Tuesday, November 11, 2008
What Performance Number Should I Look At?:
The three-year of five-year total return is the most important number to consider when choosing a mutual fund. That number will give you a good impression of the fund’s overall performance and stamina.
You can check a fund’s performance on the fund company’s website, at mutual fund tracker Morningstar.com or at financial news sites like Yahoo! Finance.
Don’t make your buying decision on just great recent returns, but do look at one-month, three-month or year-to-date returns. Recent returns give you an idea of how the fund is doing now. But there’s no telling what the market will be like next month.
What Should I Compare My Fund’s Total Return To?:
Each fund has a benchmark, an index that you can judge it by. Most broad stock market or big company funds compare themselves to the S&P 500. Funds that specialize in a sector, size of company or foreign country will use another index. You may also be able to compare your fund to the particular Lipper Index that tracks mutual funds by type.
The Morningstar Style Box:
Morningstar.com provides a benchmark and the nifty Morningstar style box that categorizes how big and aggressive your fund's companies are.
The style box is like a tick-tack-toe board with nine squares. One box marks where your fund stands. The bottom row is for small companies; the top for big companies. The left column is for value-oriented companies (undervalued or slow-growing). The right column is for growth companies. The middle is the middle.read more
The three-year of five-year total return is the most important number to consider when choosing a mutual fund. That number will give you a good impression of the fund’s overall performance and stamina.
You can check a fund’s performance on the fund company’s website, at mutual fund tracker Morningstar.com or at financial news sites like Yahoo! Finance.
Don’t make your buying decision on just great recent returns, but do look at one-month, three-month or year-to-date returns. Recent returns give you an idea of how the fund is doing now. But there’s no telling what the market will be like next month.
What Should I Compare My Fund’s Total Return To?:
Each fund has a benchmark, an index that you can judge it by. Most broad stock market or big company funds compare themselves to the S&P 500. Funds that specialize in a sector, size of company or foreign country will use another index. You may also be able to compare your fund to the particular Lipper Index that tracks mutual funds by type.
The Morningstar Style Box:
Morningstar.com provides a benchmark and the nifty Morningstar style box that categorizes how big and aggressive your fund's companies are.
The style box is like a tick-tack-toe board with nine squares. One box marks where your fund stands. The bottom row is for small companies; the top for big companies. The left column is for value-oriented companies (undervalued or slow-growing). The right column is for growth companies. The middle is the middle.read more
Stories Telling You To Watch Out For Capital Gains Tax
This past week I've seen a couple stories more or less taunting already wounded mutual fund investors that despite their losses they're about to get hit with capital gains taxes, too. "Just when you thought your mutual fund losses couldn't get any worse, your fund might be about to add insult to injury," warns the Chicago Tribune's Gail MarksJarvis. "Now we have to brace for a second whammy," worries Allan Chernoff, at CNNMoney.
But not everyone has to worry.
First off, if your mutual funds are in your retirement account, you don't care at all.
And if you're in an index fund, this is another time to be happy about that. I took a look at Vanguard's Total Stock Market Fund's distributions chart. As of the end of September the fund had a realized capital loss of $1.15 or 4% and had an unrealized loss of fifteen cents or half a percent.
If you're in an actively managed fund in a non-retirement account, there could be some trouble. The country's most popular fund, the Growth Fund of America, doesn't list this year's capital gains on its website. Last year the fund returned 11% and had a long-term capital gain of $2.06 on an NAV of $33.41. But the fund does have relatively low turnover--which makes for relatively low capital gains.
And it's not necessarily bad news.
Vanguard's actively managed Windsor Fund also shows capital losses this year. (Which is normally not good news, but in the context of taxes is. You don't pay taxes on your losses.)
So, don't get too scared by those stories.readmore
But not everyone has to worry.
First off, if your mutual funds are in your retirement account, you don't care at all.
And if you're in an index fund, this is another time to be happy about that. I took a look at Vanguard's Total Stock Market Fund's distributions chart. As of the end of September the fund had a realized capital loss of $1.15 or 4% and had an unrealized loss of fifteen cents or half a percent.
If you're in an actively managed fund in a non-retirement account, there could be some trouble. The country's most popular fund, the Growth Fund of America, doesn't list this year's capital gains on its website. Last year the fund returned 11% and had a long-term capital gain of $2.06 on an NAV of $33.41. But the fund does have relatively low turnover--which makes for relatively low capital gains.
And it's not necessarily bad news.
Vanguard's actively managed Windsor Fund also shows capital losses this year. (Which is normally not good news, but in the context of taxes is. You don't pay taxes on your losses.)
So, don't get too scared by those stories.readmore
Will the Election Impact 401(k)s?
Reuters had a smart story today about whether Democratic wins in the election yesterday will lead to tinkering with 401(k)s. The theory is that we've all become far too dependent on 401(k)s--and by we I mean both the fund industry and individual investors. The market crash makes even more clear what we already knew: people aren't saving enough for retirement.
Reuters writer Jason Szep speculates that Democrats may try to tinker with 401(k)s to get people to save more. I agree: they might and they should.
But Szep then suggests that they would consider a more radical plan devised by Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School. The idea is to give workers a tax credit if they invested their money in an account managed by the Social Security administration in risky assets that guarantees three percent above inflation. The plan is a pretty good one. It offers the best of privatizing Social Security: we'd get market returns. But I don't think the guarantees make it all that attractive. I'd rather see the Social Security administration be allowed to invest some portion of our money in the market rather than loaning it out to government agencies.
The plan seems like a bridge between 401(k)s and Social Security--one that would jeopardize the fund industry. But I also think it's really unlikely. Far more likely is the Democrats find some way to get more people to put more money in 401ks. And maybe they'd put on some automatic defaults to the plans and limits on fees. That would be bad for some industry players, but great for the industry as a whole and even better for investors. I would love to see plans that automatically enrolled workers in low-cost lifecycle funds than invested only in index funds. readmorerajput harendrasingh
Reuters writer Jason Szep speculates that Democrats may try to tinker with 401(k)s to get people to save more. I agree: they might and they should.
But Szep then suggests that they would consider a more radical plan devised by Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School. The idea is to give workers a tax credit if they invested their money in an account managed by the Social Security administration in risky assets that guarantees three percent above inflation. The plan is a pretty good one. It offers the best of privatizing Social Security: we'd get market returns. But I don't think the guarantees make it all that attractive. I'd rather see the Social Security administration be allowed to invest some portion of our money in the market rather than loaning it out to government agencies.
The plan seems like a bridge between 401(k)s and Social Security--one that would jeopardize the fund industry. But I also think it's really unlikely. Far more likely is the Democrats find some way to get more people to put more money in 401ks. And maybe they'd put on some automatic defaults to the plans and limits on fees. That would be bad for some industry players, but great for the industry as a whole and even better for investors. I would love to see plans that automatically enrolled workers in low-cost lifecycle funds than invested only in index funds. readmorerajput harendrasingh
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
market is not a ur life
hello as per my point of ,i sugges u that invest ur money this time and make ur life either abuse or successfull.
maket like sky falling
The Sky is Falling
If you have ever been a fan of the wonderful Asterix comics, you know that the ancient Gauls were a very brave people who did not know the meaning of fear. However, there was one thing that they were afraid of, and that was the sky falling on their heads. Of course, the sky didn't ever actually fall. But that didn't stop the Gauls from thinking that it might fall.
I think the world's financial markets have reached a stage when a lot of people are convinced that the sky is actually falling. The kind of fear and panic one sees around nowadays is unprecedented. Unlike earlier, the fear and panic is coming from some unusual directions.
Take the politicians and bureaucrats of the world. These are people who seemed to be genetically engineered to be cheerful about economic prospects. No matter what happens, the official word in most countries is always that things are fine and getting finer. But for the first time in living memory, over the last few two or three weeks, these professional optimists have changed their tune. And that's a scary prospect.
In the United States, where the crisis first appeared, the pace and the intensity of the change of tune has been stunning. As recently as September 15th, the accepted wisdom was that erring financial firms should be left to fend for themselves and the crisis would basically work itself out with a little more pain. That was the day when Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bankrupt. Just one day later, the US authorities decided to change its approach and rescue the insurance company AIG. And two days after that, they decided that basically everyone who needed to be rescued would get help.
And suddenly, the apparent scale of the crisis changed. From being calm and confident and reassuring, people like the US Treasury Secretary (finance minister in Indian terminology) Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman (equivalent of our Reserve Bank Chairman) Ben Bernanke were openly expressing panic. It suddenly seemed out in the open that the sky was indeed falling.
The official panic has now rolled around the world. A few days ago, an emergency summit of the heads of European governments took place in Paris where Messrs Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel and their friends decided what the EU should do about the crisis. Even in India, where such pessimism has always been taboo, the mood has changed. The prime minister himself said a few days ago that India could not stay insulated from the troubles of the rest of the world. Mr. Chidambaram has also said something similar. The RBI's sudden CRR cut this morning points towards a sharp worry that wasn't around a few days ago.
Suddenly, the accepted wisdom is that the world is in the middle of a huge financial crisis and unless drastic action is taken immediately, things will rapidly become much worse. A global economic collapse is being talked about routinely.
To the casual observer, all this is a little bewildering. It's as if you're walking down the road and suddenly everyone starts running in panic. You keep trying to stop people and ask them what's happened but no one can explain clearly. They just keep running and pretty soon you decide to stop asking questions and start running too. Just to be on the safe side, just to be with the crowd in case the sky is actually falling.
There's no doubt there is a global financial problem and there will be some hardship before it subsides. However, the shift in official mood amounts to nothing much more than what the Americans would call a cover-your-rear strategy, although they would use a less polite word for rear.from value reasearch online.com
If you have ever been a fan of the wonderful Asterix comics, you know that the ancient Gauls were a very brave people who did not know the meaning of fear. However, there was one thing that they were afraid of, and that was the sky falling on their heads. Of course, the sky didn't ever actually fall. But that didn't stop the Gauls from thinking that it might fall.
I think the world's financial markets have reached a stage when a lot of people are convinced that the sky is actually falling. The kind of fear and panic one sees around nowadays is unprecedented. Unlike earlier, the fear and panic is coming from some unusual directions.
Take the politicians and bureaucrats of the world. These are people who seemed to be genetically engineered to be cheerful about economic prospects. No matter what happens, the official word in most countries is always that things are fine and getting finer. But for the first time in living memory, over the last few two or three weeks, these professional optimists have changed their tune. And that's a scary prospect.
In the United States, where the crisis first appeared, the pace and the intensity of the change of tune has been stunning. As recently as September 15th, the accepted wisdom was that erring financial firms should be left to fend for themselves and the crisis would basically work itself out with a little more pain. That was the day when Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bankrupt. Just one day later, the US authorities decided to change its approach and rescue the insurance company AIG. And two days after that, they decided that basically everyone who needed to be rescued would get help.
And suddenly, the apparent scale of the crisis changed. From being calm and confident and reassuring, people like the US Treasury Secretary (finance minister in Indian terminology) Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman (equivalent of our Reserve Bank Chairman) Ben Bernanke were openly expressing panic. It suddenly seemed out in the open that the sky was indeed falling.
The official panic has now rolled around the world. A few days ago, an emergency summit of the heads of European governments took place in Paris where Messrs Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel and their friends decided what the EU should do about the crisis. Even in India, where such pessimism has always been taboo, the mood has changed. The prime minister himself said a few days ago that India could not stay insulated from the troubles of the rest of the world. Mr. Chidambaram has also said something similar. The RBI's sudden CRR cut this morning points towards a sharp worry that wasn't around a few days ago.
Suddenly, the accepted wisdom is that the world is in the middle of a huge financial crisis and unless drastic action is taken immediately, things will rapidly become much worse. A global economic collapse is being talked about routinely.
To the casual observer, all this is a little bewildering. It's as if you're walking down the road and suddenly everyone starts running in panic. You keep trying to stop people and ask them what's happened but no one can explain clearly. They just keep running and pretty soon you decide to stop asking questions and start running too. Just to be on the safe side, just to be with the crowd in case the sky is actually falling.
There's no doubt there is a global financial problem and there will be some hardship before it subsides. However, the shift in official mood amounts to nothing much more than what the Americans would call a cover-your-rear strategy, although they would use a less polite word for rear.from value reasearch online.com
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
WHAT,S GOING ON
HELLO i m with out telling you anything confusing words i just told you few words "THIS IS THE RIGHT TIME TO INVEST...SO INVEST WITHOUT FEAR ,..IF YOU INVEST THAN MARKET GOES HIGH".....NOTE:"ANY THING IS HAPPEN IN MARKET I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE"
Monday, September 29, 2008
views of markets
Atsi Sheth, Chief Economist, Reliance Capital, feels rate cuts are unnecessary as secondary effects of inflation may come in. Naval Bir Kumar, MD, IDFC Mutual Fund shares this view and thinks rate cuts are not warranted;;from moneycontrol.com
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