The ancient Chinese curse that reads “may you live in interesting times” has always seemed more like a blessing than a wishing of ill will. But perhaps in the current investing environment, the negative side of the phrase becomes more apparent. Between lingering debt concerns in Europe, the fallout from the Gulf oil spill, China’s new currency policy, and a host of hurdles in the domestic economy, these are certainly interesting times (see Surprise Winners From A Rising Yuan). [click to continue…]
At the core of many investor portfolios is an allocation to large cap domestic equities. Because large cap stocks generally have long operating histories, established customer bases, and sufficient cash on hand, they are perceived as the least risky of equity investments, strongly correlated with mid cap and small cap stocks but less volatile than [...]
Over the last several months, a number of actively-managed ETFs have been launched. These investment vehicles are essentially a hybrid of traditional mutual funds and ETFs, providing many of the benefits that have boosted the ETF industry (lower fees, greater transparency and flexibility, etc.), while implementing an active trading strategy in an attempt to outperform a market [...]
