Author Archives: Kyle Waller
How Poor Investments Happen
Investors tend to do poorly when they react to what the market does instead of preparing for what may happen and taking advantage of long-term forecasts. With a reactionary attitude, investors will rarely do well. Continue reading
Lower Duration For Better Inflation Protection
TIP Securities have been around only since 1997, placing them a time period with only relatively tame levels of inflation. That being said, the need for inflation protection is very relevant, and investors now have access to five TIPS ETFs. They give investors a choice among broad based, intermediate, short-term, and long-term durations. Continue reading
Financial Reform Freedom?
The Senate sweats this week over the self imposed July 4th deadline for President Obama to sign the Financial Reform Overhaul Bill. The bill is reported to be over 2,000 pages, and reaches into every corner of the financial industry from credit card transactions to advisors.
The bill ventures into some places where legislation has previously left alone. In many ways, the financial system needs some changes, however, for the most part, the Independence Day bill is more confusing than freedom-promoting. Continue reading
International Corporate Bond ETFs Have Arrived
PowerShares listed the second-ever international corporate bond ETF for trading this week, behind State Street Global Advisor’s international corporate bond product, falling right in step with the unfolding of the debt crisis in Europe. The PowerShares ETF provides a broad exposure to international, investment-grade corporate bonds issued in developed countries. Continue reading
ETF Fixed Income Assets Climb in April
ETF cashflows have climbed despite worries about rising rates in fixed income ETFs. Investors also seem to be pouring money into global ETFs even though overseas markets continue to abound.…
The Unemployment Report – 5/7/10
The amount of jobs added went up in April even well above what is expected, adding 290,000 jobs to the market. Up from 200,000 added in March. Continue reading
A Dollar Hedged ETF; How To Allocate Around The Falling Euro
The end of 2009 saw the entry of a new ETF in the already dense ETF landscape: a currency hedged ETF. This new feature is of interesting significance due to its packaging inside an ETF.…
Unpacking Global Sectors
Recently, many have reasoned that sectors drive market returns. Using the complete lineup of global sector ETFs from iShares, an investor can utilize the power of sectors within the US while reaching into developed and emerging international markets for simple to complex asset allocation strategies.…
Commodity ETFs Having Problems
Recently, some commodity ETFs have been forced to stop the creation process of ETF creation units, meaning that the funds and trusts are being forced to act like closed in funds. …
Leverage ETFs in the News…Again
Leveraged ETFs Under Investigation
The Massachusetts Secretary of State, William Galvin, is looking into the marketing of leveraged ETFs and has reportedly written letters to the three biggest players in this market, ProShares, Direxion and Rydex.…
Harvard Endowment Looks to Become More Liquid
The managers of the Harvard Endowment have long been hailed as innovators. Their alternative investments include commodities like timber (famously employing lumberjacks), private equity, and hedge funds.…
President Obama: An Index Investor
In a recent report, President Obama disclosed a large holding in Vanguard Index Funds. Continue reading
PowerShares Set to Close 19 ETFs
PowerShares, a company who has lead the way for fundamental ETFs, closes 19 of these funds. Are more closings in other ETFs to follow? Continue reading
Hedge Fund ETFs: They’re Here
Click Here to view PDF With Charts inserted.
IndexIQ, on March 25, 2009, launched its first hedge fund ETF. This is following in the wake of 2008 where many hedge funds were affected by mass withdrawals and highly leveraged bets went bad, causing many to shut down.…
Gold Revisited
In recent years, gold has seen spectacular price increases. Looking at some history may reveal where gold is heading in the future and why.…
Forbes Best & Worst ETFs List
Something I’ve been big on lately is ETF tracking error. An ETF’s ability to track an index can be a bigger cost (implicit cost) to an ETF, and investors should be very concerned with this. …
Barclays Selling iShares
Barclays Global Capital announced Monday that recent rumors were true and they plan to sell iShares.…
Isaac Newton: The Investor
“Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius.…
Posted in Articles, Economic Commentary, Personal Finance, Wiser Blog
Tagged etf, investing, Isaac Newton, Money, Stock Market Advice, stock market wisdom, Warren Buffet
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Currency Must Be Considered When Investing Abroad
In a recent article submitted by us here at Wiser Wealth Management covers what we think is something investors should consider about their international investments and give a way to hedge the currency risk in general.…
VIX ETNs
The VIX Index tracks the amount of defensive options being purchased on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE). This represents the amount of insurance investors are seeking to protect their portfolios against downside risk. As volitity and downside fear increases these indexes increase in value.…
Posted in Articles, ETFs & Indexing, Research & Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged defensive options, VIX index
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Insights From the Inside ETF Conference
Last Weekend I was able to attend the Inside ETF Conference in Boca Raton Florida put on by Index Publications, LLC. While we were there, Wiser Wealth Management’s president, Casey Smith was a moderator on a panel covering advisors using ETFs.…
EAFE’s 2008 Currency Risk
2008 was a year of realized risk among many asset classes. It followed a period of lower volatility in many asset classes like foreign markets. …
Posted in Currency & Gold, Wiser Blog
Tagged Currency Risk, EAFE, efa, etf, foreign developed market index, foreign developed markets, Money, realized risk
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Commodities ETF: The Tax Difference
Commodity ETFs and ETNs have come a long way in recent years allowing investors to gain exposure to many commodity indexes ranging from very broad to very narrow. …
Risk Based ETFs
So what do we do when we come to the conclusion that we can not effectively time the stock market and that constantly buying and selling stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds is not an effective strategy? …
Posted in ETFs & Indexing, Wiser Blog
Tagged AOA, AOK, AOM, AOR, etf, investing, passive index portfolios, Retirement Investing, Risk-Based ETFs, target risk ETFs
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Diversification, Cost, and the Long Term: Part 1 Diversification
The title of this series is what we here at Wiser Wealth Management keep in mind when investing. I wanted to explain this and show how these simple words can lead to great investment results.…
New iShares ETFs
The following is an article featured on Indexuniverse.com recent ally as part of my column, Efficient Investor.
IShares has just issued a dozen new unique ETFs which track the S&P Target Date Index Series and the Target Risk Index Series. Below is a breakdown of the two categories with the …
A Sense of Optimism in the Air
Jack Bogle, Founder of Vanguard and creator of the first S&P 500 index fund has lived through 10 bear markets. He talked to the Associated Press about his thoughts.…
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged Asset Allocation, Bull Market, etf, investing, Jack Bogle, Money, retirement
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Fees Increase as Your Assets Decrease
An article in a local paper here in Atlanta, ‘Investors likely to face higher mutual fund fees” by Eileen Ambrose in which Ambrose details what Jeff Tjornehoj, a senior research analyst at Lipper, Inc, estimates that the average equity mutual will increase its expense ratio by .10%.…
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged investing, Money, Mutual Fund Fees, Retirment
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3 ETF Capital Gains
I regretfully anounce that 3 ETFs all issued by SSgA will be giving their investors capital gains this year.…
Posted in Economic Commentary, Estate & Tax Planning, Wiser Blog
Tagged BIL, Capital Gains, ETF capital gains, LAG, mismanagement by SSgA, SSgA, XPH
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Market Timing This Market
Market Timing has been and will continue to be a difficult strategy (especially when its not your original strategy) and many have found this particularly true this year, whether it was going to cash the day before a huge market rally or deciding the market had hit the bottom and …
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged BGU, Direxion, ETF Investing, ETFs, ETNs, Market Timing, Money
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BehaviorGap.com
I really want to plug Carl and his website BehaviorGap.com for the message they have to investors. Please visit the site and learn more about what the ‘Behavior Gap’ is. Here it is in a nut-shell (if you’re a client of ours you will note that it is very similar to …
While I Was Gone: Target Funds
While I was out of town last week with my wife, several very interesting issues came into the ETF world; Target Date Funds.…
Uncovering The Uncorrelated Asset Class
2008 will be the first full year there has been ETFs tracking emerging market bond indexes. This is a very unique asset class.…
UCLA Study Claims That FDR Extended the Great Depression for 7 Years
This is a major claim. Read here to decide for yourself.…
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged FDR, The Great Depression, UCLA, UCLA FDR Study
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You Can’t Keep The Market’s Down
In our weekly email update to clients it was nice to report a weekly double digit gain rather than what felt like triple digit losses in the past.…
The Most Defensive Small Cap ETF
The small cap asset class has performed well over the last decade and has done relatively well during this current bear market. …
‘Everything works much better when wrong decisions are punished and good decisions make you rich.” -Anna Schwartz
Read this Wall Street Journal interview with Anna Schwartz, a 92 year-old economist who has some real, honest , and unbiased wisdom about the financial system. …
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged Advice, Analysis, Anna Schwartz, Banking system, financial crisis, Government Regulation, investing, Money
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A Good Explaination of the Market Sell Off
Pat Dorsey, Director of Equity research at Morningstar, Inc, gives a great overview of some of the things that are driving prices away from the fundamentals and gives some good data about past bear markets.
Video: What’s Behind the Relentless Selling…
Buffett Buying In
Warren Buffett, famous investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has been getting a lot of attention recently for his company’s large purchases in Financial Firms. He has also been very political during the election year. …
Stock Market Recoveries
One of my favorite pieces of stock market advice is by William Berstein,
Investing has and always been, and will remain, an operation in which wealth is transferred from those without a working knowledge of financial history to those who have one.
…
The Stock Market Fear Number
Since 1990, the CBOE has issued the volatility index, VIX. VIX is commonly called the ‘Fear Index’ because it tracks the amount of defensive options being bought at the CBOE. …
Is This Panic Sensible?
The title to this post should not make sense, ‘sensible panic’. That does not mean that panic can not be a self fullfilling panic, in which prices do not reflect true value and take years to recover (a secular bear market). Jason Zweig offers some good advice in his recent article…
Hedge Funds, Index Funds, and Buffet’s $1,000,000 Bet
Warren Buffet has bet with one million dollars going to charity that the S&P 500 will beat the top five hedge funds (picked by Protege, a hedge fund to fund) net of fees over a ten year period. …
Some Market Wisdom
This video with Mr. Jack Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and former CEO, highlights some wisdom from a man with a lot of experience and who started Vanguard, a company that has a long history of being on the side of the individual investor.
Video: Bogle: Keep Investing – Morningstar …
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged Advice, Bogle, Indexing, investing, stock market wisdom
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The Last 52 Weeks in Review
As we are nearly one year from the peak of the S&P 500 this October, I want to take a look at how Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) did compared to their mutual fund counterparts.…
Posted in ETFs & Indexing, Wiser Blog
Tagged ETFs v. Mutual Funds, Indexing, investing, Long term investing
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Mark-to-Market
Mark-to Market is an accounting rule where businesses must revalue or ‘mark’ a financial asset or liability to its current market price. …
Posted in Economic Commentary, Wiser Blog
Tagged bail-out, investing, level 3 assets definition, mark-to-market
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Market Panic Sell Off
Today’s panic sell off was based purely on emotions, not financial evaluations. …
Secular Bear Market?
Russ Koesterich, Barlay’s Chief Investment Strategist, said in a video that they posted on their ishares website (view video below) that he believes we are going through a secular bear market. …
What Happens to an ETF tracking a Lehman Brothers Index
As you may know an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) must track a registered index (you can read my post on ETFs and ETNs for more information). Many exchange traded funds follow a Lehman Brothers Index.…
Posted in ETFs & Indexing, Wiser Blog
Tagged Barclays, etf, ETF tracking a Lehman Brothers index, investing, lehman brother index
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This Week on Wall Street
So it has been a crazy week with a lot of selling, buying, and an emergency stop on short selling, affecting the way hedge funds trade.…
Capital-Gains Tax and The Election
Fact: Capital Gains lead to retirement and capital-gains taxes threaten your retirement income.…
What is Risk? Part 1
Risk of an investor’s portfolio can have several meanings. However, in highly diversified portfolios the only meaningful risk is the risk that an investor will have less money in their portfolios at the end of their planned time horizon.…
A Picture of a Loser’s Game
In the below video Jim Cramer gets upset about the mess of obvious insider trading that has occurred with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. …
ETFs v. ETNs: Part II, The ETN
ETNs (exchange traded notes) are only a couple years old but the idea has been around since the early 90s. They are “Structured Notes,” a debt vehicle, usually with time to maturity of over ten years, where the issuer promises to pay the return of a set investment determined by …
Some Wiser Advice
I wanted to highlight today some quotes from some very smart individuals that have weathered some tough market conditions and are now weathering or would be if alive the current market conditions. …
ETFs v. ETNs: Part 1: A focus on The ETF
Both ETFs (exchange traded funds) and ETNs (exchange traded notes have been making a lot of noise lately. Morningstar Inc. now tracks 89 ETNs with $7.3 billion in assets and 732 ETFs with $586 billion in assets. …
Why Currency Matters
As we know holding foreign assets, like foreign stock, benefits you when the US dollar back home is weak. In a recent observation made by the guys at IndexUniverse.com, they found that there is a huge difference between the returns made by foreign investor investing in their local markets and US investors …
Welcome to Wiser Wealth Management in Marietta, GA
Good Day,
This site is intended to feature the research and observations of Wiser Wealth Management, a Registered Investment Advisory Firm in Marietta, Georgia.
To preface all future postings, I would like to share and express our bias towards the investment strategy of indexing and building wealth through indexing. In the …
Active Management Comes To Emerging Market Bond ETFs
WisdomTree has introduced an addition to the ETF landscape with an active ETF in the emerging market bond category.
Emerging market bonds are a unique asset class with extraordinary characteristics which many ETF investors have made part of their portfolios for many reasons. Emerging market bonds have high absolute returns with low correlation to other markets and are high yielding vehicles. Continue reading →