Short post today. I am having router problems that the Geek Squad says can't be, my ISP people say can't be yet I am having them anyway. I will throw in the towel and go get a new router today after fire training. I am working on a Vista laptop that we bought for my wife a few months ago that she despises and I know what she means. It is brutal.
If it turns out it really is not the router then it is the Think Pad that I bought with the help of reader input back in the winter of 2007. I love that that laptop so my fingers are crossed.
Next weekend I am going to to San Francisco to speak on a couple of ETF panels at the Money Show. In one panel I'll be talking as the fundamental guy, as opposed to technical, and in the other it is just an ETF free for all. The good news is that BART is going on strike so instead of a $2 train ride from SFO to downtown it will be a $40 cab ride. Yes!
A thought occurs to me in light of the listing of the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (VNM) and the large weighting to materials stocks; there needs to be an ETF that owns plantations (rubber, palm oil, coffee), food (like fisheries and dairies) and maybe miners of coal and whatever else is in the ground there. So many of the ETFs for that part of the world are in financials or in Taiwan's case tech but there are plenty of companies in the various materials groups that would be worth exploring via an ETF. This type of thing is what I have in mind about serious innovation coming to the industry, well I hope it does.
Yesterday I made a reference to minor league baseball. The WSJ had an article about the minor leagues. According to the journal there are 8532 players under contract, if there are 30 players to a team (which I can't vouch for) then there could be as many as 284 team out there to go get some seasonal work from in area that interests you, making a couple of assumption in the same context as yesterday's post.
Earlier in the week I had occasion to help a client with his 401k and was very disappointed to see that for all but one category there was only one fund to choose from. It has been a while since I was a 401k participant but I do look at plans in the context of doing my job and one choice for every category (except one) seems awful. There is a reasonable case for not overloading participants as most folks do not want to spend a lot of time with this stuff but only one fund to choose from? Ouch.
I saw this link on the WSJ site about low lobster prices. Is there a Lobster Income Trust in Canada we can trade? I got a million of them folks!
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8 comments:
Morning, Roger.
I'm intrigued by your recent post at thestreet.com on Chinese financials and the concept of volatility budgeting. Your terminology makes it seem more prescriptive than perhaps I understand.
I'm retired and my portfolio is probably less volatile than most--bonds, cash, dividend-paying equities, and the like. A smaller portion is at least likely to be more volatile--emerging market etfs, junk bonds, small caps, etc. Beyond my gut feel and sleep-at-night quotient, though, I don't have a "volatility budget" in the same sense that I have an asset allocation goal.
Am I naive about this? Do you manage to a specific beta target, for example?
Thanks, and good luck with your tech issue. I think (hope?) I solved one on my machine this morning.
Roger,
Here's a thought for an interesting fund.
Use MLPs and timber REITS which have return of capital for pipeline depreciation and timber harvesting to offset dividends or taxable bonds such as TIPS. Maybe toss in some gold miners such as GDX holds.
The idea is a real return fund that is tax efficient. The problem with TIPS is investors are taxed on the inflation portion.
Obvious problems with this fund are partnerships are limited to 25% of a mutual fund.
A lot of 401 plans are so limited they really should only be used as savings plans until full vesting or departure to another employer opens the door to rolling them over into an IRA. Once defined benefit plans are gone and all the risk for retirement can be laid on the employee, there is not a lot of incentive for most companies to put much energy into plan selection or monitoring which, naturally, creates an incentive for 401 management companies to overcharge and/or under-deliver once an account is captured.
I've occasionally had local network problems at home that refused to clear up until I completely powered down everything including the router and cable modem (unplugging devices too to assure no trickle charge) then bringing them up one at a time beginning with the cable modem followed by the router then other devices. Sometimes it just seemed a cold reboot was the only way to reestablish a fully functional handshake between key components; no real explanation except it (usually) worked.
Bummer WRT BART -- it's not only a cheaper and faster ride, it's safer -- depending on your destination a hotel shuttle might be an option though (if your hotel doesn't have one, find out if another hotel close by does). When forced to drive it used to be that the San Bruno cutoff from SFO (HWY 380 to 280 to 1) was a better way into the City than running straight in on HWY 101 but have no idea if that is still true.
Another BART alternative: Super Shuttle is under $20. SFO to downtown. Service is decent coming from the airport. Returning I'd take a cab if BART's not running, as SS may drive all over town picking up passengers.
let me cross all my fingers and toes to say that the router problem may be solved, and i did it almost all by myself (it did not recognize our funky ISP so I had to call in.
supershuttle is only $20? wow that shocks and relieves me.
7:03, i don't target a number but i do increase and decrease the volatility of the portfolio when i think circumstances dictate. some generic way to do this include reducing the cap size of the portfolio, more stocks as opposed to equity funds, more emerging as you say and so on.
9:52 idea like that obviously can be done yourself but it would be handy if providers started to think along these lines with various segments.
RW this problem has been going on for ages but then (I know this makes no sense) yesterday I updated the firefox version which was a deathblow to the Think Pad's connectivity. Doh! I could put it off no more. I was lazy with this for fear it was the lap top (which also would make no sense) but hopefully (everything still crossed).
Don't worry about the BART strike. First, these things tend to settle at the last minute, after the leaders on both sides have made their PR points for being tough negotiators.
Second, there's other public or private-but-collective transportation that's not so expensive. (someone already mentioned supershuttle, but there's also local busses). For that matter, does the hotel have a pickup service?
Third, it will be tax-deductible.
And fourth--you were kidding, right? What are you worried about $40 for? That's not even noise on your portfolio value. :-)
I'll see you there
Aalan, quality heckle, I'm a piker, no cheapskate, wait whcih one is worse?
that would be pretty handy if the settle. I didn't mention the train being faster (RW did) I took it a year ago on the way to PacBell I mean Sowthwestbell, I mean ATT Park for a Giants game bachelor party.
As I mentioned earlier in the week, we're in New Brunswick, Canada, for the year, so I was hoping lobster would be really cheap. It's certainly not as cheap as those prices in Maine: We're currently $6.99 a pound. I suspect that there's a major price control/fisherman's union/tax factor. (Chicken and milk are oddly out-of-line expensive, too.)
That said, I grew up lobstering south of Boston, and there is nothing better to me on this planet than a freshly steamed lobster. What's nice is that the grocery store down the street steams 'em for free.
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