All Things ETF

There is a lot of confusion in the markets right now with investors seemingly undecided about what to do with their bond holdings. Do they sell now and lock in profits or do they hold positions and risk losing principle as yields rise. Here is an article by Olly Ludwig of IndexUniverse.com - Bonds ETF Outflows Spikes as Rates Rises , pointing out that investors have been pulling money out of exchange-traded bond funds in record amounts due to the Fed's quantitative easing, which may suggests that higher interest rates may be a bad thing for bond investors. However, Anthony Mirhaydari, of MSN Money in his article- Why higher rates are a good thing , makes the point that quantitative easing may be just what the markets need to get back to that level of competitive free markets.  Mr. Mirhaydari makes the argument that the markets have been artificially propped up for too long, lulling many investors into a false sense of stable fixed-income return expectations. No matter you

I am still very keen and excited on the energy industry. There's lots of opportunities to make a lot of money but avoiding the potential land mines that still exist in the solar, wind, stored energy and natural gas plays, can be very stressful. However, that's where the safety of exchange-traded funds comes in. Although all exchanged-traded funds can be volatile, many positions in these funds are researched exhaustively before they are included in the respective indexes that they track, making these funds a good candidate for an investment. I am not recommending any particular fund, although I may be impartial to a few out there. I believe that investors still need to be very patient until many of the heavily subsidized sectors in this industry to bear fruit. One could start by taking a look at Invesco's  PowerShares Wilderhill Progressive Energy Portfolio , which is based on the Wilderhill Progressive Energy Index . The index is composed of companies focused on the fol