Last Friday's unemployment report was much better than expected and a bit of a shocker, frankly, given all the doom and gloom that had preceded it, including worries that February's storms would cause the rate to rise. Instead, it remained steady at 9.7%. Not good, but certainly not worse. More...
Inflation hedge or panic ?
bp044 2010-03-13 22:24:47
Because of concern over coming inflation , rising interest rates an a deteriorating US dollar there is an adviser recommending among hedges the purchase More...
What about EM?
johnnygg 2010-03-12 19:04:30
What does anyone think VG's Emerging Market Fund is going to do? Go up or down? I sold my HYC & More...
Comparison Chart of S&P, DJIA, & Nasdaq
butwait 2010-03-12 16:26:07
[b]An excellent chart to show what a bear market looks like:[/b]
[IMG]http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/ad5/4ButWait/c8870ab5.png[/IMG]
m100 = 100 members have proven long term track records, and serve as the ambassadors More...
Sell. This fund of funds tracks the Morgan Stanley EAFE index by investing in European Index (currently about 70% of assets) and Pacific Index (the remaining 30%). It's similar to Tax-Managed International, which tracks the same index, though that fund buys stocks directly and comes with a higher minimum and more onerous back-end loads. Performance for the two has been virtually identical. Yet both ignore the emerging markets component that one finds in Total International or World ex-U.S. Index. And there's the rub. If you buy into the indexers' credo that one should index "all" markets rather than a slice of the pie, then this fund is a non-starter.
February's markets were marked by an outbreak of swine flu as Greece, one of the European Union's so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), was thought to be near default on its sovereign debt. Meanwhile, Spain reported its seventh straight quarter of declining GDP, which doesn't look particularly promising when compared to strong rebounds in, say, the U.S. (where revised figures showed a 5.9% annualized gain in Q4), Japan or even France. In this month's issue, though bonds remain popular, there is plenty of risk ahead. You need to be prepared for the eventuality of the Fed raising rates, and if you're spending your distributions, what can happen to your initial investment. And in this month's Funds Focus I review the Growth and Income category, specifically index funds versus actively managed funds and which options I believe are best for you. Plus I have a tuition tutorial on 529 plans. In the time since I last covered these plans, Vanguard has made some changes to the ones it directly administers, and more states are now offering the company's funds in their plans. More...
Launched to great fanfare in May 2008, Vanguard's three Managed Payout funds are treading water as investors are looking, but not buying into the concept. More...
Daniel P. Wiener is editor of The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, a monthly newsletter that keeps abreast of recent developments at Vanguard, and the annual FFSA Indepedent Guide to the Vanguard Funds. Through his newsletter and guide book, Dan helps tens of thousands of Vanguard investors choose wisely among more than 100 Vanguard mutual funds. The Adviser is a five-time winner of the Newsletter Publishers Foundation's Editorial Excellence Award. More...
| Models | February | YTD |
| Growth | 2.7% | -0.5% |
| Conservative Growth | 2.5% | -0.3% |
| Income | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| Growth Index | 3.6% | -0.1% |
| The average Vanguard investor |
1.6% | -0.2% |
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