Investing

Schwab Cuts Index Fund Fees

15 years ago
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It is nice to see Schwab has finally followed Fidelity in cutting the fees for its basic index funds. Schwab Equity Index Fund Expense ratio Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund (SWPPX) 0.09% Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund®(SWTSX) 0.09% Schwab 1000 Index Fund® (SNXFX) 0.29% Schwab Small-Cap [...]

Tax Free Money Market Alternative

15 years ago
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With tax-free money market funds paying well under 1% (Vanguard’s Tax-Exempt Money Market is currently paying around 0.61%),  it is hard to find a place to park cash if you are in a high tax braket.  You can still find high yield savings accounts that pay around 2%, but that interest will be fully [...]

Market Valuation Update

15 years ago
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After the rundown we have had over the last two weeks, I find it useful to take a step back and check on how current valuations measure historically.  I should reiterate that I don’t believe that I have the ability to time the market.  And for me, these valuation exercises are about assessing risk [...]

Too much risk in your portfolio?

15 years ago
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The following graph comes from a recent morningstar article that reiterates how markets don’t follow normal distributions but instead follow a log-stable style distribution (i.e., distribution with fat tails).  What I like about this graph is that it highlights the fact that even over very long [...]

High Yield Savings and Checking

15 years ago
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Many of the high yield savings accounts (e.g., Ing Direct, Emigrant Direct, and others you can find at bankrate.com) have lowered their yields to around 2.4%.  Interestingly, Emigrant Bank has created a new entity called Dollar Savings Direct that currently offers 3.5%.  As far as I can tell it is [...]

DJ-AIG Commodities Index new Weightings

15 years ago
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Here is the new breakdown for the DJ-AIG commodities index.  By January 15th, the index will have the following weights (2008 weights in parentheses). Natural Gas: 11.89% (12.24%) Crude Oil: 13.75% (13.16%) Gasoline: 3.71% (3.78%) Heating Oil: 3.65% (3.82%) Live Cattle: 4.29% (4.89%) Lean Hogs: [...]

Beware! Contango and Commodity Investing

15 years ago
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In my role as risk manager for my clients I try to envision what macro economic changes could happen and determine whether my portfolios are situated to weather that change.  I was looking at various hyper inflation scenarios (for when the economy gains traction again) and reexamined whether [...]

Finding the Highest FDIC Savings Interest Rates

15 years ago
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Consumerism Commentary maintains a nice list of the top paying savings and money market accounts that are FDIC insured.  They also show how the interest rates have changed over the last four months to give you an inkling on whether the interest rate is a teaser or likely to stick around for a [...]

Hedging gasoline/heating oil/natural gas prices

15 years ago
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With the recession now in full swing commodity prices have been coming down dramatically as demand drops.  While $4 gas is still fresh in your mind you may want to consider the following simple hedging strategy to protect yourself from the inevitable upswing in prices once the recession ends. Let’s [...]
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