I’ve been speaking at several ETF conferences this year, and was a bit surprised to see at one event most of the audience raising their hand as users of ETFs, but then most putting their hands down when asked if they traded ETFs listed on any exchanges in Asia. For easy reference, I wanted to […]
I’ve spoken and written extensively on real estate investment trusts (REITs), but just came across these two charts comparing the performance of US equity REITs vs mortgage REITs, and the long-term total return of US REITs vs physical real estate. Chart #1: Performance of equity REITs vs mortgage REITs Equity REITs own properties, and collect […]
About a month ago, Vanguard surprised clients and investment advisors (of which I am both) with the announcement that starting in August 2018 (today), Vanguard would offer free trading on almost 1,800 exchange traded funds (ETFs), all but a handful of which are those of Vanguard’s competitors. Although I have earlier argued that even paying […]
A fund factsheet is the “nutritional information” of the investment fund, summing up the objectives, holdings, fees, risks, and performance of a mutual fund you might choose to invest in. I rarely meet an investor that reads the entire offering document or prospectus of most stocks or funds they buy, and even the “executive summary” […]
I first started using ETFs in the early 2000s, when iShares was aggressively launching several new ETFs, and marketing the line of single-country ETFs they had launched back in 1996. The Spyder ETF “SPY” has already been around for almost a decade at that point, and sector SPDRs had already been around since 1998, but […]
529 college savings plans have no hard and fixed annual contribution limits, unlike IRA, HSA, 401(k), or many other US tax-deferred accounts. Rather, 529 plans are often subject to state-set overall contribution limit that you should not put in more than 4 years’ worth of expenses at the most expensive university you could spend the […]
As two of the world’s leading international low-cost online brokers, we have been very glad to be able to offer a choice to clients on whether they want to hold their GFM-managed accounts at Interactive Brokers (IBKR for short) or Saxo, so naturally we are often asked to compare the relative strengths, advantages, and costs of […]
After several years of rising US stock prices, I am often asked when the next crash, or at least next big correction, is coming. I believe it is foolish to try and time the market, but I do believe it makes sense to sell out of expensive assets and buy into better value assets (buy […]
How to buy real estate in an IRA It is actually relatively easy to buy real estate in an IRA. The main step required is to rollover your IRA balance from your old 401k plan or IRA custodian to a “self-directed IRA” with a custodian that focuses on the administration and compliance of self-directed IRAs. […]
One of the biggest complaints I hear about US Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) is that the maximum contribution limits are too low and not worth the hassle. As an illustration of how saving regularly in an IRA can be very much worth the hassle, I thought it would be worth showing how the low maximum […]