Difference

February 5, 2020 Mutual Funds No Comments

The Difference Between Hedge Funds and Mutual Funds

The Difference Between Hedge Funds and Mutual Funds You keep hearing about these big hedge funds making big bets on stocks, but you’re only invested in mutual funds. They both pool together money from a group of investors and manage the total chunk of … Continue reading at thestreet.com Mutual Funds Are Still Keeping Secrets […]

May 4, 2016 ETF No Comments

ASK A FINANCIAL PLANNER: ‘What’s the difference between an ETF and index fund?’

ASK A FINANCIAL PLANNER: ‘What’s the difference between an ETF and index fund?’ Certified financial planner Sophia Bera answers: What’s the difference between an ETF and index fund, and which is better? Great question. Before I delve into the specifics, let me give a little context as to why both can be good additions to […]

"People the world over are losing faith in politicians, and currencies," says Marc Lubaszka, President/CEO, World Financial, a highly successful investment firm specializing in precious metals based in Studio City, Calif. "This has resulted in a flight to gold and other precious metals, a storehouse of value for more than five thousand years. Investors are taking their money out of paper assets, and putting it where it is likely to earn a better return in uncertain times."

"Gold prices are climbing right now because the Federal Reserve is printing dollars in flood proportions to keep the real estate market afloat," adds Richard Russell, editor Dow Theory Letters, a stock market trends and securities report published since 1946. "This is creating inflation, which erodes purchasing power. All the world's central banks are inflating right now, reducing confidence in paper globally and encouraging gold-buying. India and China are spurring gold prices as well. India is the world's largest gold-consumer, and the Chinese government is actively encouraging its citizens to buy gold."

Performance will vary. Fund performance often falls off and risk levels rise during the subsequent three years after a fund is given an initial five-star Morningstar rating, suggests another recent study by Matthew Morey, a professor at Pace University. One reason for this is that after receiving a five-star rating the size of the fund grows dramatically, which then makes the fund unwieldy to manage, he suggests. Since Morey's study was completed, Morningstar also has changed the way it doles out top rankings to make them more precise. One of the biggest problems with all rating systems is that they are not necessarily predictive in nature. This means they're not really set up to tell you whether certain funds will necessarily do better in the future. For the most part, the ratings indicate how much you might have made and how much aggravation you faced in the process.