Fund of the Week: TLT iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond

The top performing fund last week was TLT iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond, up 2.32%. The top ten funds, of the funds I track, were all bond funds.


Natural Resources, small caps, and financial services all fell last week but Real Estate fell the most with REACX American Century Real Estate Inv down 6.57%.

Fund of the Week: VNQ Vanguard REIT Index ETF

VNQ Vanguard REIT Index ETF took a break from summer vacation last week to rack up a gain of 16.80%. That's a nice week's work. Of course it had been slacking and is still sitting on a big loss since I hypothetically invested in it.

Real Estate rocked across the board. Mid Cap funds and Financial companies also did well last week.


Bonds suffered with BTTRX American Century Target 2020 losing 5.07%.

Health care companies also struggled. Protesters across the country rallied hard to keep the government from being invloved in health care, arguing that it is far better to have private companies with profit as the primary motivator managing health care and deciding what will and will not be covered by insurance companies.

Nice job fellas.

I wonder if the loss in health care company stocks indicates that investors think the protests will be ignored...

Portfolio Update 8/7/09: The Boys of Summer

The boys (and girls) of summer are buying.

Don Henley - Boys Of Summer
Uploaded by jpdc11. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

After another week of solid gains and none of the portfolios I started tracking on 5/1/07 are down over 30%. The WylieMoney Slowly Portfolio which I built over 20 months starting on 5/1/07 is down 14.81%. My IRA which is a bit Real Estate heavy and the S&P 500 both lag behind the other portfolios, but Real Estate had a tremendous week so my IRA made up some ground.

WylieMoney Slowly

WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed

Lazy 20 Mostly Index
ETF 20

Three Fund Index

S&P 500

Replacing the Real Estate Fund in My Taxable Account

There is some debate about whether it is a good idea to own Real Estate fund in a taxable account. The dividends are taxed at your income rate rather than the sometimes lower 15% capital gains tax rate. Of course if you have huge tax losses from selling funds at big losses, is this a factor?

I like holding a small percentage of my investments in real estate to add diversity. A lot of employer sponsored retirement plans don't offer real estate options so in addition to an IRA, adding a REIT to a taxable account may be the only other option for some seeking to diversify.

I currently own REACX and due to the implosion of the US economy and the hit to real estate in particular am sitting on a loss of over 50% in this fund. I dont want to get out of the category now. This fund is up over 30% in the last three months. Bt I do want to write off the tax loss and secure any potential gains in a better fund, if I can find one.

Going by Morningstar ratings, selling REACX is a no brainer. With a brand new manager, there is no history to go on either. And it looks like I have some solid no load no fee options available via Etrade.

1 year and 5 year performance backs up the decision.

STMDX Stratton Monthly Dividend REIT is the only other fund with expenses close to 1%. It also has the lowest turnover which is a big plus for a taxable account. The negative is that is is designed to generate income so the dividends will be higher.



With the lowest expenses, lowest turnover, best one and 3 year returns, STMDX Stratton Monthly Dividend REIT looks like a decent replacement for REACX American Century Real Estate.

Portfolio Update 7/31/09: All is Full of Love

Another week of gains in all the portfolios. Apparently, All is Full of Love.





The WylieMoney Slowly Portfolio is up year to date more than it is down since I started tracking it. If the second half of the year looks like the first half, I'll have a broadly diversified buy and hold portfolio of mutual funds, invested starting in 2007, that will actually show a slight profit.

Diversity is proving to be the key, however. Adding international funds, bonds and even real estate, has turned out to be a much better strategy than simply investing in the S&P 500.

WylieMoney Slowly


WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed

Lazy 20 Mostly Index

ETF 20

Three Fund Index

S&P 500

Fund of the Week: VGSIX Vanguard REIT Index

Real Estate had a good week with VGSIX Vanguard REIT Index outperforming all the other funds I track. JAOSX Janus Overseas deserves a shout out though as it is outperforming every other fund I track year to date showing a gain over 50%.


Only one fund failed to gain ground last week. Bonds were mostly flat, but BSV Vanguard Short Term Bond ETF lost 0.03%.

Fund of the Week: BTTRX American Century Target 2025

Bonds rule. BTTRX American Century Target 2025 was up 3.44% last week. This fund has posted solid results since this experiment began on May 1, 2007, but has struggled year to date.


Financial companies, in particular smaller ones, got hammered, but Real Estate took the worst blow last week with REACX American Century Real Estate losing -12.72% in 5 days.

Fund of the Week: REACX American Century Real Estate

Real Estate was up last week with REACX American Century Real Estate earning more than any other fund in my experiment, up 3.96% for the week. My Brokerage has more real estate funds in it than the other portfolios in my experiment which is why it had a better week.


Value Funds lost ground and SWFFX Schwab Financial Services lost the most -2.30% as investors remembered that financial companies suck.

Fund of the Week: BIV Vanguard Intermediate Term Bond ETF

BIV Vanguard Intermediate Term Bond ETF was the only fund from my portfolios up more than 1% last week. The other 9 funds in the top 10 were bond funds.



Finance companies continued their journey toward nationalization. But the real losers were real estate funds with REACX American Century Real Estate down -13.79% in one week.

Fund of the Week: DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Idx TR ETN

For the second time this month, DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Idx TR ETN had the best one week performance, up 1.60%. It was the only fund up more than 1% and was up more than twice as much as the second best fund, BTTRX American Century Target Mat 2025 My Post , which was up 0.71%.

The rest of the funds in positive territory for the week were bond funds.

DJP also has the best year to date performance of the 90+ funds I track.

Most of the funds were down with SSREX SSgA Tuckerman Active. REIT My Post suffering the biggest loss at -5.09%. All the Real Estate Funds in my portfolios were in the bottom 10 for the wee.

Next pick for WylieMoney Slowly is Real Estate!

That's right, Real Estate!

If you want to invest in what's hot, like I said before, buy some corn:


For the WylieMoney Slowly portfolio, I am adding one fund per month in the order I originally researched each of the 20 categories I picked. This month is Real Estate. Plus, buying low is half the battle, right?

A quick glance at Etrade for no-load, inexpensive Real Estate funds confirms that SSgA T. Act. REIT - SSREX is still the best fund available (My Post).

Just to reiterate, I am not advising anyone go out and buy a Real Estate fund for a taxable (non-retirement) account. I am tracking the performance of hypothetical accounts and trying to learn a thing or two about mutual fund investing strategies along the way. I do actually own a Real Estate fund in a taxable account and I can confirm that it is taxed higher than standard mutual funds and getting accurate tax information about it holds up my taxes every year so it is a headache and a half.

Regardless, today is the day I'll add the Real Estate fund.

What credit crunch? Part 2

I just don't get it.

Maybe I'm being obtuse.

I read more and more articles about all the adjustable rate mortgages people have that are about to reset and how the entire country will go into foreclosure and the government and banks should do everything they can to help out all the poor souls who got in over their heads when times were good.

Actually, this article gives me some hope that the world is not going crazy... as it outlines a plan in which most people are left being responsible for their own decisions.

If you have an adjustable rate mortgage, refinance it, plain and simple. But wait you say, rates are not good... there is a credit "crunch."

Is it possible that the only crunch you should be worried about is the crunching of cold hard cash in you pocket after you lower your monthly payment?

I live near Boston, not a cheap place to live. 30 year fixed mortgage for no points available today at 5.625%.

I don't care what your lender told you your ARM might reset to, if you can't afford your home loan at 5.625%, you can't afford your home. (Sure there are evil lenders who mislead borrowers, and they should be punished and their victims should be helped).

If you live in the Boston area, check out Powder House. I get no compensation for the referral, I used them myself to refinance several years back for 5.375% with no points. Their closing costs are not the lowest, but for these rates with no points, I have not found a better deal.

So long TIAA CREF!

My employer offers two different companies for retirement investing. I originally signed up for TIAA/CREF as they had a Real Estate option and the other company (Invesmart) did not.

I allocated a more than advisable percentage of my savings into the Real Estate offering for several years and did pretty well with that. I am switching out of TIAA CREF and into Invesmart which means no more Real Estate option. Even though Real Estate is not likely to do as well as it has over the last few years, I am still bummed I won't have the option. But overall, I think Invesmart is a better choice.

I think both the plans my employer offers are ok, but there are two reasons I am switching.

1. The plan available to me through TIAA/CREF invests in annuities in a 403(b). These are not mutual funds so I cannot research the holdings on morningstar. I cannot compare them to other 'funds' in the same categories. I can go here and assess performance, but I cannot compare each holding, side by side with the competition.
2. The main reason I am switching is that the options through Invesmart are, for the most part, better (once one goes through the tedium of trying to compare the two). Invesmart picks top mutual funds in each category and offers that fund. If a fund falls off the wagon they replace it with a better performing fund in the same category.

Yodlee hooks up with Zillow!

I have talked about Yodlee before. Let me re-iterate that this totally free service is amazing. I use it to keep track of over 20 accounts!

Now you are probably thinking that 20 accounts is a few too many, and I can understand that. But when you start to count each account you have, checking, savings, visa, discover card, Roth IRA, 401(k)/403(b), and then double that if you are married, you get up there pretty quick. When I bought my hybrid, I opened several credit cards with 0% balance transfers to get 0% financing over an extended period of time. So on and so forth. With a tool as nice as yodlee.com, why bother closing accounts?

So I have my mortgage set up in yodlee, and pay my bill each month there. But I had to create a custom entry and enter the estimated value of my home as a manual account to get a realistic picture of my finances overall. Until this week that is.

I was browsing around one night and saw a link called "Real Estate Center." I clicked it and there was an option to set up my address in a tool that automatically goes to zillow.com and grabs the estimate. If you own a home or are shopping for a home and have not checked out Zillow, you should. It complies local sales information and tabulates home values and contains tons of tons of great information on top of a really neat interface that uses google maps and microsoft's visual earth.

And like yodlee, zillow is free.

So now Yodlee goes out and grabs my account values as well as my home's estimated value and pulls all the info together and provides charts and graphs of changes in value, spending, and now equity in my home = zillow estimate - mortgage!

Saving money on home improvement

I have several posts mulling around in my noggin but I have been too tired at night to get them out this week as we have been getting home from work and going straight to work, scraping the old peeling paint off the side of our house.


You can tell from the second picture how high I up I have to go to clean up the second floor windows and and digging into the old paint with a hand scraper that high up is kinda not cool.


But we have been scraping and painting one side of the house each year for three years. I have not priced out how much we are saving, painting ourselves, but I imagine it would buy a Wylie fund or two...


I just realized I do not have a good picture of either of the two sides we are done with. This one shows the front which we painted last year. The new color we are using is similar, but a bit more blue. You can also see the bags of leaves and pine needles we raked up, waiting to be taken to be composted by our town. Yes, we also do our own 'landscaping' which probably saves us enough for a few months of subsequent investments in a Wylie fund or two.

Wait to file your taxes if...

...you own a brokerage account.

I was jealous of a colleague who declared that he already had his tax refund on the way. I was even more jealous of the fact that his refund was small.

Why would I be jealous of a small refund?

In this case the government has been taking only as much money from my colleague over the course of the year as he ultimately would owe in taxes. Some people like getting big refunds, but that is a big interest free loan you are giving to the government... If you have enough income to do that, I've got a bridge for sale...

So if you can only have what you will owe withheld (takes good planning), you get paid more throughout the year meaning you have more every two weeks to donate to charity, spend on bird seed, or spend at the movies.

Anyway- last year I got an amended tax statement from my brokerage and I was really glad I had not submitted my taxes, because I would have had to re-submit them with the new form if I had been more on the ball. This year, I have yet to receive my tax statement from etrade and when my colleague was like "I'm done with my taxes" I was all like- "what is up with my stuff?"

So I logged into my etrade account and found this buried in the page that allows you to view your tax forms:

"If you hold a mutual fund, REIT, or RIC, we may need to issue you an amended Form 1099. This may affect the date you will want to file your tax return. To minimize the possibility of multiple corrections, we will not be generating amended 1099s until late February 2007."

I didn't even know what a RIC was but I own Mutual Funds and a REIT (Boston Properties).

My initial reaction was- why can't etrade get this stuff right the first time? Then I read an article by Andrea Coombes that led me to believe that brokerages are required (perhaps by law?) to send tax info by Jan 31st, but that many mutual funds and REITS send updated info to brokerages after this date forcing brokerages to send multiple copies and forcing those of us who invest in Funds and REITs to wait to file our taxes or file multiple times. Andrea specifically notes that some Brokerages are seeking permission to wait to send their tax info to clients.

Since etrade bought my old brokerage, but the transfer did not happen until a couple of weeks into Jan. I wonder how may tax forms I will actually get...

etrade does have this message on my account home page:

"1099s Available by January 31st.
This year as part of your move to E*TRADE Financial, you may receive TWO tax statements for 2006. Your tax statement(s) will be mailed to you and made available online by January 31."

What this should say is that I may receive FOUR tax statements and should not even bother trying to figure out my taxes until the end of Feb.

But regardless, the confusion and how long it is taking for me to receive this info does not appear to be etrade's fault, but rather a result of changing and complicated regulations.

Non-Ret: Specialty Real Estate

My Pick: SSgA Tuckerman Active REIT Fund SSREX

These days may be the worst possible time to invest in Real Estate in general as prices have run up tremendously over the last few years. That said- Office Real Estate has still been rising- Boston Properties for example (Stock symbol: BXP) has been doing well- even as residential real estate has struggled.

Etrade's funds screener does not distinguish between funds that focus on commercial vs Residential Real Estate sectors- or a combination, etc. so it will be difficult to focus on a sub-sector using this research tool. This is OK as I do not want to try and chase market trends- I want to pick a good fund I can contribute to over time. Regardless, I picked the order of categories to diversify according to a progression and if I wanted to build a portfolio of 9 funds, Specialty Real Estate would be the category I would pick from next.

The best performing No-Load fund Etrade offers requires an initial $15,000 investment so I am not picking it. It also lists a turnover ratio of 1411%. This goes to show you that some managers can make big profits buying and selling constantly, but I would hate to get the tax bill for profits earned this way!

My pick is SSgA Tuckerman Active REIT Fund SSREX. It has a $1000 minimum initial purchase and lower than average expenses 1.00% and turnover 35%. The average for Real Estate Funds is expenses 1.48% and turnover 81.98%. It does make you wonder why Active is in the title since the turnover is only 35% but what are you gonna do?