Ventured&Gained - Personal Finance News and Insight I Bloomberg

There are now 337 exchange-traded funds pushing up the daisies. More than 40 percent of those deaths by Darwin took place in the last 18 months, when ETF inflows have broken records.

While ETF closures can be an inconvenience for investors in the short-term, in the long run they are healthy for the industry and investors. While some of the deaths are simply due to bad timing, closures help weed out weaker players and lead to higher-quality products. A recent article on the Index Universe web site said the rapid pace of closures “speaks more about an industry in growth mode than one in retreat.”

What happened in the news this week that affects how you live and invest? Here's a highly curated (read: extremely subjective) list of stories about financial milestones for the week of September 23.

PRICIER PORK: The U.S. hog herd at the start of September probably shrank for the first time since 2010 as a virus killed piglets, reducing supply and sparking a rebound in pork prices. 9/27

Tapering, no tapering. What's an investor to do?

The Federal Reserve's decision last week not to reduce the pace of its monthly bond buying surprised market analysts, who had readied investors for a change that would send bond yields higher. So now what?


Less income, longer lives. That's one way of summing up the retirement conundrum facing the U.S.

A new survey from HSBC sheds light on how Americans are dealing with this retirement stress. The news -- here’s a shocker -- is not all bad.

Superlatives surround the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY). It is the oldest exchange-traded fund, launched in 1993. It is the largest, at $148 billion. And it is the most-traded ETF, with average volume of 100 million shares, or 20 times that of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT).

What SPY is not: the best-performing ETF tracking the S&P 500. In fact, it's the worst-performing of the three ETFs that track all 500 stocks and have 10-year records.

Call the money management firm Jackson Park Capital and there’s a good chance one of its two fund managers — Greg Jackson or John Park — will pick up. These seasoned fund managers don't have a phalanx of executive assistants running interference for them. They do, however, have a part-time assistant in their office in Alpine, Utah, and that’s about it.

Jackson and Park, who started the new, value-oriented Oakseed Opportunity Fund, also have lots of experience. They both have 20-plus year pedigrees at some of the most well-respected money management firms — Yacktman and Oakmark Funds for Jackson and Acorn Funds for Park. Both also worked as co-chief investment officers of famed private equity shop Blum Capital. Some $10 million of the fund's $64 million is their own money, and the value-oriented investors aim to be its largest shareholder. Retail shares of the fund have an expense ratio of 1.41 percent, which will likely decline if more assets flow into the fund. Lewis Braham spoke with Greg Jackson.

Why do you want to be the fund's largest shareholders?

What happened in the news this week that affects how you live and invest? Here's a highly curated (read: extremely subjective) list of stories about financial milestones for the week of August 26. From mortgage rates and gold prices to cigarette ads and the ups and downs of the Indian Rupee -- we've got it covered.

CIGARETTES For the first time in 43 years, cigarette ads will be back on TV starting next month. This time, the ads will be for an e-cigarette known as Vuse which is expected to cost around $10 and last about as long as a pack of traditional cigarettes. It comes from Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), the company that once marketed Winston cigarettes. (Remember Joe Camel?) Cigarette ads were banned from the airwaves in 1971 by the U.S. government. That ban doesn’t extend to today’s electronic cigarettes, yet. (8/26)


MORTGAGES Mortgage rates fell for the first time in five weeks as the housing market recovery showed signs of slowing. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 4.51 percent. (8/29) If you didn’t refinance earlier, don’t get too excited. Rates are still far from the low of 3.35 percent in May. You won't get much relief from the rising housing market either -- it isn't about to drop dead any time soon. (8/28)



Lynn Francis was worried when her 81-year-old mother Joann started forgetting things a few years ago. Her fear turned to panic as her mother began inviting strangers into her house and giving away bank account information to just about anyone on the other end of the phone.

Joann has become increasingly reclusive, afraid even to leave her house to go to the supermarket lest she forget how to find her way back. Lynn, who lives four hours away in Beaverton, Oregon, now takes turns with her sister buying her mother groceries. “Living alone has really become a safety issue for her,” says the 58-year-old yoga instructor. She's trying to convince her mother to move into an assisted living facility.

Looking after the aging, especially those with mental and physical incapacities, is almost always emotionally and physically exhausting for families. It can also become a financial nightmare as families struggle to cover the costs of medical care, assisted living facilities and nursing homes -- a burden far greater than most people realize.

“Incapacity planning is not just for someone with Alzheimer’s who can’t make any decisions,” says Martin Shenkman, a Paramus, N.J.-based estate planning lawyer who lectures on incapacity. "It affects a huge number of people, far more so than most imagine.”

While much of Europe is on holiday, investors in the continent's most debt-laden countries are getting relief from its debt crisis. This past month has seen a surge in the exchange-traded funds that track Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, four of five beleaguered economies that, with the addition of Portugal (which doesn't have an ETF), have been given the acronym "PIIGS."

Stocks in each of the countries rose more than 5 percent in the past month. That tops the MSCI Europe Index's 1.5 percent gain and the S&P 500's 2 percent loss. The investor perception of Europe is starting to change, as many think its nascent recovery has legs. In addition, credit risk may have bottomed out for these formerly shamed countries, allowing for a higher bounce-back than in the broader market.

Here is the one-month performance for ETFs tracking these countries:

Some things just seem more dangerous -- and perhaps more thrilling -- when they're small. Like cars. And planes. And, for some investors, exchange-traded funds.

Currently, 33 of the 50 best-performing ETFs of 2013 are funds that began the year with less than $100 million in assets. The market-beating performance of these smaller ETFs has attracted $1.2 billion in new cash this year, compared to $3.8 billion pulled in by the 17 bigger ETFs.