5 ETFs That Can Help Balance Your Portfolio
Photo by: Nicholas_T
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 underlying assets like a mutual fund. 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.
GLD: Gold
I’ve been known to make fun of “Gold Bugs” now and again in my days, but you have to admit that with the specter of inflation looming over all of the spending and stimulus, gold becomes a bit more appealing. The mechanism for this ETF is supposed to be fairly straightforward, and it’s done a good job of duplicating the returns of gold recently. Because most of the currencies out there are from governments who are in straits just as dire as the USA, it can be appealing to find a “currency” that no government has control over.
TIP: Inflation Protected Treasuries