The Sun's Financial Diary

The world of water investment is getting crowded.
Yesterday, PowerShares launched five new international equity ETFs, and one of them is PowerShares Global Water Portfolio (PIO), one month after two offerings from Claymore Securities and First Trust Advisors. The new water ETF tracks the Palisades Global Water Index (PIIWI). According to AMEX,
The Palisades Global Water Index [...]

If you are asked to build a portfolio with the least number of funds but broad enough to provide the diversification you need, how many funds do you need?
Essentially, I think I will need only two funds: a total stock market fund that covers the entire equity market, US and foreign, and a total bond [...]

Not long ago, investors who are looking for investment opportunities in blue gold, water that is, could find themselves facing very limited choices other than individual stocks as there are only a couple of water related indexes and the only practical choice seems to be the only water related ETF, PowerShares Water Resources ETF (PHO), [...]

I like the idea of letting money work for me on its own. One way to do that is buying equities that generate dividends. Last year, about 10% of our gains are from dividends, capital gains, and interests. Since long-term qualified dividends are taxed at a much lower rate (at most 15%) than short-term capital [...]

Early last week, Morningstar has an article cautioning investors on bond ETFs.
With the recent introduction of four Vanguard bond ETFs, it can be expected that investors will look into these new ETF offerings when building their portfolios. However, the article, Think Twice Before Investing in Bond ETFs by Paul Herbert, reminds investors that there are [...]

The fourth segment of the Model Portfolios Built with ETFs series, is making an appearance at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity as a guest article. In this part, I discussed how to build an all-ETF portfolio based on a model in the book, The Intelligent Asset Allocator by William Bernstein, that consists of, among other asset [...]

Last month while I was researching on ETFs for the Model Portfolios Built with ETFs series, I noticed that mutual fund gaint Vanguard (I guess they will soon be an ETF powerhouse as well) didn’t have any fixed income ETF offerings. All existing ETFs are equity ETFs.
Well, that has just changed as Vanguard introduced four [...]

This morning I sold my position in PowerShares Dynamic Semiconductors (PSI) and used the proceeds to buy more PHO, PowerShares’ water ETF. The reason I am interested in investing in water has been explained before, but why PSI?
There are two reasons: First, I already have an investment in semiconductor and that’s TSM, a stock that [...]

Back in November, I had a post on why water could find a place in your portfolio. The main point of the article is as we face a global shortage of drinking water, investing in water makes a sound choice for long term investment. If you are also interested in investing in water, the most [...]

I bought Mr. John Bogle’s new book, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, after reading an article on SmartMoney.com the other day about his comments on ETFs. The book was received early this month, but I didn’t get time to read it until recently.
In his latest writeup, Mr. Bogle uses a chapter to discuss [...]