cma

Ultra Short ETFs Benefit From Volatile Market

Are there any ultra-long bond ETFs?|

New ETFs Present New Opportunities

Are there any ultra-long bond ETFs?

Bond Wars Update: International and Junk

Are there any ultra-long bond ETFs?

Friday Roundup: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Fry's GS bashing is getting old, especially considering that GS has paid back the US everything that GS owed, while GM has "borrowed" mega billions which the taxpayer will never see back. And not just GM, but Citibank and many other financial institutions with US preferred stock investments which are not being marked to market.
How come we never here about these "loans" that have defrauded the US taxpayer but only hear about GS?

Friday Roundup: Commodities, Emerging Markets

David refers to his use of TBT. But numerous commentators have said taht all the inverse and/or leveraged ETFs use swaps so that there is serious erosion against the benchmark over even a short time, i.e., like holding long out-of-the-money options (calls or puts).
I would appreciate David's comment on this with regard to TBT of periods in excess of a month.

How Do You Choose the Best ETF?

"But being located in the U.S., where commodity ETNs have (for now) a tremendous advantage in taxable accounts over traditional exchange-traded funds, I personally turn to ETNs for my commodity exposure."
What is the "tremendous advantage" of ETNs?

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

David, you sometimes post the Demark chart, which is great, since no one else does, but we need the interpretation, please!

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Who is the constantly mentioned "Chucky"?

Asset Allocation: The Key to Proper Diversification

"proper diversification likely could have avoided 40% losses caused mainly by one sector."
Wrong, your own statistics show that only retrospective "proper diversification" could have reduced losses. If one had a market weight with "proper diversification" one would have lost 40% +.

Ultrashort ETFs Can Work if You Trade Them Correctly

"from the data presented above is that a bearish investor, betting against a major market average like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ 100, could indeed have held the corresponding UltraShort ETF and realized a quite reasonable gain over the course of the last 12 months."
This is absurd. His own stats disprove it. IYF was down 75.4%. By arbitraging with SKF, you would have needed + 150.8%; instead you got + 82.8%, i.e., SKF fell behind by 68 percentage points? Tracking error, anyone?

Inflation Risk Is Underpriced

Good article on the fundamentals but absurd conclusion to use the Pro-shares ultra-short treasuries. These Proshares ETFs only produce the required return on a daily basis, not over any longer time frame.

The Hidden Cost in Inverse ETFs

"short the SDS and long the IVV. While this is not a risk free arbitrage (unexpectedly low daily volatility could lead to the opposite effect), in the current market this doesn’t seem likely."
This is not arbitrage but doubling up: short SDS is effectively double long + long IVV is another long.

In Defense of Leveraged ETFs

An absurd defense which amounts the the fact that over any reasonable holding period (1 week or greater) the double leveraged ETNs are "not so bad." Why use a product which produces results that range from bad to not so bad?

Friday Outlook: Danger on All Sides

Putting aside the true long-term perspective (suitable only for well funded life insurance cos. like Berkshire Hathaway), I agree with David about the longer-term perspective: it's quite risky to hold an intermediate-term short position here, based on RSI, cash levels and and longer-term sentiment measures.
Of course we should not be surprised by further near-term tests of the $SPX 750 low.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

David bought XLU and DIA today with the markets up 2.46% from the lows. Trend-following has somehting to say for it as a strategy, but when you miss 25% of a move, that undercuts the entire philosophy: 5-10% late, yes, but not 25%, since you may miss almost the entire move that way.