Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPERs (VTI)

All Comments on VTI

  • commenter
    BlueDog
    Apr 29 07:35 PM
    My Website
    White Noise Around Strong Current Negative Trends [view article]
    Nice article! Reply
  • commenter
    globalmacro
    Apr 29 05:00 PM
    White Noise Around Strong Current Negative Trends [view article]
    The end of the world has been called many times before. It wont be any more correct to call it this time. Reply
  • commenter
    globalmacro
    Apr 29 04:59 PM
    White Noise Around Strong Current Negative Trends [view article]
    So the end of the world has already started? haha. Reply
  • commenter
    aceemily
    Apr 29 09:03 AM
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    How about GAF and VTOPF? The author should be aware of all entry mechanisms if for no other reason than to refute their validity. Reply
  • commenter
    Aly-Khan
    Satchu
    Apr 29 02:48 AM
    My Website
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Dear Richard,

    Thanks for the compliment. It made my morning.

    I came home three years ago, having been in London for many years. What has really struck me in Kenya is the scale of the domestic shareholder base. It is widely expected to be 2m at the end of our current and biggest IPO Safaricom. This is an extraordinary outcome and actually a phenomenon. Today, Nigeria has 6 banks in the top 100 in the world. I really expect the African landscape to be something completely different in a very short space of time. Extraordinary things are happening and its all being compressed into a very few years.

    Ex South Africa, I feel SSA is the last frontier. It was a previously very fragmented Continent with small pocket sized markets. The Mobile phone was the catalyst that triggered the aggregation of these small units into scale.

    Lot of folk talk of Commodities etc but the next sharp trigger is coming from the Continent being plugged in to the global superhighway.

    There might very well be a great arbitrage in identifying those markets that are set to get into these various new indices.



    Take care
    Aly-Khan Satchu
    rich.co.ke     Reply
  • commenter
    Mr. T
    Apr 28 09:58 PM
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Hello Mr. Shaw

    I have been following your recommendation of TRAMX and it seems its growing at a reasonable click ($1 since your last piece) my question is why is this fund focused heavily in the financial sector and industrial materials sector and not much else, could this be a future problem for the fund if the financials are in a situation similar to the one US is experiencing. Also do you think there will be more funds launching for the middle east area?

    Thanks

    P.S. Sorry if I was rude in my last post to your "Leaving in the Dust" article     Reply
  • commenter
    Richard Shaw
    Apr 28 11:48 AM
    My Website
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Football Geek,

    Yes, Canada is important.

    Not only is it energy rich, but the energy reserves and energy production and distribution are not subject to the geopolitical risks of so much of the oil in the rest of the world, which is subject to nationalization, effective nationalization by huge increases in royalties, war, sabotage, terrorism, political manipulation of supply, and in worst cases end user need to defend maritime transport of oil.

    Canada was about 3% of world market cap as of mid-2007.     Reply
  • commenter
    Richard Shaw
    Apr 28 11:37 AM
    My Website
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Aly-Khan Satchu:

    Good question.

    I used the term "tradable" and perhaps should have used the word "investable"... which is the term used by MSCI in constructing their indices.

    Your home country of Kenya is included in the MSCI "investable" frontier markets index (and South Africa is in the emerging category), but most of the non-Gulf region Africa countries are not. MSCI has criteria which they broadly describe this way:

    "The MSCI Frontier Markets Indices are designed to track the performance of a range of equity markets that are now more accessible to global investors. The MSCI Frontier Markets Indices Methodology follows similar principles to the methodology of the MSCI Global Investable Market Indices (GIMI), but takes into account the specific market capitalization structure and liquidity constraints that characterize these markets."

    A good place to start looking at how MSCI defines investable is on their December 2007 release about their Frontier Indices found at:

    mscibarra.com/products...

    We are not making any determination as to investablity in this article, but are following the lead of MSCI in stating what is and is not investable. Their determination is similar to, but not exactly the same as, that of Standard and Poor's.

    I chose the word "tradable" versus "investable" partially to avoid confusion between direct investment opportunities which cannot be "traded" (such as a company building a factory or setting up a distribution system) and buying and selling stocks or bonds on a exchange with certain characteristics which is the "investability&qu... idea MSCI is referencing.

    By the way, you have a handsome website.

    Thanks for commenting

    Richard     Reply
  • commenter
    Richard Shaw
    Apr 28 11:12 AM
    My Website
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    John from Osaka,

    Thank you for the complement and also for the note of our proofing error. It has been corrected on my blog and SA will be making an image substitution shortly.

    Richard     Reply
  • commenter
    Aly-Khan
    Satchu
    Apr 28 10:27 AM
    My Website
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Dear Richard,

    What is your definition of tradeable stock markets in relation to Africa and particularly in SSA?

    There is a whole lot going on which appears not to be captured by your map?

    Aly-Khan Satchu
    rich.co.ke



     Reply
  • commenter
    ikkyu
    Apr 28 09:45 AM
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Greetings. I always enjoy your posts.

    The world map appears to have an incorrect key. It seems the emerging and developed non-U.S. markets are switched.

    Cheers from Osaka,
    john     Reply
  • commenter
    Football
    Geek
    Apr 28 08:57 AM
    Investing in Non-U.S. Stock Markets [view article]
    Interesting note to this is that Canada is close to the US, but their
    economy is different in many ways. Canada has the second most oil
    reserves in the world, jobless rate is at a twenty five year low, currently enjoys a government surplus, exports more goods than it
    imports, stable government in power, and has a skilled workforce.
    Has some great companies like POT, RIM, MFC, TD, CN, etc.
    Because we are so close to the US, sometimes we are forgotten.
    With the price of oil looking to stay high, and the demand to continue Canada could do very well in the next decade
    Reply
  • commenter
    Ames
    Tiedeman
    Apr 27 05:20 PM
    My Website
    ETF Fund Revenues: A View from the Bottom [view article]
    Nice data! Thanks! Reply
  • commenter
    fxtrader07
    Apr 25 08:12 AM
    Why Index Investing Isn't Passive Investing [view article]
    I agree with the dismissal of index-tracking being passive investing. However, that seems to be a pretty strange conclusion (ranaldo and häberle), which i have to look into in more detail. Because what I have come across so far suggests the EXACT opposite: Indexes these days are way too actively managed - and poorly so.
    Reply
  • commenter
    AAI
    Apr 11 03:03 AM
    My Website
    Money Magazine ETF Recommendations: Keeping It Simple May Be Stupid [view article]
    Some of the other "asset classes" you mentioned are highly correlated with the five highlighted by Money magazine, which puts you FURTHER away from your efficiency frontier because of expenses and taxes as investors try frantically to re-balance such an over-diversified portfolio quarterly or semi-annually. I strongly recommend you take a look at David Swensen's "Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment." Swensen is one of the world's most successful investors, whose arguments you don't address at all. Reply
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