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CGTS DAILY FOR THURSDAY 12 AUGUST 2009: SELL AIG, GAIN OF 116% IN 3 WEEKS OF TRADING

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Asset Allocation ETFs: Low Expenses Are Nice, Losing Less Money Is Nicer

For the vast majority of investors: more trading equals lower returns. That includes people who pay an advisor to churn their holdings trying to time the markets. They not only lose money trading, but pay a fee for the privilege. No thanks.

Seeking an Historical Precedent for the Current Crisis

That's "a historical" according to Strunk and White.

Throw Money At It - Cramer's Stop Trading! (10/16/08)

Doesn't Cramer realize that the Social Security "Trust Fund" has nothing but Treasury debt in it? A few years ago, GWB said that it was nothing worthless paper. Can you imaging what would happen if all those T-bonds hit the market! It would sure pull the rug out from under the "investors" who last week sold all their stocks and "fled to safety" in T-bonds (at our Lord and Saviour JC's recommendation).

Asset Allocation as a Method for Risk Management

Mr. Stathis inplies that market timing is an easy thing to do, but the vast majority of investors, including highly-compensated fund managers can't pull it off reliably or repeatedly. Market forecasts are notoriously inaccurate and emotions often get in the way, making nearly-passive approaches (with asset class rebalancing) more successful over the long haul.

Deja Vu: 10-Year U.S. Treasury Yields

Why not at least put the two interest rate curves on axes with the same range. One is over 1.25% and the other is 1.75%. Otherwise the comparison is pretty specious.

P/E Divergence Between Growth and Value Stocks: The Wrong Way

Some of this is due to the way the S&P Indices are formulated, which tends to prevent re-classification of stocks from growth to value and back. This reduces losses due to arbitrage and portfolio turnover for tracking funds, which is usually a good thing, if it doesn't get in the way of keeping the index focused.

Not All Passively Managed Funds Are Created Equal

Another issue not mentioned is how well the fund company tracks the index. Compare VWO and EEM which track the same MSCI index. There have been very large differences in quarterly returns, far in excess of the differences in expenses or lending fees.

iShares' Latest: Innovation Worth the Cost?

Not only are Vanguards expenses lower than iShares in almost every case, but they do a much better job tracking their indexes. Vanguard often even slightly beats their target indexes, while iShares lags them. For a typical example, compare the returns of VWO and EEM, which track the same MSCI index.