- More bang for your buck
Thanks to the exchange rate, spend 1 US dollar in Canada and you’ll get about $1.20 worth of their goods and services. Or, one more good reason to visit our neighbors to the North.
- Market Quick Glance
-Indices:
Here are the year-to-date performance figures for the major indices through April 29, 2016, according to Bloomberg. To provide a longer performance perspective, 1-year returns have been added.
Stocks had a tough week with the indices all registering poorer performance at the end of this week than the previous one.
Looks as though a good dividend paying stock, or stocks, could be this year’s most rewarding picks.
–Dow Jones +2,83% YTD
1yr Rtn +1.21%
-S&P 500 +1.74% YTD
1yr Rtn +0.10%
–NASDAQ -4.23% YTD
1yr Rtn -3.35%
-Russell 2000 +0.02% YTD
1yr Rtn -6.57%
-Mutual funds
Through Thursday, April 28, 2016 the average U.S.Diversified Equity Fund lost ground during the past seven days. While still up modestly for the year, the average fund under this heading that includes 8401 funds was up 1.00 percent year-to-date, according to Lipper.
Equity Leveraged Funds, Lipper tracks 202 of them, have year-to-date returns of 8.2 percent, on average. Behind them were Small- and Mid-Cap Value Funds with year-to-date returns up 5.16 and 5.03 percent respectively.
Dedicated Short-Bias Funds gained some strength, down now only -9.94 percent y-t-d instead of -11.15 percent from the 4/21 weekly report.
As always, it’s Sector Equity Funds where investors will find the best performing fund groups. Thanks to the Precious Metals Funds, up on average 73.83 percent as of Thursday’s close (that’s 8 percent higher than the week previous), the average Sector Equity Fund was up 6.35 percent y-t-d.
Health/Biotech fund types continue losing ground this year.
Visit www.allaboutfunds.com for weekly updates to see how equity and fixed-income funds have rewarded investors over the short-and long-term, based upon Lipper data. Short-term meaning weekly and monthly performance returns; longer-term includes quarterly, year-to-date, 1-yr, 2-yr, 3-yr and 5-yr returns.
Lipper’s weekly performance figures for stock and fixed-income funds are at www.allaboutfunds.com in the left column on the home page.
- The economy, Buffett, Icahn and me
No two ways about it, the economy is not moving along at a robust pace. And there’s a yellow cautionary flag waving with respect to the near and not-so-near term future.
So what’s an investor to do? Buffett admits that the economy is not booming, nor is it falling apart. Carl Icahn says there is big trouble ahead.I say, mind your p’s and q’s.
That means, review your “p”ortfolio and “q”uestion all of your holdings. Then decide again, if the risks you’ve taken to make a buck are as valid today as they were the day you decided to take them.
And don’t forget: no one ever went broke taking a profit.
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allaboutfundsdotcom 