In this post I’m going to offer some additional points on the whole active management vs index debate, as well as discuss some of the very large distortions that ETFs in particular are creating. I too often hear people arguing for one side over the other but this misses the point. It’s not a question of…
The Glacial Shifts that Affect Investment Markets
There are a couple of things I’ve been thinking about over the last year or so and a great interview last Friday with Michael Green on Real Vision TV helped me piece it all together. Quick side note – for anyone serious about following the investment markets, Real Vision is absolutely the best source for…
Chart of the Week: Effects of QE, Straight from the Horse’s Mouth
This week’s Chart of the Week comes from Jesse Felder, a very astute investor. I’ve posted charts like this in the past, illustrating the effects of the Fed’s Quantitative Easing on asset markets, but it’s worth revisiting after the former head of the Dallas Federal Reserve branch, Richard Fisher, openly stated that the main goal of…
How Actively Managed Mutual Funds are Scoring
Earlier this month, S&P Dow Jones Indices released their semi-annual report on mutual funds which compares actively managed funds to index funds. It’s called the SPIVA report, which stands for S&P Index vs. Active management, and the results, once again, don’t bode well for actively managed mutual funds. I’ve never been a big fan of…
The Difference between Individual Bonds & Bond Funds
I received a question after my last post regarding bonds and just to clarify, I was referring to owning individual bonds. The person that asked the question, like many investors, has exposure to bonds in his portfolio via bond funds which can be a mutual fund, exchange traded fund (ETF) or closed-end fund, so I…