Showing posts with label Mutual Funds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mutual Funds. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2011

None of Your Mutual Money Are Creating Money

U.S. stock mutual money that invest in a diverse array of companies turned in a shameful performance last quarter, as none -- that's right, none -- made funds.

Among funds that purchase mostly U.S. stocks as well as use no leverage or perhaps brief positions, only 3 sector-specific funds eked out gains from the beginning of July to the end of September, according to fund-research firm Morningstar: Icon Telecommunications & Utilities(ICTUX), up 1.9%; Franklin Utilities(FKUTX), up 1.7%; and Invesco Utilities Investor(FSTUX), up 0.3%.

The stock-market rout gathered steam last month on concern the U.S. economy is slipping into an additional recession as well as Europe's debt burden will sink more banks and cause a further decline in global corporate profits. In September, materials stocks fell the most, by 13%, followed by energy, with a 10% drop, as well as financial services, which tumbled 8.3%, according to Capital IQ. Utilities shares have been the sole sector to rise, by 1%.

The utility stocks that make up the winning money last quarter have historically been categorized as the turtles of equity investing, due to their slow, albeit steady, share-price returns.

But now they're seen as attractive investments for those seeking dividends and the preservation of funds in volatile markets.

Here's a snapshot of the five companies that have been the top gainers in the utility sector in the third quarter:
Progress Energy(PGN), 1 of the nation's biggest regulated utilities, is up 20% this year, including 8% in the 3rd quarter. It has a projected dividend yield of 4.75%.

Progress Energy is a holding company with a market value of $15 billion that offers electricity generation, transmission, as well as distribution throughout the Southeast, principally in North Carolina, South Carolina as well as Florida.

Progress as well as Duke Energy(DUK) have announced plans to merge in a $14 billion deal that will create the biggest electrical power utility in the U.S. They aim to close the deal by year-end.

The Duke merger, which faces several regulatory hurdles before it gets approved, would give Progress' shareholders an immediate premium to the pre-deal stock price as well as a 3% dividend increase. But the company has agreed to make $650 million in rate concessions to its customers through 2016.

Analysts are unanimous on their view of the stock, giving it 15 "hold" reviews, according to TheStreet Reviews.


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Thursday, November 24, 2011

Extreme Selling Punishes Mutual Money as Investors Purchase ETFs

Investors are pulling money from U.S. equity mutual funds as fast as they can as the stock-market decline accelerates. They're buying government bonds, boosting savings as well as, amazingly, moving into exchange traded money.

"Extreme selling" by individual investors has caused $94.7 billion in redemptions from U.S. stock mutual funds in the four months through September, investment-research fast TrimTabs said. For all of 2008, which hosted the financial meltdown, economic recession as well as stock-market crash, outflows totaled $162 billion.

The wholesale dumping of U.S. equity mutual money underscores investors' aversion to the stock market's wild volatility. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has had intraday swings of more than 300 points in 20 trading sessions since Aug. 1. A latest survey by Natixis International Asset Management found 47% of U.S. investors are worried about losing revenue due to volatility.

The selling isn't contained to U.S. stock funds. Investors additionally pulled $9 billion from global funds from the begin of June till the end of August, which TrimTabs researchers say is the heaviest bleeding in 2 1/2 years. Less than two weeks into this month, October's outflows from global funds total $1.3 billion already.

"Mother and pop are extremely disgusted with international stocks," with "performance probably partly to blame," TrimTabs researchers write in their report released late Wednesday. International money have slumped 15.4% this year, over the 9.6% drop of the average domestic fund.

Morningstar analysts report similar findings, saying September had $6.9 billion flowing out of U.S. stock mutual funds.

So where's the income going? Morningstar notes that $90 billion has flowed into long-term mutual funds this year as $160 billion has flowed from money market funds. That leaves $70 billion unaccounted for, as well as builds on a difference of $216 billion from all of 2010.

"With cash continuing to flow out of income market money, a small proportion flowing into long-term mutual funds, and bank-deposit growth slowing, it's possible that investors are now utilizing money that utilized to go into savings for consumption," Morningstar Editorial Director Kevin McDevitt writes in today's research note.

TrimTabs analysts have a different take. They claim that investors are dumping actively managed mutual funds for ETFs, that are easier to trade as well as offer better tax advantages. As currently constructed, ETFs are subject just to capital-gains taxes when they're sold. Mutual funds, on the other hand, get hit with capital-gains taxes when assets in the fund are sold.


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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Mutual Fund Or ETF?

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were once described as the new kids on the investment block, but today they are giving traditional mutual funds a run for their money. Both ETFs and mutual funds are viable choices for investors. But, with many mutual funds and ETFs available on the market, it's important for investors to familiarize themselves with the differences between products to ensure they are making appropriate investment decisions. While mutual funds and ETFs share similar traits, there are differences between the two that investors must consider when deciding which to use. Read on to find out more.


Legal Structure of Funds
Both mutual funds and ETFs can vary in terms of their legal structure. Mutual funds can typically be broken down into two types.
Open-Ended Funds  These funds dominate the mutual fund marketplace in terms of volume and assets under management. With open-ended funds, purchases and sales of fund shares take place directly between investors and the fund company. There's no limit to the number of shares the fund can issue; as more investors buy into the fund, more shares are issued. Federal regulations require a daily valuation process, called marking to market, which subsequently adjusts the fund's per-share price to reflect changes in portfolio (asset) value. The value of the individual's shares is not affected by the number of shares outstanding. 
Closed-End Funds These funds issue only a specific number of shares and do not issue new shares as investor demand grows. Prices are not determined by the net asset value (NAV) of the fund, but are driven by investor demand. Purchases of shares are often made at a premium or discount to NAV.


Legal Structure of ETFs
An ETF will have one of three structures:  Exchange-Traded Open-End Index Mutual Fund
This fund is registered under the SEC's Investment Company Act of 1940, whereby dividends are reinvested on the day of receipt and paid to shareholders in cash every quarter. Securities lending is allowed and derivatives may be used in the fund.

Exchange-Traded Unit Investment Trust (UIT) Exchange-traded UITs are also governed by the Investment Company Act of 1940, but must attempt to fully replicate their specific indexes, limit investments in a single issue to 25% or less, and set additional weighting limits for diversified and non-diversified funds. UITs do not automatically reinvest dividends, but pay cash dividends quarterly. Some examples of this structure include the QQQQ and Dow DIAMONDS (DIA). 

Exchange-Traded Grantor Trust  This type of ETF bears a strong resemblance to a closed-ended fund but, unlike ETFs and closed-end mutual funds, an investor owns the underlying shares in the companies that the ETF is invested in, including the voting rights associated with being a shareholder. The composition of the fund does not change; dividends are not reinvested but instead are paid directly to shareholders. Investors must trade in 100-share lots. Holding company depository receipts (HOLDRs) are one example of this type of ETF. 


Trading Process
ETFs offer greater flexibility than mutual funds when it comes to trading. Purchases and sales take place directly between investors and the fund. The price of the fund is not determined until end of business day, when net asset value (NAV) is determined. An ETF, by comparison, is created or redeemed in large lots by institutional investors and the shares trade throughout the day between investors like a stock.

Like a stock, ETFs can be sold short. Those provisions are important to traders and speculators, but of little interest to long-term investors. But, because ETFs are priced continuously by the market, there is the potential for trading to take place at a price other than the true NAV, which may introduce the opportunity for arbitrage.


Expenses
Due to the passive nature of indexed strategies, the internal expenses of most ETFs are considerably lower than those of many mutual funds. Of the more than 900 available ETFs listed on Morningstar in 2010, those with the lowest expense ratios charged about .10%, while those with the highest expenses ran about 1.25%. By comparison, the lowest fund fees range from .01% to more than 10% per year for other funds.

Another expense that should be considered is the product acquisition costs, if any. Mutual funds can often be purchased at NAV, or stripped of any loads, but many (they are often sold by an intermediary) have commissions and loads associated with them, some of which run as high as 8.5%. ETF purchases are free of broker loads.

In both cases, additional transaction fees are usually assessed, but pricing will largely depend on the size of your account, the size of the purchase and the pricing schedule associated with each brokerage firm. Clients of advisors who hold institutional accounts for their clients tend to benefit from lower trading costs, often as low as $9.95 per ETF purchase or $20 for mutual funds. Additional cost considerations should be given if you plan to use dollar-cost averaging to buy into the funds or ETFs, because frequent trading of ETFs could significantly increase commissions, offsetting the benefits resulting from lower fees.


Tax Advantages and Disadvantages
ETFs offer tax advantages to investors. As passively managed portfolios, ETFs (and index funds) tend to realize fewer capital gains than actively managed mutual funds. ETFs are more tax efficient than mutual funds because of the way they are created and redeemed. For example, suppose that an investor redeems $50,000 from a traditional Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) fund. To pay that to the investor, the fund must sell $50,000 worth of stock. If appreciated stocks are sold to free up the cash for the investor, then the fund captures that capital gain, which is distributed to shareholders before year-end. As a result, shareholders pay the taxes for the turnover within the fund. If an ETF shareholder wishes to redeem $50,000, the ETF doesn't sell any stock in the portfolio. Instead it offers shareholders "in-kind redemptions", which limit the possibility of paying capital gains.


Liquidity
Liquidity is usually measured by the daily trade volume, which is generally expressed as the number of shares traded per day. Thinly traded securities are illiquid and have higher spreads and volatility. When there is little interest and low trading volumes, the spread increases, causing the buyer to pay a price premium and forcing the seller into a price discount in order to get the security sold. ETFs, for the most part, are immune to this. ETF liquidity is not related to its daily trading volume, but rather to the liquidity of the stocks included in the index.

Broad-based index ETFs with significant assets and trading volume have liquidity. For narrow ETF categories, or even country-specific products that have relatively small amounts of assets and are thinly traded, ETF liquidity could dry up in severe market conditions, so you may wish to steer clear of ETFs that track thinly traded markets or have very few underlying securities or small market caps in the respective index.


ETF Survivability
A consideration before investing in ETFs is the potential that fund companies will go bust. As more product providers enter the marketplace, the financial health and longevity of the sponsor companies will play a greater role. Investors should not invest in ETFs of a company that is likely to disappear, thereby forcing an unplanned liquidation of the funds. The results for investors who hold such funds in their taxable accounts could be an unwelcome taxable event. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to gauge the financial viability of a startup ETF company, as many are privately held. As such, you should limit your ETF investments to firmly established providers or market dominators to play it safe.


The Bottom Line
As products are rolled out, investors tend to benefit from increased choices and better variations of product and price competition among providers. It's important to note the differences between ETFs and mutual funds, and how those differences may impact your bottom line and investment processes.


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Sunday, April 10, 2011

5 Tips to Help You Succeed With Mutual Funds

A particular mutual fund investment’s failure or success does not depend on their previous or present performance. It may be very attractive to buy funds when they are doing well in the market; however you being the new investor it is not advisable to buy funds depending on their past performance. The reason behind this advice is because you as an investor would want to buy mutual funds when the rates are low and sell them at the maximum price as much as you can.

Funds that are currently established have limited number of stocks in the market. This makes easy to analyze which stock is doing well and which one is not doing well. The stock that is doing well puts a huge effect because of their size being small and it is easy to evaluate this smaller stocks. It is very hard to remain at the same or top position as far as the stock market is concerned, that is the reason why we feel the effect to be less when the stock market is growing.

If you want maximum benefits from your mutual fund investment then you need to follow religiously the expanses and the tax charges that are applicable on these mutual funds. Some fund’s fees would cost you more than the other ones; in this case you should be able to negotiate the price in the market or with the stock broker in order to get good returns as an investor. In the long run if your fees or taxes are increased even by smaller percentage then it could be that your hard earned returns is being enjoyed by someone else. Being an investor it is very important to learn how the government taxes are applicable on your mutual fund investment. So the best ways to know about all this taxation is by reading prospectus that are available at the firm offices.

To buy bonds securities and stocks, a mutual fund manager always finds different ways to pull information from different small investors. This means that your investment is being analyzed by different buyers and you need not make any more investment on that particular mutual fund. Well if you are planning to buy different type of stocks that are available in the market then the investment might be required. However if you have sufficient funds then you could even go for international funds, which would give you more returns than the domestic funds.

There is an element of risk taken by the fund managers in order to get healthy returns. At times you may not agree with fund manager’s risk taken on the investment since you may not be thinking as he is doing. As far as we know, all mutual fund investment bears a minimum risk which is important to acknowledge.

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Friday, February 4, 2011

Be Careful When Investing Offshore

The expenditure of accomplishing business globally, different time zones and a variety of currencies once made it tough for offshore scammers to ripp off people throughout the united states nonetheless the Web and the capacity to easily move money around with on-line banking wire transfers, paypal and western union online has opened the doors for those thief’s to effortlessly hoax individuals out of their money.

Online ripoffs can take on many diverse types but a greater part of them include “Regulation S.” This is a law that exempts US companies from enrolling securities with the SEC which are sold entirely outside the US to international investors. Scammers manipulate this kind of offering by reselling Regulation S stock to US investors in violation of the guideline.

In ‘09, Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was charged with perpetrating an $8 billion investment sham. Mr. Stanford, as the Los Angeles Times reported “cast himself as offshore investment guru to the transatlantic jet set and benefactor to the Caribbean islands’ poor through multimillion-dollar promotions of their beloved sport of cricket.” He was busted by the Fbi four months later.

Extraordinary internet sites, magnificent brochures, as well as “educational” classes are some techniques applied to convince victims to place money in disreputable or non-existent agencies within international countries. The carrot is normally in the form of high, tax-free results with no hazard. Victims don’t succeed to contemplate that if they take a complete loss of their investment, they do so without the safeguard of US regulation given that law- enforcement agencies cannot investigate easily outside the united states.

Advanced scams make use of complicated terminology such as “bank debentures” or “standby letters of credit,” complicated-sounding aspects such as “offshore fund leasing,” and inexplicable instruments just like “interbank trading” and also “seasoned notes.” Tutorials are generally held in fascinating areas and cost thousands of dollars to enroll in; promoters promote “connections” and a warranty of “no taxes” on your investment.

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