Fixed Income Fixed

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/a-radical-rethink-of-bonds/article14446547/ 

How to play commodities (and not get trampled) - The Globe and Mail

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

Maybe it's just the clear air here in Cottage Country, but this Saturday Globe and Mail piece on the various ways to invest/trade commodities, I give high credence to.  Contango, for example is explained, and its effect on return within an ETF.  And since it's a Canadian newspaper I give high credence to mining discussion.  Here's a snip and the link for the full article.


How to play commodities (and not get trampled) - The Globe and Mail: "The creation of commodity-based exchange-traded funds made it a lot easier for the individual investor. But pitfalls exist there, as well, because of a futures-market phenomenon known as “contango,” when the price of a futures contract exceeds the spot price of a commodity."

Cramer -- I Will Return Again and Again

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

I will return again and again to this Cramer of a few days ago. Speak to your legislator. Save us.

Mad Money: A Moratorium on New Financial Products? - CNBC: "First we have double- and triple-leveraged exchange-traded funds, which hedge funds and other institutional investors used to pummel the banks during the financial crisis, nearly bringing down the entire system. And just last week a new group of ETFs, which will mimic hedge-fund investing strategies, hit the market. They are so potentially dangerous that legendary investor and Vanguard founder John Bolge said it was “insanity” that they even existed."

Mad Money: A Moratorium on New Financial Products? - CNBC

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

This is the best of all Cramer. Last night. Click on and listen. The written summary sanitizes his slap at the laissez faire Bush Administration as being the cause of the SEC's woeful performance in allowing this crap. (He appeared to me to be a fellow-supporter of deregulation and the Bush Administration, but I could be wrong.)

Needless to say he's spot-on.


Mad Money: A Moratorium on New Financial Products? - CNBC: "A Moratorium on New Financial Products?
Published: Thursday, 3 Jun 2010 9:25 PM ET Text Size By: Tom Brennan
Web Editor, Mad Money

Wall Street right now looks a lot like World War I.
Just as the “high-tech” weaponry of that era vastly outpaced people’s ability to handle it, Cramer said Thursday, we are virtually powerless against the damage caused by today’s financial products."

ETFs and the Flash Crash - CBS MoneyWatch.com

ETFs and the Flash Crash - CBS MoneyWatch.com: "Ironically, the allure of ETFs has always been their liquidity. (Indeed, the fact that investors can buy and sell them throughout the day is really the only point of differentiation between an ETF and a traditional index mutual fund.) But that liquidity ended up costing quite a few investors dearly. IndexUniverse.com for example, noted that hundreds of trades of the Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF were made at prices between $10 and $30 per share, far below its $41.25 closing price. (Quite obviously, half of the people involved in those trades were very pleased. The other half paid dearly for the market’s glitch.)"

Seeking Alpha -- Commodities ETF's

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel

Pretty good this morning:



http://seekingalpha.com/article/168245-commodity-etfs-are-heating-up-which-one-is-right-for-you

EnCana Will Not Develop Promising Natural Gas Field Because of Glut

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Hot topic: Dividends
Globe Investor Magazine
Stock picks for $1,000 gold
Company won't develop third-largest field until demand recovers and that will take a major market shift
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Shawn McCarthy
Ottawa — Globe and Mail Update Last updated on Thursday, Sep. 10, 2009 03:33AM EDT
EnCana Corp. (ECA-T57.840.861.51%) is touting the Horn River shale deposits in British Columbia as the continent's third-largest natural gas field, but needs a fundamental market shift to make it commercially attractive.
EnCana's dilemma is reflected across North America – natural gas companies are bullish on new sources of shale gas, but that very prospect of new production is driving down prices to the point where development is uneconomic.
With North America's glut of gas showing no signs of abating, producers need a structural change in the energy markets – with more demand from new natural-gas-fired power plants and the broad adoption of natural gas vehicles – to boost the long-term demand for their fuel.
Even with depressed prices, the national gas industry likely faces a long wait for demand to rebound to its pre-recession level, let alone grow significantly beyond that. And so producers are faced with the unhappy prospect of being forced to slash production in order to prop up prices.
At an investment conference in New York Wednesday, EnCana executive vice-president Mike Graham said drilling results in the remote northeastern corner of the province suggest the Horn River basin could hold as much as 500 trillion cubic feet of gas in place.
Further confirmation of the Horn River potential is a boon for B.C., which stands to reap economic benefits from further development and eventual production from the basin.
But at current gas prices, Calgary-based EnCana – North America's largest gas producer – would be unlikely to develop its Horn River properties. The company says Horn River needs prices of at least $6 for 1,000 cubic feet to be commercial. On the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday, natural gas for delivery in October closed at $2.84 (U.S.) per mcf.
EnCana expects the market to eventually recover to the point where it can tap the high-cost Horn River field, which requires expensive pipelines to get the gas to market.
“You have this great success in bringing on more supply [across North America] and that came to the fore just as the economy turns and so demand dropped off,” EnCana spokesman Alan Boras said.
“Over time, we would anticipate that prices will recover … to a level where we believe we can bring on these new supplies.”
One sign of the glut: Storage facilities in the United States are virtually full. Analysts warn that, without dramatic production cuts this fall, gas prices will plunge even further once producers can no longer inject gas into storage.
Typically, a bust in the natural gas market would carry the seeds of its own recovery: Low prices force companies to slash drilling and shut in production, but also encourage consumers to use more gas.
That rebalancing could take years, especially if North America experiences another relatively mild winter.
“We will probably have a situation where – for the next five or six years – we will have abundant supplies of natural gas,” said Mary Novak, energy economist with IHS Global Insight Inc.
However, conventional production in both the U.S. and Canada is expected to decline rapidly in the coming years, due to low prices and the maturing gas fields. So, eventually, the market will tighten again.
“It's not like we're going to be awash in natural gas for the next 30 years.”
In a forecast released Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. gas production – which climbed sharply in 2008 – rose another 0.9 per cent in 2009 but should fall by 3.5 per cent next year as a result of a 45-per-cent drop in drill rig activity since the start of the year.
In Canada, companies have begun shutting in wells as prices have fallen below levels where production is profitable, says Martin King, an analyst with First Energy Capital in Calgary.
He estimates that as much as one billion cubic feet per day of Canadian production will be taken off the market this fall, and those cuts should be enough to stem the price slide.
On the demand side, the IEA forecast that U.S. natural gas consumption will decline by 2.4 per cent this year and remain flat next year.
One bright spot: While power generation was off 4.5 per cent for the first half of the year, natural gas consumption in the power sector actually grew by 3 per cent.
However, demand in the U.S. power sector should actually decline over the next few years as new coal-fired plants come on stream, said Amber McCullagh, a Houston-based gas market analyst with Wood Mackenzie.
While some fuel switching occurred in the power sector, residential, commercial and industrial consumers are less able to respond to low gas prices, and the industry expects little growth from those markets beyond a normal rebound from recession.
One key unknown: To what degree will government policy encourage power utilities and transportation networks to use natural gas as a low-carbon fuel?
The industry in both Canada and the U.S. insists that natural gas is an attractive alternative to coal in the power sector and to oil in transportation.
But governments so far have focused their attention on renewables and conservation, and on electric cars and gasoline-electric hybrids.
“We think of natural gas as part of the low-carbon solution and not an impediment,” said Chris McGill, managing director of policy analysts, for the American Gas Association in Washington.
“We're not waiting for any huge technological advance or draconian measure … and we believe we can meet market requirements with a domestic, secure, North American supply, to be sure.”

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Paul Bowler

9/10/2009 6:17:07 AM
There is a math problem in the report! I have just checked the NYMEX MG contract - the price quoted (currently $2.89)is for 10000 million BTU, which is approximately 10 million cubic feet (10 mcf) of NG. So, if the NYMEX price is $2.89 per 10mcf, what chance does Encana have of getting $6 per 1000 cubic feet (20,000 times the NYMEX price!) to make the operations viable? Bring back sub-editors!

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westslope

9/10/2009 2:13:59 AM
Nothing wrong with leaving it in the ground.Get-rich-quick usually means leaving a few dollars in the ground.

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scotsdoc

9/9/2009 11:46:12 PM
I see we still have atomic power advocates around.....60 years ago I was one, in my innocence.....and even handled a bar of uranium metal.....rather like bronze and very heavy..........Atomic power was sold back then on the prospect of UNLIMITED CHEAP ELECTRICITY that would be delivered 'FREE' and unmetered like water..........Who would not fall for that prospect at the age of 17?Of course as we see now, (1) Atomic power did not live up to it's promise(2) It was unreliable, and seldom produced to specification (3) construction cost over runs were the norm. (4) Human error lead to near catastrophic episodes in the USA and USSR(5)no super annuated reactor site anywhere has been returned to green field status(regardless of expense) and finally (6) there is as yet no secure safe repository for radioactive waste.CANADA SHOULD FORGET ATOMIC ENERGY....LET OTHER COUNTRIES TAKE THE RISKS!Natural gas is an excellent fuel but also a feedstock for synthetic gasoline using the SASSOL technology and a feedstock for methanol the building block of many organic compounds.Canada is blessed with a super-abundance of gas(for which I am happy, being a shareholder of Encana) and this will support our Canadian economy for many years ahead..........The low prices today will certainly not impede demand from Industry or Home Owners who use it for heating.

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Counterinte​l

9/9/2009 11:06:16 PM
Is this peak gas yet ........LMAO .....

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Dick Garneau

9/9/2009 9:48:27 PM
Fusion is the future not fission. We need more research into this future fuel.Alberta and California is involved in research but not enough.

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EnCana Corp. (ECA-T)

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UNG -- Story When This ETF Was Launched

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel

Ok, since it's a hot topic, here's the symbol for the main etf involving natural gas.


http://seekingalpha.com/article/32721-natural-gas-etf-launches-a-natural-gas-primer

Commodity Related ETF's and the New CFTC Rules

(c)2009 F. Bruce Abel

From Seeking Alpha today:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/158048-new-cftc-rules-may-be-a-boon-to-commodity-related-stocks-and-etfs?source=article_sb_picks

Consuelo Mack -- Must Read

My "transcript" from listening on line to yesterday's show:

Sunday, July 19, 2009
Consuelo Mack from Yesterday

Prior Interviews of Peter Bernstein
Died this summer. June. Age of 90.

Recognized expert on risk.

Against the Gods
Weighing of the Waters

2005 interview

Pascal’s Wager, 1654
French mathematician; compulsive gambler
He invented probability
Very religious man; a nut
Life of sin
Then Retired to a monastery

Is there a God? Can’t reason this.
If I believe in God and lead a virtuous life

I can decide how to lead my life. If I lead a bad life of sin and lust, and there is a God, I’m in bad trouble.

Very often you have to forget the probabilities because the consequences are so serious.

Doesn’t always mean you make the cautious decision. Woman…in airplane crash.$100,000 settlement. All she had in the world. Young, in her 20’s. We would put ½ in bonds, with the other ½ we would shoot the moon. She didn’t have enough anyway and if she lost it she was a goner anyhow.

Late 1970’s when bonds were yielding 15-16%. Inflation also 15-16%
Take a big position in bonds. (Early ‘80’s).

2005 interview (continued)

In a low-return environment…

Believe in diversification.

US is worked over as an investment opportunity.

You should not be “comfortable” with everything you own.
Go overseas.

Disagrees with mantra re US stocks.

No more than ½ in assets in US at most if I were starting fresh.

Etfs -- Will offer a whole big piece.

Ishares, msci
All the world stocks except the us.

Similarly bonds outside the US. Similarly Gold.

2005 interview (continued)
Dividends matter.

Still matter. Cash in your pocket. You know what it is.
Tax rate is same as on capital gains now. Payouts are so low. Dividends will increase faster than earnings.

Optimist…problems do get solved.

A lot of youth in this country.

Vitality you get in the equity markets. Outside the us. I’m a big believer in funds. If people manage that money themselves I know they would have done worse.


2007 interview

Wrote book: “Capital Ideas”

Academics. Most never owned a share in their lives. Risk.
Methods to try to maximize the trade-off between risk and return. Overwhelming importance of diversification. Reduces your risk.

How much risk do I want to take? Really think that question through.

Can I live with volatility.

The efficient markets hypothesis. Mark Hulbert. A five or 10-year
track record means a lot more than…

Own index funds too.

Cost of doing it. Management fee. Jack Bogel.

I won no actively-managed mutual funds. Only index funds. A lot in index funds.

Decisions that human beings are making now that repr opportunity or risk.

Risk is the centerpiece. We can’t manage returns; we can manage our risk.

How much can I stand the heat of the oven.

Harry Markowitz. “But I have to think about risk as well as return.”

Yale: if everything goes wrong, what will the effect be on Yale, etc.

Individuals should do the same.

Once you have it made it’s silly to take more risk. Risk means you might lose.


2007 interview (continued)

…shoot the moon.

International, commodities.

Thing that worries me the most is the dollar. Foreigners will say “enough is enough.”

Very easy to move out of the currency to somewhere else.

Odds are small but the consequences are enormous.

Own securities denom in other currencies. Short term treasuries. Gold. Very expensive to own but a little goes a long way.

Globe & Mail -- I Now Subscribe

NEWS FROM Globeandmail.com
Too many ETFs, too little time
ROB CARRICK
10:56 EDT Saturday, Jul 18, 2009

Every day it gets harder for investors to put together a simple, sensible portfolio of exchange-traded funds.
Literally.
There were 180 new ETF products introduced globally in the first half of 2009, virtually one a day. Some 1,707 ETFs are listed on exchanges around the world, almost 900 of them easily available to Canadian investors on either the TSX or U.S. exchanges. Wondering how to find a few good ETFs for your portfolio?
Help is at hand. In this edition of the Portfolio Strategy column, we build an ETF screener using the same criteria as professional money managers. Use it to help evaluate any ETF you're considering for your own portfolio.
Step One: Fees
The main reason that people use ETFs to build portfolios is that they are a very cheap way to create a fully diversified portfolio. But the proliferation of ETFs in recent years means that some ETFs are much cheaper than others.
"There are often 10 ETFs tracking the same index," said Tyler Mordy, director of research for money manager Hahn Investment Stewards. "We'll take the cheapest one, thank you very much."
Mark Yamada, president of PUR Investing, said low fees are paramount to him as well: "We're looking for the cheapest exposure."
Note: You don't automatically buy the lowest-fee ETF, period. Instead, Mr. Mordy and Mr. Yamada go for the lowest-cost ETF that meet their other investing criteria.
Step Two: Trading Volume
There are two reasons to pay attention to the number of shares an ETF trades in a typical day, one of them being that thinly traded funds can be terminated. This could tie your money up for a while, although you will, in the end, receive the net asset value per share.
Another reason to pay attention to trading volumes is that buy and sell pricing gets less competitive for unpopular funds. Worst case, you have to accept less than the market price to get out of an ETF you own, or pay extra to buy.
Mr. Mordy said his firm only looks at ETFs that have an average daily volume of 50,000 shares over the previous three-month period, and that have a market capitalization (that's shares outstanding multiplied by share price) of $100-million or more.
Doesn't that eliminate a huge number of ETFs? "Totally," he said. "You strip out all the esoteric crap. That's what you should be doing."
Chris Young, a financial adviser with Manulife Securities, said he looks only at ETFs that have an average daily trading volume of 100,000 shares. "If you're looking to filter the number of ETFs down, that's a good way."
This is true. Of the 120 ETFs listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, only a few dozen may trade 100,000 shares a day.
Step Three: Diversification
ETFs are a great diversification tool because they allow you to invest in an entire index of stocks or bonds through the purchase of a single exchange-traded security. But some indexes, particularly those in sectors of the broader market, are dominated by a few particular stocks. If these stocks get hammered, the entire index could fall hard.
At Hahn Investment Stewards, they have a rule that no one stock or bond can account for more than 10 per cent of the total portfolio. PUR Investing specifies that the Top 10 holdings of a fund should account for no more than 20 per cent of total assets.
Step Four: Index
Construction
Traditional indexes weight stocks according to their market capitalization, which is to say the biggest companies dominate an index. In an effort to provide a more effective mix, newer fundamental indexes factor in revenues, dividends, book value and cash flow when weighting stocks.
Both Hahn Investment Stewards and PUR Investing prefer traditional indexing for their core holdings, although they may at times use fundamental indexing. Hahn's Mr. Mordy said a market-cap-based ETF tends to have lower fees, and generate less portfolio turnover. Fewer changes in an index over a year should mean fewer taxable year-end distributions for investors with non-registered accounts.
Mr. Mordy said he will examine the actual holdings of an index tracked by an ETF to make sure they truly deliver the kind of exposure he wants. This helps avoid a situation where, for example, a so-called infrastructure ETF holds a lot of utility stocks.
Mr. Yamada keeps tabs on just about all ETFs in the marketplace, but views niche products with skepticism. "We'll read about them because they're entertaining," he joked. "Like the one for Wal-Mart suppliers." Note: the FocusShares ISE-Revere Wal-Mart Supplier Index Fund was closed last fall after less than year.
Step Five: Use of hedging
Hedging is a term that here means using financial tools called derivatives to prevent fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar against other currencies from having an impact on the value of your foreign investments. If the loonie were to rise against the U.S. dollar, for example, that would erode your returns in a U.S.-market ETF unless it was hedged.
A common question for Canadian ETF investors: Do I buy a TSX-listed global ETF with currency hedging, or buy a cheaper unhedged version of the same product on the New York Stock Exchange?
"I normally buy the hedged version because that way we kind of take the currency fluctuation out of the equation," said Mr. Young of Manulife Securities.
Ioulia Tretiakova, vice-president of PUR, said hedged ETFs are typically used at her firm for investors with an investing horizon of up to three to five years. Longer-term clients are put in cheaper non-hedged ETFs on the expectation that currency ups and downs will neutralize each other over a period of years.
"In the short term, because currency impact can be significant, it's beneficial to use hedged ETFs," she said. "Longer term, the cost outweighs the benefit."
On the broader question of buying U.S.-listed ETFs instead of domestic funds, Mr. Mordy said the high cost of currency conversion means using TSX-listed ETFs get the nod where possible. "Avoid currency translations," he said. "They're horrific, especially for the retail investor."
***
Narrowing the field
How many ETFs do advisers
actually use?
Firm
No. of ETFs used
Hahn Investment Stewards
120
PUR Investing
150
*for this example, portfolio size is considered to be in the low six-figure range
***
Needles in the haystack
Here are some sources of information to help you screen the almost 900 ETFs available to investors on
Canadian and U.S. stock stock exchanges to find the ones that are most suitable for you.
For a master list of ETFs
Use the Filter function on Globeinvestor.com (globeinvestor.com/v5/content/filters). Choose the stock exchange you're interested in and then select "ETF" from the pulldown menu labelled "Security."
For ETF trading volumes
Get a quote for an ETF on Globeinvestor and then click on the "price history" link to get trading data for the previous month and a half or so.
For information on fees
ETF company websites ca.ishares.com claymoreinvestments.ca hbpetfs.com bmoetfs.com
For info on diversification
ETF company websites update fund holdings on a daily basis
For info on index construction
ETF company websites offer fact sheets and prospectuses
For info on the use of hedging
ETF company websites
© Copyright The Globe and Mail

NEWS FROM Globeandmail.com
Too many ETFs, too little time
Rob Carrick Saturday, July 18, 2009Judge orders Sextant into receivership
Shirley Won Saturday, July 18, 2009Funds that are winners, no matter what the fee
Shirley Won Saturday, July 18, 2009Balanced funds back in favour
Shirley Won Thursday, July 16, 2009ABCs of the 'aristocrats' index
Richard Blackwell Tuesday, July 14, 2009
var c12 = 'Too many ETFs, too little time';
var c13 = 'Rob Carrick';
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ETF's are NOT a Scam

So wait! Don't give up on the plain-vanilla ETF's:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/142600-etfs-are-a-scam-i-don-t-think-so?source=feed

Why ETF's Are a Scam

http://seekingalpha.com/article/141517-why-etfs-are-a-scam

Best ETF's for a Falling Dollar

http://seekingalpha.com/article/139181-the-five-best-etfs-for-a-falling-dollar?source=feed

An ETF Article From February

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/realestate/commercial/01sqft.html

Yes to the New Asset Allocation Strategies

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/your-money/asset-allocation/21portfolio.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp



Time for a New Strategy?

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
INNER CIRCLE “We are in a trader’s market,” says Michael Sonnenfeldt, chief executive of Tiger 21, a forum of wealthy investors, “where long-term investing should be shunned but trading opportunities should be seized.”

Sign in to Recommend
comments (21)

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
Published: May 20, 2009
IF the last 18 months have taught Americans anything, it’s that market collapses don’t discriminate. Even the most sophisticated and affluent investors lost big chunks of their fortunes. Access to the most exclusive hedge funds did not always limit the damage, as many participants had hoped it would.

Read All Comments (21) »

As a result, a new mentality has emerged among some investors, who are rethinking the traditional approach to asset allocation. The upheaval in the markets and in the broader economy has led them to question long-honored principles of investing and to sound a death knell, at least for now, for the buy-and-hold mind-set.

Moving away from the conventional mix of stocks, bonds and cash, many affluent investors and their advisers are turning to alternative investments — like managed futures and hedged mutual funds — that are liquid but behave differently from the rest of the investment pack.

And some of the wealthiest investors are beginning to shed the bunker mentality, at least long enough to exploit shorter-term opportunities.
“In an environment of extraordinary uncertainty, the traditional role of asset allocation and long-term investing is far more difficult,” said Michael Sonnenfeldt, chief executive of Tiger 21, a forum for wealthy investors who meet monthly to discuss financial matters. “Many of our members believe we are in a trader’s market where long-term investing should be shunned but trading opportunities should be seized.”

Indeed, many investors are reluctant to place longer term bets and cling to larger cash allocations, anticipating continued volatility.

“The landscape going forward is extremely uncertain,” said Hans Olsen, chief investment officer at J.P. Morgan’s private wealth management unit. “There are many possible outcomes. You need to have a portfolio structured to reflect many possible futures. It comes down to the first principles of diversification.”

But how you define diversification is evolving.

“In a bull market, we don’t tend to care that our portfolio investments seem to behave the same, but I believe this bear market has uncovered a long-term problem,” said Jerry Verseput, a financial planner in El Dorado Hills, Calif., noting that technology and globalization have diluted the effectiveness of diversification based on company size and location. So he has embraced a new approach, using a portfolio of exchange-traded funds, or E.T.F.’s, that track different sectors of the economy, like energy and health care.

Below, several investment professionals describe how their philosophies have changed and how they are reallocating their portfolios. And one stalwart traditionalist explains why he thinks all of this is a lousy idea.

BALANCING WITH ALTERNATIVES
George Padula, a senior wealth manager at Back Bay Financial Group in Boston, predicted that market volatility would not abate anytime soon. Indeed, with BlackBerries ubiquitous and news traveling so fast, markets react more quickly than ever, he said.

So Mr. Padula and his colleagues came up with a way to balance their clients’ short-term worries with a longer-term strategy. For most clients — whose net worth runs from $2 million to $4 million — they have increased cash positions and their allocations to alternative investment funds, including managed futures, which actively trade commodity, currency and financial futures contracts.

He invests in commodities through a diversified fund that can take long and short positions and in hedged-equity mutual funds that try to use option strategies to cushion market hits.

This approach, obviously, includes a pullback on stocks. Mr. Padula’s most aggressive portfolio now dedicates only 65 percent to stock index funds, down from 80 to 90 percent. Alternative investments account for 23 percent of that portfolio, fixed income for 8 percent and cash for 4 percent.
The firm also created more conservative strategies for clients who no longer want sleep aids to get through the night. One such model shifts money from stock funds (down to 22 percent) into alternative investments (33 percent), fixed-income (29 percent) and cash (16 percent).
The shifts have been well-received by clients, he said, adding, “They recognize that circumstances are very different now than they have ever been, and proactive steps are needed to counteract the increased market risks and their reduced capacity for risk.”

PASSIVE NO MORE
Cathy Pareto, a fee-only adviser in Coral Gables, Fla., came from the passive school of investing, where you invest your portfolio in a diversified basket of index funds. But in today’s world, she says, you can be too passive.

“Buy-and-hold was the mantra, but in light of recent events and a dramatically different world, those tenets may not always apply,” Ms. Pareto said.

She now dedicates 5 to 10 percent of her clients’ portfolios to more tactical moves. Currently, those include sector E.T.F.’s, like consumer staples, global materials and technology, as well as an E.T.F. that bets against real estate investment trusts. “That has been a radical change for me,” she said.
One thing she likes about E.T.F.’s is their trading flexibility. Unlike mutual funds, E.T.F.’s can be traded just like stocks.

A PASSION FOR CASH
Paul Speargas, a senior client adviser at WMS Partners, a family office and wealth advisory firm in Towson, Md., is looking in some unlikely spots for investments — notably those that do not move in line with the market.
His firm has purchased streams of cash — or discounted cash flows — from people who have been awarded large sums of money, like lottery winnings or court settlements, but receive them as annuities.
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http://seekingalpha.com/article/13679-a-closer-look-at-the-proshares-inverse-etfs

A Good Blog on ETF's

http://seekingalpha.com/article/133457-thursday-outlook-commodities-global-markets?source=feed

3 x ETF's Are Wealth Destroyers

http://seekingalpha.com/article/131732-3x-etfs-are-wealth-destroyers?source=article_sb_popular

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http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8349edae969e201156f17c902970c-popup