To say that the current investment landscape is complex would be quite the understatement. Recent weeks have seen environmental, humanitarian, and economic crises break out in Japan, with the aftershocks rippling throughout the global economy. Moving across the globe, the Libyan Crisis has dominated headlines for quite some time now, as a series of revolutions spreading across the Middle East came to a head in this volatile nation. Now that key oil production in Libya has come to a standstill, the price of crude is skyrocketing, jumping to over $113 per barrel last week.
While equity markets are uncertain, the appeal of fixed income has been dulled by a prolonged stretch of record low interest rates. Though the ECB has finally pushed rates higher, yields throughout the developed world remain anemic. This combination has brought renewed interest to dividend-paying equities, an option for investors looking to dial back equity risk a bit without taking on duration risk from fixed income securities [see also Five More iShares ETFs Now Available Commission Free]. [click to continue…]
Historically, no portfolio was complete without a material allocation to real estate. Consistently high real returns and low correlations to stocks and bonds made it easy to overlook the out-of-whack fundamentals that ultimately led to an unprecedented collapse. But when real estate markets got a reality check in late 2008, many investors swore off the [...]
The reasons for the rise of the ETF industry are numerous: intraday liquidity, (potentially) superior tax efficiency, and enhanced transparency relative to traditional actively-managed mutual funds have all contributed to the billions of dollars of inflows that these funds have seen in recent years. But the real attraction for most ETF investors is the reduced [...]
In recent months, the U.S. housing market has shown signs of life, with several major metropolitan areas eking out small month-over-month gains. While home prices remain well below year-ago levels, there are at least signs that the worst has passed, and a modest recovery is now underway.
After decades of flying high and shrugging off crises around the world, U.S. equity markets have fallen on some tough times. The epicenter of the mortgage crisis that evolved into a global recession has scared away many investors away from the U.S. markets, afraid that the worst is yet to come and that the “glory days” [...]
With a roller coaster six months behind us that saw no shortage of interesting twists and turns and unsuspected headlines, we’ve finally reached the midway point of 2009. Ahead of us is the highly anticipated “second half of 2009,” which for months we’ve heard will hold returns to growth, a recovering economy, and enough green [...]
As the first half of 2009 draws to a close, it seems that we’re finally starting to see things return to some semblance of normality. Equity markets have rallied sharply since bottoming out in March. Volatility is back within its historical range after hitting record highs over the past year. And politicians in Washington have [...]
