The Basics Of Buying ETFs

With market volatility a clear-and-present danger heading into a new year, Ian Salisbury at Dow Jones Newswires offers some tips on how to buy exchange-traded funds.

He discusses looking at trading volume, indicative intraday values and ETF prices trading at discounts as well as premiums to their net asset values. You can read the article as it appears in the Wall Street Journal here.

More Bad News For Mutual Funds

If you want to feast on more bad news for active fund investors, the WSJ offers a rehash of projections for mutual fund tax bills this year.

As most anyone who owned such an animal in 2000-2002 will recall, down markets present a double-whammy of sorts for investors in actively managed funds. That same scenario seems likely to play out this year with many large active funds projecting big distributions at year's end. Such unwelcome news comes despite heavy losses in returns in 2008 for such funds.

Note at the end of this article it brings up the fact that ETFs and index mutual funds are much more tax efficient. You can read the piece by MarketWatch's Sam Mamudi in the WSJ article here.

Focus On Dividends

Well, not-withstanding our recent Alternative Investor column warning of the risks with funds focusing on big dividends right now, here's another WSJ piece suggesting that might be the way to go in these volatile times.

To the credit of its author, Tom Lauricella, the article does point out that these types of funds are heavy into financials. Is this more fluff or does it really flush out the much-discussed value of cushioning your portfolio against market gyrations through dividends?

You be the judge. It's a short piece with ETF references and serves as part of the WSJ's monthly funds recap offering. The article can be found here.

A Crowd Pleaser For Sure

You've got to like this headline: "The Biggest ETF Turkeys of 2008."

There's really not a whole lot more to say about this piece in the latest Barron's. It's basically a list story of the 10 biggest losers this year. You can read it here.

Taking It All In

Year-end fund summaries are starting to flow faster than your next-door neighbor can rush to put up Christmas lights.

A short but sweet look at winners and losers in the world of ETFs comes from Morningstar's Scott Burns. He takes a look at what five ETFs have done the best this year and the worst. He also splits the difference between those going long and those going short.

You can read the article here.