7 June 2009

Treasury ETFs

Treasuries have been particularly volatile lately as the market tries to come to a consensus about the recovery and inflation.

If the recovery comes soon and inflation sets in, treasuries may be a terrible investment. At the same time they are likely currently priced for a recovery within a year or so. If that prediction is overly optimistic they may in fact be an excellent investment.

ETFs offer a convenient way to incorporate the risk profile of Treasuries into your portfolio.

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4 April 2009

5 ETFs That Can Help Balance Your Portfolio

While I generally advocate against investing in individual stocks for amateur investors, I make some exceptions for ETFs. Exchange Traded Funds are funds that trade on the stock market like a regular stock, but represent managed funds like mutual funds.
These ETFs give you an opportunity to hedge your stock market positions and provide some balance to your portfolio fairly easily. While I would still recommend a lot of research before buying any of these, each of these ETFs gives you some ability to round out your positions.

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17 January 2009

What We Should Fear Volume One: Inflation

The economy is always fraught with peril. Your savings and investments are always subject to risk, and it’s your job to protect them. Unfortunately, if it were easy to identify the risks out there, we’d do a better job of avoiding them. One problem that seems to loom in the future of every investment decision is monetary policy. The current crisis is one of deflation. People have less money and feel less secure, so they spend less money. This means that companies have to charge lower prices and make less money, which leads to layoffs, which leads to people having less money and feeling less secure.

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