Index Funds
« Previous EntriesAnnual Review of the AFM iShares Retirement Portfolio
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012I have been tracking a retirement portfolio for several years here at AFM. It’s split 30/20/50 between domestic stocks, international stocks, and fixed income, respectively. The domestic stock portion is invested evenly in the 10 sector exchange-traded funds that make up the Dow Jones Total Market Index. The international stock portion was invested in the [...]
Interesting Ways to Look at Return and Volatility 1991 – 2011
Monday, March 26th, 2012How’s that for a catchy title? I have monthly total returns for the S&P 500 (S&P 90 prior to February 1957) going all the way back to January 1926. However, I only have the Barclay’s Aggregate Bond Index (formerly known as the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index) going back to January 1991. Anyhow… I thought it [...]
Year to Date Total Returns for S&P 500 and Other Benchmarks (July 2011)
Saturday, July 30th, 2011Well, another month goes into the history books. As you can see from the graphic I have put together (click on the graphic below to bring up a PDF version), it wasn’t a very good month. This most likely had to do with the looming debt ceiling deadline. July marked the third month in a [...]
Year to Date Total Returns for S&P 500 and Other Benchmarks (June 2011)
Friday, July 1st, 2011Here are the total returns for the first six months of 2011 for the S&P 500, S&P Midcap 400, S&P Smallcap 600, MSCI EAFE, MSCI ACWI ex US, Barclay’s Aggregate Bond Index, Crude Oil, and Gold. As you can see, June wasn’t a good month (click on the graphic to view a PDF version). NOTE: [...]
Financial Planning Magazine: Indexing Works
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011Good article: The Big Idea – Indexing Works …according to Vanguard: In four out of seven bear markets since January 1973, the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index beat the average actively managed fund. The two bears in which many funds did better than the index were both in the 1980s. This graphic included [...]
Annual Performance Ranking of Various iShares Exchange-Traded Funds
Monday, January 10th, 2011I spent some time putting together the returns of some different asset class (LargeCap, MidCap, SmallCap, International, Emerging Markets, REIT, and Bond) Exchange-Traded Funds offered through iShares. I then took that information and ranked the performance for each year. I only used full-year returns. The earliest year for full-year returns was 2002. Not all of [...]
The 7Twelve Portfolio’s Performance for 2010
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011Here are the year-end returns for the 7Twelve Portfolio that was detailed in Craig Israelsen’s book, 7Twelve: A Diversified Investment Portfolio with a Plan*: As you can see, the results looks pretty good—especially when you consider the fact that one-third of the portfolio is in bonds and cash. Dr. Israelsen gives much more detailed information [...]
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