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 asset class for good. Or so they thought. [click to continue…]
Once considered a vital “return enhancer” in almost every portfolio, real estate as an asset class has fallen out of favor with investors following its spectacular collapse during (and role in causing) the recent global economic downturn. Real estate was historically embraced because of its potential for delivering excess returns in bull property markets and low correlation with traditional stock and bond investments. But as default rates skyrocketed, values plummeted, and correlations went to 1.0, asset managers have sold off real property and reallocated investor portfolios to equities and fixed income. [click to continue…]
It’s been an interesting week the world of ETFs: ETFs trended upwards at the beginning of the week but fell back in trading late Thursday and Friday. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web:
Dow Jones & Co. has begun searching for potential buyers of its stock-market indexing unit, which includes the widely-reported Dow Jones Industrial Average. The unit of Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal and was purchased by News Corporation in late 2007, creates and licenses indexes for use by ETFs, mutual funds, and other [...]
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 [...]