The financial media has become agitated by a well-known trader claiming that exchange-traded funds are in a bubble that will cause a crash similar to the global financial crisis. Other experts say that’s not at all true, and cite a MarketWatch column by Brian Livingston as part of their evidence. See Newsletter #20.
Four seminars on “How to Make Your Portfolio Muscular” will be held in Silicon Valley on Sept. 14 and 15, 2019, and in Philadelphia on Sept. 28 and 29, 2019. Both the West Coast and the East Coast teach-ins will feature a short, intensive seminar on the first day and an in-depth, full-day seminar starting the following morning in the same city. For more information, see Newsletter Update #19a, our San Jose page, or our Philly page.
It’s been a horrible few months for the S&P 500, with gut-wrenching lurches down. But Muscular Portfolios actually went up during the same period. With a simple set of rules, your strategy automatically adapts to market conditions, requiring only a few minutes of your attention per month. See Newsletter #19.
Most free market-data sites delay their ETF price data by 20 minutes or more. Now, the data for the Muscular Portfolios ranking pages is far more timely but is still provided to you absolutely free of charge. And you continue to get a handy “flash crash” warning indicator. See Newsletter #18.
The S&P 500 hit an all-time record of 2,945.83 on Apr. 30, 2019. Now the question is whether the market can push to new highs or the record-breaking day was actually the end of the 10-year bull market. Muscular Portfolios automatically tilt toward the three asset classes with the best odds of success, which doesn’t currently include the S&P 500. See Newsletter #17.
The original developer of one of the investing strategies in “Muscular Portfolios” has decided to tweak one of the inputs to his formula. Should this change also be made in the Mama Bear Portfolio? This question gives us an excellent way to confirm how strategies should be tested and implemented. Your comments are welcomed. See Newsletter #16.
About 70% of US companies automatically enroll employees into 401(k)-type plans. More than 86% of these firms now direct people’s money by default into “target-date funds.” Now that they’ve taken over, the products expose investors to far too much risk of crashing, experts have found. A simpler formula, with much lower costs, produces greater returns with less risk. See Newsletter #15.
Traders have tried for centuries to find a formula that will predict the direction of the market. The truth is that there are too many unknowns to reliably determine what any free market will do in the next one year. Despite that, it’s surprisingly easy to predict where the S&P 500 will be in the long term. See Newsletter #14.
A new study reveals that the smallest stocks in the market can cost you as much as 8% when you buy and sell shares. That percentage is called the “bid-ask spread.” In the first of a new series of columns for MarketWatch.com, we show you how to avoid getting a haircut when you trade. See the details on small stock spreads at MarketWatch.
There are 13.6 million tax-free college savings accounts in the US, and millions more in other countries — but most of the program administrators produce mediocre results. Fortunately, there are a few easy ways parents can get great gains out of a 529-type plan, with no fear of market crashes. See Newsletter #13.