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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On their website, FocusShares states that their mission includes “captur[ing] investors imagination”. I think their product offering has succeeded:

FocusShares ISE-CCM Homeland Security Index Fund (MYP)
FocusShares ISE SINdex Fund (PUF)
FocusShares ISE-Revere Wal-Mart Supplier Index Fund (WSI)
FocusShares ISE Homebuilders Index Fund (SAW)

24/7 Wall St thinks they’ve gone too far in becoming so [...]

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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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The most familiar indices, such as the S&P 500, are typically weighted by market capitalization (a notable exception being the DJIA which is an arithmetic average price). This means that larger companies like 3M get a proportionally larger weighting than smaller stocks like Paychex (just picked two companies at random). Market cap indices are [...]

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