June 2009

Can you profit from Clean?

by Henry Becker 06.29.2009

Businesses worldwide are salivating at the promises governments are making in order to clean the world in which we live. According to an article titled “Europe moves to reduce pollutants,” by Joshua Chaffin of the Financial Times, environment ministers across Europe have agreed to sweeping plans and new investments to reduce sulfur dioxide and other [...]

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Can emerging Asian economies shop the global economy back?

by Henry Becker 06.26.2009

Many economists will have you believe that without the American buyer the world is in trouble. Maybe. There are more than a few wise economists that will tell you that instead of the engine of global growth the United States is the caboose. There are some not so surprising statistics pointing to the back of [...]

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Railroads, bridges, airports and ETFs

by Henry Becker 06.20.2009

Countries worldwide are dedicating vast amounts of money to infrastructure spending over the next five years and there are easy avenues to prosper from this spending with ETFs. A recent white paper by Eric J. Gerritsen on The Journal of Commerce Online provides a brilliant snap shot of the infrastructure boom that awaits. Eye Popping [...]

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What is pushing solar ETFs up?

by Henry Becker 06.19.2009

Rising energy prices of course. When oil was cheap (not but a few months ago) investing in solar went out the window. Now, as we are above $70 per barrel on oil and trending higher solar becomes a play on rising energy prices. The Claymore/Mac Global Solar Energy ETF (ticker TAN) is up over 90% [...]

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Can anything break Aluminum?

by Henry Becker 06.18.2009

Aluminum has been experiencing quite a rally under puzzling circumstances. Like most commodities aluminum has taken it on the chin in the last year. But, in the last three months the performance of the ETN that tracks aluminum, the iPath Aluminum ETN (ticker JJU), is up over 17%. The puzzling part is that some say [...]

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Active or Passive

by Henry Becker 06.16.2009

This has been the raging debate for decades. The debate is should you/we use actively manged funds or index funds (the vast majority of ETFs are index funds). Both sides have made fair arguments over the years but in the end most advisors and individual investors fall on one side of the fence or the [...]

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Back To School

by Henry Becker 06.16.2009

Yeah, the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie was good but that may be a topic for another post. The focus of this post, however, is how you can learn from one of the largest investors in America that also happens to educate some of the brightest minds in America. No, I am not suggesting you enroll [...]

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Big Wig Portfolios

by Henry Becker 06.16.2009

Ever wonder how the people in power in this country invest? Eileen Ambrose of the Baltimore Sun has a great article on how particular individuals in the Obama administration invest. I think most people would agree, whether you like the folks in the current administration or not, these are powerful, well informed people. I don’t [...]

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Is Your Portfolio Spanning The Globe

by Henry Becker 06.16.2009

“Spanning the globe” was not just a saying from Jim McKay’s opening to ABC’s Wide World of Sports. It is also what you should be doing when researching positions for your portfolio. The U.S. still has plenty to offer an investor. As for the rest of the world, well it should not be ignored or [...]

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The Secret to the Best and Worst

by Henry Becker 06.16.2009

In my last post, 2008: The Final nail for Buy and Hold, I referenced a common marketing piece that gets dragged out by the financial services industry when ever the stock markets get choppy. The piece has many iterations over different periods of time and analyzes average annual performance of the S&P 500 if you [...]

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