In November, TD Ameritrade announced that they will now offer nearly 300 Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) on their commission-free list, up from the approximately 100 introduced more than five years ago. This was thought to be welcome news. However,
With the Dow and S&P 500 hitting all-time highs, is a bear market on the horizon? It’s an interesting question, and one that I’ve heard asked for the last four years, ever since the S&P 500 surpassed the 2007 pre-Great Recession levels. The Dow currently sits atop 22,000, hitting new highs nearly every day. Hence the million dollar question: When will it drop?
We had a client commit $10,000 to try out our Long/Short CEF-Arb strategy on March 28, 2016. One year later, on March 31st, their account was valued at $11,315—up over 13%, after fees. The biggest swoon the account experienced was a drop of 2.9% in October. That compares to the S&P 500, which saw a 17% return in the same 12-month timeframe, but experienced a drop of 6% in June. This is what the investment world would call a good upside/downside ratio. We captured 76% of the market’s move up, but only 48% of the move down. A golden goose? Almost!
All of our offerings—including Essentials, which is free—will include Retirement planning, real-time net worth tracking, budgeting, cash flow analysis, investment allocation analysis, an estate planning checklist, a private document vault, and real-time links to investment, bank, and credit accounts. We’ll also be able to assign and complete planning tasks right within the application. You can consider it similar to Mint.com, only better: complete with interactive planning features from your friends at Sommers Financial Management.
As we enter 2017, it’s a chance to take some time to reflect on the past year and think about our hopes and dreams with the flip of another calendar year. There were likely some happy surprises, and some hard challenges in 2016. Do you ever stop to think what you have control over, and those things that are completely out of your control?
During a recent conversation about how to invest her portfolio, while looking at our model portfolio offerings, a client remarked about our Closed-End Fund (CEF) Arbitrage model: “Well this one appears to have the best potential for higher returns, without taking on any more risk than the ‘Conservative’ model. Why wouldn’t everyone choose CEF-Arb?”