Monthly Archives: March 2012

ALL SEASON INVESTING WEEKLY 04-01-2012

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

Top Stories Last Week Global equity markets netted one of their biggest first-quarter rise in a decade Global equity markets finished one of the best quarters in a decade. S&P 500 index rallied by 12.7%, while MSCI EAFE and Emerging … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Review | 1,676 Comments

ALL SEASON INVESTING WEEKLY 03-25-2012

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

Top Stories Last Week Equity markets were down Global equity markets closed the week down as Chinese economy showed signs of slowdown, and disappointed European manufacturing activities and mixed US housing data captured the headline.  The S&P 500 Index was … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Review | 972 Comments

Housing Starts and Building Permits – Further Signs That US Housing Market Is Stabilizing

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

Housing starts in the U.S. in February hovered near a three-year high and building permits rose, signalling that the industry at the heart of the financial crisis in 2008 is stabilizing. Home builders started 698,000 homes at an annual rate, in line with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Investment Strategy | 2,589 Comments

ALL SEASON INVESTING WEEKLY 03-18-2012

Posted on March 17, 2012 by

Top Stories Last Week Federal Reserve Will Keep Interest Rates Close to Zero Until 2014 In Tuesday’s FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve acknowledged economic conditions continue to improve, while noting that rising oil prices will feed higher inflation. Once again, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Review | 2,680 Comments

ALL SEASON INVESTING WEEKLY 03-11-2012

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

Top Stories Last Week  Greek Bond Swaps Greece carried out the biggest debt restructuring in history, which was worth 172 billion euros. Over 80% of its private lenders have agreed to accept new bonds with a 53.5% haircut in face … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Review | 2,573 Comments

Portfolios and Their Performances 02-2012

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

In February 2012, Our dynamic models for Aggressive, Moderate, Conservative and Defensive portfolios gained 3.1%, 2.5%, 1.8% and 1.0%, respectively, in line with their respective benchmarks. The outperformances in VWO and GSG are offset by loss in GLD  (See Table 1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Review | 2,311 Comments

MIT Prof. Andrew Lo: Buy-and-hold doesn’t work anymore

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

Dr. Andrew Lo, a renowned finance professor at MIT Sloan School,  was interviewed by Charles Wallace at Money Magazine on March 2, 2012. The conversation was thought-provoking. I am quoting part of the interview here.  Prof. Lo’s views provided supports to our … Continue reading →

Posted in Investment Strategy | 3,422 Comments

ALL SEASON INVESTING WEEKLY 03-03-2012

Posted on March 3, 2012 by

Top Stories Last Week ECB Longer-term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) European Central Bank on February 29th dished out 529.5 billion Euros in three-year loans to banks. The second LTRO attracted more demand than the first implementation in December. Although the LTRO … Continue reading →

Posted in Investment Strategy | 2,380 Comments

Using Fidelity and Vanguard Commission-Free ETFs for Implementation

Posted on March 3, 2012 by

With a Fidelity account, investors can trade  30 iShare ETFs on-line commission-free.  With a Vanguard account, you can trade all the Vanguard-sponsored ETFs without paying commissions. To see the list of commssion-free ETFs, please visit: http://etfdb.com/type/commission-free/fidelity/ http://etfdb.com/type/commission-free/vanguard/ To save transaction costs, we … Continue reading →

Posted in Investment Strategy | 1,533 Comments