Richard Shaw

Bailout Cost, per Taxpayer, by Income

Owen -- I presume from your comment that I am one of those idiots in your opinion. I disagree strongly with your view that TARP has shown a profit. There is no way to know what the profit or loss is until all the accounts are settled. It is false logic to assume that because some accounts have turned out well that the remaining accounts will perform similarly.

S&P 500 Benchmark for Fundamental Screening

David Van Knap -- the source reference is "Reuters ProVestor Plus". They do not provide the methodology explanation you request. Perhaps they would provide you that info if you contact them.

S&P 500 Benchmark for Fundamental Screening

The data is for the index itself, as published by Reuters, therefore the weighting of the companies is as found in the index

Volatility Approach to SPY for the Next 30 Days

Seeking Truth:

Good observation. The odds cones make no indication as to up or down direction, just range based on the volatility priced into options. Therefore, other thinking, whether macroeconomic, security specific fundamentals, other technicals, or whatever is important to use in conjunction with the probability calculation with respect to direction.

Volatility Approach to SPY for the Next 30 Days

SeekingTruth:
Thanks for the support. If you would like to think more about this indicator, I would suggest narrowing scope and thinking about selling covered calls on an SPY position, keeping in mind the advantages of selling calls with a strike price outside of the cones (meaning low probability of the buyer making money and high probability of you keeping both your SPY and the option buyer's premium).

Volatility Approach to SPY for the Next 30 Days

Baboon: VIX 26 means 26%.

Volatility Approach to SPY for the Next 30 Days

Baboon:

I see your point of confusion on the 1000 versus 100 matter. Our chart is for SPY (100), but the formula shown at the bottom of the chart is for the index (1000). Whichever underlying security you use, then use its price. If you are projecting the index use its current level (about 1000 in this case). If you are projecting the price of SPY use its current price (about 100 in this case). The formula in the text refers to P which is the 1000 or 100, as the case may be depending on underlying security.

If you have the options implied volatility for other securities, the formula for them would use their current price and their implied volatility.

Volatility Approach to SPY for the Next 30 Days

Baboon:

Because we used SPY as the proxy for the S&P 500, we used its price (100) for P. SPY is basically 1/10th of the index.

Explanation of 1 Std Dev (that is the expected Std Dev):

One standard deviation expressed as an annualized percentage equals the value of the VIX (yesterday about 26) times the price of the underlying security (1000 if S&P 500 or 100 is SPY as proxy), that product multiplied by the square root of the quantity: the number of projected days (30 in the case of VIX) divided by 365.

Rising Interest in Currency Funds

bettssling: no you are correct. my data service mislabeled the vehicle type. thanks for the notice.

Searching for Financially Sound Equity REITS

DM32:

The database we used is the one supplied by AAII and the LTD to Total Capital is a calculated field provided in that database. You may have data with different "as of dates", or there may be differences in the data rendered by Yahoo (multiple sources) versus AAII (Market Guide).

Comparing Chart Conditions Across 10 Asset Categories

Notice: The securities in this article ARE NOT separate asset classes. They are separate categories. They are not sufficiently differentiated as to correlation to be considered classes. The original article or our blog uses "Categories" in the title. We have requested a correction of this title to eliminate the use of the word "Classes"

Trolling for High Quality Equity Income

JP Smith:
There are dividend ETFs, but none with a similar approach. You may be more likely to find something like that in the active category. However, no active fund will disclose their full research and selection method, just generalities which are typically so vague as to be nearly useless, and they typically carve out huge exceptions for deviation from their strategy as well.

Key Asset Categories vs. Cash

Mistrofan:

0% from cash beats negative 30% to 50% in stocks in Q4 2008. We were happy to earn nothing with our cash while watching markets melt back then. it takes a double to get back to zero after a 50% loss

Asset Allocation Didn't Fail: The Allocators Did

Ernie:

Great point. I do believe that StockCharts plots at least some mutual fund data differently than they plot individual stocks or indexes. This is apparently one of the instances.

Your chart is OK by me, but it is different than the StockCharts chart. Somehow, although they will not say so, StockCharts seems to be including some aspect of total return that causes that difference.

The conclusions about cash vs stocks vs bonds, however, would not be different with other chart services in this instance, although the pictures would be less severe.

I have been in contact with StockCharts.com about the differences between their charts and those from BigCharts, Yahoo Finance, and MetaStock.

Their answers have been opaque to me. I cannot explain why or how they are different. I have suggested to them that if everybody else agrees but them, they must be wrong.

Their response is not helpful. The only part I can understand clearly is their assertion that for technical analysis their way is best.

Fortunately, the discrepancies are are not universal. Mutual funds tend to be more of a problem.

If I could find a service with the same charting features as StockCharts.com (MetaStock has more) with the image sizing and printing features of StockCharts (MetaStock is not good for that), I would not use StockCharts. But for blogging purposes StockCharts is most often the best choice, but not in this instance.

Thank you for your comment. Don't worry about your BigCharts chart. I'll try not to use mutual funds in my future examples, unless I use BigCharts, MetaStock or some service other than StockCharts.

Key Asset Categories vs. Cash

Fund Insider: We stated our conclusion in the last sentence. The source of the data is stated on each chart.