Here is what I am reading this weekend:
From the Wall Street Journal:
Its Never Too Soon To Start Planning Your Retirement
…In Your 20s
In the early years of working, retirement seems an eternity away. And for most people, starting salaries don’t allow much room for savings. But at this age, now is the time to start building good saving habits and a base from which a nest egg can grow for decades to come.
“It’s the power of compounding,” says Allan Roth, a Colorado Springs, Colo., financial adviser…
Also from the Wall Street Journal:
ETFs for Investors Who Buy and Hold
We have previously featured some of the ETFs discussed in our Fund Spotlight Series. The article gets the opinions of a few big name money managers about what exactly makes a good long term investment.
Dan Goldie, president of Dan Goldie Financial Services LLC, in Menlo Park, Calif., says investors should favor ETFs with “hundreds or thousands of stocks, not narrowed down to just technology or just financials or just gold.”
For example, he says, that might be an ETF that offers exposure to small-cap stocks by tracking the Russell 2000 index.
From Barry Ritholtz’s Big Picture Blog:
Why Do You Want To Be a Hedge Fund Investor?
Some great info on why Hedge Funds are not for you:
The latest performance data (via the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index) reveal that hedge funds haven’t fared well at all: They returned a mere 3.5 percent in 2012, while the S&P 500-stock index gained 16 percent. Over the past five years, and the hedge fund index lost 13.6 percent, while the indices added 8.6 percent. That’s as of the end of 2012; it has only gotten worse in 2013. Most hedge funds have fallen even further behind their benchmarks this year, gaining 5.4 percent vs. the market’s rally of 15.4 percent. As a source of comparison, the average mutual fund is up 14.8 percent.
●From 1998 to 2010, hedge fund managers earned $379 billion in fees. The investors of their funds earned only $70 billion in investing gains.
●Managers kept 84 percent of investment profits, while investors netted only 16 percent.
●As many as one-third of hedge funds are funded through feeder funds and/or fund of funds, which tack on yet another layer of fees. This brings the industry fee total to $440 billion — that’s 98 percent of all the investing gains, leaving the people whose capital is at risk with only 2 percent, or $9 billion.
From The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank
The recently published 2012 Annual Report
Discusses the state of the average family’s finances. A lot of inspiration for this website comes from publications like this that show how much people need help when it comes to financial literacy and managing their assets.
The St. Louis Federal Reserve is one of the best places on the web for any kind of research into the economy, hands down.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
