The latest

  • A new way to pick winning portfolios

    A free service provides an alternative way to find out which ETFs are statistically the most likely to gain in the coming months. And did someone mention winning? From Jan. 3 to Mar. 10, 2022, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were suddenly way down: –11% and –17%, respectively. But Muscular Portfolios gave investors gains of +0.92% and +3.44% in the same time period when the indexes were collapsing. How do they work this? See Newsletter #43.

  • Lazy Portfolios = lousy performance

    Fifteen years of tracking by two respected data-analysis authorities show that Lazy Portfolios perform poorly. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2007, the S&P 500 turned $100 into $449 by the end of 2021. Muscular Portfolios generated significantly better ending values: $486 to $523. Lazy Portfolios badly lagged, growing your $100 nest egg to just $193 to $323 in 15 years. See Newsletter #42.

  • ‘Environmental’ ETFs: it’s hard to be green

    Exchange-traded funds that claim to buy only shares of companies with good environmental, social, or governance policies — so-called ESG funds — are attracting more and more dollars each year. But experts say ESG products are primarily a way for sponsors to lure in unsuspecting investors and charge them outrageous fees without actually improving environmental, social, or governance practices. See Newsletter #41.

  • PDBC pays 26% dividend — a problem?

    Some investors who follow Muscular Portfolios were surprised on Dec. 3 when PDBC, an ETF that tracks commodities, recorded a dividend of $5.39 a share — a yield of more than 26%. The truth is that PDBC gained over 90% in the 18 months since the “coronavirus” bear market ended in spring 2020. The big distribution is a sign of excellent performance and, fortunately, was nothing to worry about. See Newsletter #40.

  • Hedge funds badly underperform

    Independent tracking reveals that, on the whole, top hedge funds far underperform simple financial-technology formulas in which low-cost exchange-traded funds are used, as well as vastly lagging the mainstream S&P 500. You can do better. See Newsletter #39.

  • Other assets far outdo the market

    Investors who hold solely US large-cap stocks are missing out on gains. The S&P 500 was the best-performing asset class in only about 1% of all months in the past 15 years, according to a new study. In about 99% of all months, some other asset class — commodities, real estate, even bonds — gained more than the S&P 500. See Newsletter #38.

  • Papa Bear trounces the S&P 500

    The Papa Bear Portfolio has passed the toughest possible test, outperforming the S&P 500 by 46.7% to 39.7% in the latest 18 months, even during the shortest and sharpest bear market in history — as well as the swiftest recovery from a bear-market low in decades. See Newsletter #37.

  • Crypto staking: high yield or high risk of loss?

    There’s a new money-making system called crypto staking. You purchase digital tokens, which might come with a requirement to hold them for months or years. In exchange, you receive a promise of rates of return that may seem unbelievable. See Newsletter #36.

  • Free performance stats — now daily!

    An independent website posts each Muscular Portfolio’s results using the prices of actual ETFs going back to Jan. 1, 2007. Even better, the current month’s data is now updated every day after the market closes with the percentage gain of each individual ETF. See Newsletter #35.

  • $69m NFT buyer & seller were partners

    The international auction house Christie’s made headlines on Mar. 11 when it announced that a buyer had bid $69 million for a digital “token” linked to an artist’s JPEG image. Unknown to most people, the high bidder had publicly sold millions of “shares” representing fractions of some of the artist’s other works. See Newsletter #34.