From the category archives:

Investment Themes

What’s Next for ETFs? New Trends for the Coming Decade

December 20, 2009

The previous two decades have been an interesting journey for the Exchange Traded Fund.  A relatively humble beginning in the 1990’s as a simple way to track a few different indices soon gave way to a mass proliferation of products with ever-increasing complexity in the 2000’s.  Funds suddenly had every available sector, asset type, and geographic region covered and many have now adopted leverage, short sales, and even [...]

Read the full article →

2009 Third Quarter and Year-to-Date Asset Class Returns

October 6, 2009

Below I have listed the 2009 third quarter and year-to-date total returns for the iShares corresponding with various asset classes.
Risky assets (high volatility) continued to post extraordinarily high returns during the quarter. Foreign developed small cap rose 21.6%. Emerging markets increased 20.3% and U.S. high yield corporate bonds added 13.16%.
Bookmark to

Read the full article →

2009 Second Quarter and Year-to-Date Asset Class Returns

July 7, 2009

Below I have listed the 2009 second quarter and year-to-date total returns for the iShares corresponding with various asset classes.
Risky assets (high volatility) posted extraordinarily high returns during the quarter. Foreign developed small cap rose 34.3%. Emerging markets increased 31.57%. Foreign developed real estate gained 38.48% and U.S. high yield corporate bonds added 17.05%
Bookmark to

Read the full article →

2009 First Quarter Asset Class Returns

April 10, 2009

Below I have listed the 2009 first quarter total returns for the iShares corresponding with various asset classes. I have organized the data by asset class.
It was a quarter of eccentric returns with emerging markets posting a slightly positive return while global equities declined steeply. TIPS were the best performer of any of the asset [...]

Read the full article →

Top Ten Books for the Financial Crisis

February 19, 2009

Amidst the great tsunami wave of new personal finance books on the market, it may become a little overwhelming in trying to gather appropriate reading on the financial crisis. I’d like to offer up a top ten list sans self help, but with particular relevance to the financial crisis and economic downturn.
Several of the books on [...]

Read the full article →

Thinking Gold? Gold as Part of a Portfolio

January 29, 2009

Many investors have been thinking about gold recently.  Some have considered it because it has been a relatively strong performer with the iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) closing up 5.4% in 2008. It’s up 2% year-to-date as of yesterday’s close. The iShares S&P 500 Index ETF (IVV) was down 36.94% in 2008 and is down [...]

Read the full article →

2008 Asset Class Returns

January 3, 2009

Below I have listed the 2008 returns for the iShares corresponding with various asset classes. These are not total returns. They do not include dividends and/or interest. First, I have organized the data by asset class and later a sort of all returns from best to worst.
Although commodities were strong performers until the middle of [...]

Read the full article →

Peter Thiel on CNBC

May 18, 2008

One of the most successful investors in the business, Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital, a SF-based Macro hedge fund, talks about his top investment themes. This video is slightly dated, but much of the themes he talks about will likely persist over the next year or two. Nothing really surprising, but worth reiterating. Next [...]

Read the full article →