All Things ETF

By Rick Walter You may still have time to adjust or rebalance your investments before the end of the year. Just do it or call us and I can help you do it now. I just updated our semiconductor portfolio and per previous blog on the industry, it's a tough market out there. Today, Mario Coumo of New York is filing anti-trust charges against Intel. Intel is being charged with taking or paying "kickbacks" under the guise of a rebate scheme. Wow! That's hot news. What does this means for the industry as a whole? Not much. Lol. It's tough to make money in the semiconductor markets, however, I am still positively hopeful my recently posted diversified semiconductor portfolio will make some money. If you are interested in the semiconductor markets subscribe to his portfolio. Recently though, I've been zeroing in on the Alternative Energy and the Renewable Markets because there have been lots of activity going on here. Who said the recession had killed the venture ...

By Rick Walter Hi everyone! Tune-in to our new financial commentary podcast(audio) series . The goal of our podcast is to help you cut through the clutter of web misinformation by focusing in on specific articles that can help you make timely decision on companies that you may own as investments. The ongoing series will also provide independent analysis on specific industries, and cover important topics that unfold daily with input from heads of local and regional companies that are private and publicly traded. Tune in daily at http://www.ucsinv1.podomatic.com/ .

By Rick Walter New Semiconductor portfolio posted with a tracking start date of 10/17/2009. The portfolio's current return is 1.20% now. Get this portfolio before it becomes pricey.

By Rick Walter Last weekend I worked on a new semiconductor portfolio because I thought that although the price to earnings ratio of many of the companies in the industry are still too high (P/E's of companies in this industry typically runs very high), there still may be an opportunity to take a position in the industry and make some money. Although knowing what companies to buy in this industry may be the ultimate conundrum. This sector is ferociously competitive and over the years even the best companies, such as AMD , Rambus and Novellus Sys have succumbed to the price pressures of the competitiveness in the market. Of course, most of the pressures in this market have stemmed from the relentless drive of Asian chip manufacturers quest to completely dominate the market through a combination of foreign currency exchange rate manipulation of the Renmimbi (Yuan) and cheap labor. Their domination of the markets has also been helped by a global market with an insatiable demand for...

By Rick Walter Well, the market has really been showing strength- up over 200 points since October 5, 2009. I think the bulk of the buying are from hedge funds and institutions alike, snapping up assets that they may deem still cheap or it could be because of an overall feeling by market participants that fundamentals are improving as the FDIC gets its Private Public Investment Fund program underway with a recent announcement of multiple bidders for purchase of distressed assets from recently failed banks. However, somewhere and somehow, I still have this feeling of dread. I fully understand that the process of removing distressed assets from banks and other financial institutions balance sheets will allow banks to become more healthy which in turn will help loosen up the credit markets for new deals, which in turn will help revive the economy, but many of these assets are being sold for pennies on the dollar. In addition, there are still so many other technical and fundamental proble...

By Rick Walter Good Morning everyone. I was out of the office for a few days but now I am back. Should be updating pages and posting shortly.

By Rick Walter The end of the year is fast approaching and its time to start thinking about doing some investment house-cleaning. Take a look at the total returns of our Moderately Aggressive portfolio posted today. This portfolio has performed very well since April '09 of this year and I expect it to continue to rack up gains as the economy continues to improve. Now, if I were a smart investor I would wait for prices to come back down a little bit before I made a move but the risks are that quality assets, and most fund managers know what they are, could get a bit pricier. Finally, its the beginning of earnings reporting for the third quarter of the year, so we should begin to get a clearer picture of the financial health of many companies. We should keep in mind though that many companies normally report not-so-stellar performances in the third quarter of the year.