Invest Skeptically

ING Direct Canada has launched its Streetwise Fund:
ING DIRECT is once again challenging the high fees Canadians pay for investing and bringing diversification at a low cost to the masses with the launch of a new index-based mutual fund called the Streetwise Fund. The Streetwise Fund is a diversified balanced fund which incorporates several [...]

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The Horizons BetaPro “Plus” ETF products have been getting some positive press lately with Jonathan Chevreau writing, Looking for shelter in a bear market, Rob Carrick writing, Bear’s best friend: an ETF to profit from bad times, and Don Vialoux writing, Lure of leverage gives boost to new ETFs. These products attempt to [...]

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Here are two great articles from the Zephyr Associates Inc. website on Mutual Fund Analysis and Peer Group Analysis. They discuss the curses of endpoint bias and survivor bias that skews the analysis of mutual funds.
Endpoint bias can be seen in typical mutual fund ads that compare, for example, 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year returns versus [...]

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I’ve been going through a file I keep of newspaper clippings that remind me of worrisome issues in retail investing. This file includes things like my favourite Dilbert strip where Wally’s Financial Advisor recommends giving him 2% of his money and investing the other 98% in “things that sound good if you don’t look into [...]

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