It has been a while since I posted about commodities so I thought an update would be helpful. First we have the following graph showing the relative size of the actual commodity and futures/derivatives about the commodity.  As you can see, the futures market exploded over that last few years.  This is why I say [...]

I’m not sure how accurate the numbers are for actual percentage holdings, but the relative changes that have occurred over time should be fairly accurate.  If you were to plot PE10 on this graph you would find a VERY high correlation.  Unsurprisingly, as people become more fearful of stocks, they own less and drive the [...]

Late last year the bank I had my personal checking account with was taken over by the FDIC and sold to another bank.  FYI, the transition from a customer perspective was seamless.  The new bank is now changing the terms of the account prompting me to shop around again. I thought I would share some [...]

Pimco 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index Fund  (TUZ) will have an expense ratio of 0.09%.  This compares favorably to iShares Lehman 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF’s expense ratio of 0.15%. This is the first of seven ETFs that PIMCO has in the pipeline.  I am esspecially looking forward to the ETFs that allow greater maturity management with [...]

It is nice to see Schwab has finally followed Fidelity in cutting the fees for its basic index funds. Schwab Equity Index Fund Expense ratio Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund (SWPPX) 0.09% Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund®(SWTSX) 0.09% Schwab 1000 Index Fund® (SNXFX) 0.29% Schwab Small-Cap Index Fund® (SWSSX) 0.19% Schwab International Index Fund®(SWISX) 0.19% Source: Lower [...]

With tax-free money market funds paying well under 1% (Vanguard’s Tax-Exempt Money Market is currently paying around 0.61%),  it is hard to find a place to park cash if you are in a high tax braket.  You can still find high yield savings accounts that pay around 2%, but that interest will be fully taxable [...]

With banks and money markets paying virtually nothing these days finding good places for short term cash is a bit tricky. Even most of the traditional high yield savings accounts have gone under 2%.  Currently GMAC Bank is offering 2.5%.  As of 2008, GMAC Bank is FDIC insured and has full access to treasury liquidity [...]

After the rundown we have had over the last two weeks, I find it useful to take a step back and check on how current valuations measure historically.  I should reiterate that I don’t believe that I have the ability to time the market.  And for me, these valuation exercises are about assessing risk so [...]

The following graph comes from a recent morningstar article that reiterates how markets don’t follow normal distributions but instead follow a log-stable style distribution (i.e., distribution with fat tails).  What I like about this graph is that it highlights the fact that even over very long periods (e.g., 50 years), you still have over a 4% [...]

Many of the high yield savings accounts (e.g., Ing Direct, Emigrant Direct, and others you can find at bankrate.com) have lowered their yields to around 2.4%.  Interestingly, Emigrant Bank has created a new entity called Dollar Savings Direct that currently offers 3.5%.  As far as I can tell it is identical to Emigrant Direct except [...]