Launch

Good analysis.

I've been using CEFs to buy bonds, but with Gross in the picture, a managed ETF would be a strong contender.

Getting Out of the Debt Crisis: Just Renounce It

On another note--
I'd like to point out to anyone who is feeling prickly about the role of the unions in this new "ownership" scheme--
Union members work their whole lives at otherwise-unrewarding jobs in order to earn a guaranteed pension and healthcare benefits. These are debts of the company to real stakeholders who invested actual labor, not just money. It's absolutely appropriate that these workers have priority at least equal with bondholders when it comes to claiming assets.

Obviously (or at least I hoped it would be obvious), if taxpayers have to foot the bill to make things hold together, then we the taxpayers damn right ought to have an ownership stake, too. If you don't feel that the government represents your interests, that what voting is for.

On Apr 28 11:16 AM jratl wrote:

> "The biggest shareholders? The federal government and the labor unions.
> "
> I guess the unions hold the #1 and #2 shareholder positions since
> they own the federal government.

Getting Out of the Debt Crisis: Just Renounce It

Most likely, this whole discussion is moot, because the bondholders won't agree to being crowded out, and it will all be settled in bankruptcy court. That's a better solution, IMO. Why use public money to prop up an old, failed behemoth, when we could just wipe it out and make room for new startups, or innovation-minded takeovers?

The Problems with Hedge Fund ETF QAI

You are exactly right about the inverse funds. I wouldn't make such a big deal about the expenses: what's the difference between 0.75% and 1.5% (or so) per *year* when prices move that much every *day*?
I would suggest another concern, though. Is once a month enough for rebalancing? If you rebalanced one month ago today, based on February trends, you would have been betting against the entire March rally. That could be deadly, and is rather un-hedge-like, don't you think?

iShares ETF Tracking Error: Risks and Explanations

iShares has a good web site; Powershares has a better one, IMO.

As far as credit risk goes, I've been more cautious about iShares recently because Barclay's is on the edge of insolvency, with asset-to-equity leverage of about 60:1, last time I looked. Scary stuff.

I wouldn't count on tracking error to provide returns. Better to pick a winning index, right?