Easy Money: Reinvesting Dividends

Some of the easiest money comes from reinvesting dividends.  Over long periods of time (such as 20, 60, or 80 years) dividends accounted for a little more than 40% of total stock market returns.  Stated otherwise, if you spent dividends, as opposed to reinvesting them, your portfolio would have enjoyed only a little more than half the return it could have gotten with reinvested dividends.  Remember that reinvesting dividends has a compounding effect, and compounding is very, very good for your net worth (see http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2009/09/if-you-love-compounding-compounding.html).  Your total return can be greatly magnified with compounding, accounting for well over half the long term return.

It's easy to reinvest dividends when you invest in mutual funds.  On the account opening form, just check the box for reinvesting dividends and interest, and the mutual fund's administrator will do the rest. Dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) offered by the company issuing the stock are clumsier, since you have register with the company and the shares are less liquid (not so easily sold).  Some brokerage firms will reinvest dividends received in your account.  However, you may not have from DRIPs or brokerage accounts the diversification that offers a reasonably steady flow of dividends.  The easiest way to reinvest dividends is through mutual funds (make sure you choose a fund with low costs).

You'll have to pay taxes on the dividends if they're held in a taxable account (although possibly at a lower rate than what you pay for ordinary income).  If your investments are in a tax-sheltered account like a 401(k) or IRA, dividends will be reinvested as a matter of course and you'll pay taxes when you withdraw the money, or convert or transfer to a Roth account.  For money from tax sheltered accounts, taxes will be assessed at ordinary income rates.  But taxes are imposed on dividends even if you don't reinvest.  So they're don't really affect your decision whether or not to reinvest.

Reinvesting makes money for you while you're sleeping, cooking dinner, playing golf, mowing the lawn or indulging in more screen time than you'd ever allow your kids.  Don't pass up this chance to make easy money. 

How Government Inflation Policies Would Smack the Middle Class

The federal government proposes to use inflation to smack the middle class.  The Federal Reserve has an inflation target of 2%, and some Fed officials, fearing that deflation is around the corner--have recently been openly grousing about how inflation--running just above 1%--is too low.  They want to take away your spending power faster.  One of their primary tools for fueling inflation is to obliterate positive interest rates--or, stated otherwise, to deprive you of interest income.  Your faint memories of the distant past, when interest income actually required you to fill out Schedule B for your tax return, will become entirely ethereal.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed to use a less generous inflation adjustment (the Chained CPI) for Social Security recipients and federal and military retirees.  The Chained CPI would also be used to adjust tax brackets, with the effect that taxes would be higher than under the currently used CPI.  In other words, the Fed wants to increase inflation, while the President wants less protection for retirees and taxpayers from the ravages of inflation. 

Those whose incomes are middle class or lower (i.e., $100,000 a year or less) tend to be vulnerable to inflation.  They have little discretionary income left after necessary monthly expenses, and consequently, not much of a buffer against increases in inflation.  Retirees are especially defenseless.  Add the heavier taxes resulting from the Chained CPI, and the federal government's inflation policies could effectively reduce middle class and retiree incomes in real terms.

With the sluggish U.S. economy 70% dependent on consumption, it makes no sense for the federal government to deploy inflation as a weapon against those with middle class or lower incomes.  Reduce incomes and people will consume less.  If these federal policies somehow stimulate greater economic growth, it isn't hard to figure who will benefit the most from that greater growth, and it ain't gonna be the lowest 80%. 

The Chained CPI hasn't become law yet, and not all Fed officials want to ignite inflation.  So the worst may not come to pass.  But the lowest 80%, already facing uncertain employment prospects and stagnant wages, really don't need to be squeezed by inflation policies that make sense only to those well-to-do people who are insulated from their impacts.

Your Social Security Benefits: Countering the Chained CPI

The President has proposed using the Chained CPI as the measure for cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits, and other federal and military retirement benefits.  The impact on benefits would be to reduce the annual increase by about 0.3%.  While this amount seems small, it accumulates over time.  After ten years, your benefits would be reduced by 3-4% per year.  After twenty years, the reduction would be around 6-7% per year.  If you receive Social Security for thirty years, the reduction would be around 9% or more per year.  For those relying heavily on Social Security, which could be up to half of all recipients, that can hurt, especially considering the unstoppable, uber-inflationary costs of medical care for the elderly.  The Chained CPI proposal is criticized for hitting the most elderly and vulnerable the hardest.  Women take a bigger hit than men because they live longer and depend more heavily on Social Security.

The Chained CPI would also increase taxes.  Tax brackets and certain other features of the tax system are adjusted for inflation.  If the adjustment is smaller, as it would be with the Chained CPI, the effect would be to raise taxes.  As with Social Security benefits, the tax increases would fall most heavily on those at the lowest income levels (who otherwise are taxed lightly).

If you're wondering if implementation of the Chained CPI would affect you, the answer is yes.  It affects everyone, although the well-off would suffer the least in relative terms.  The likelihood of the adoption of the Chained CPI is difficult to predict.  Conservatives and many moderates generally like the idea, although the white Boomers at the heart of the Republican Party will sooner or later figure out that they would take a bullet for their party's ideology from the Chained CPI.  When they do, we'll find out if there's a cure for stupid.

Anyway, how could you counter the impact of the Chained CPI, if it's adopted?  Save more.  Start saving more now, and save more every month.  It's hard to estimate how much more, because the answer would depend heavily on the specifics of your financial situation.  But a rough guesstimate might be 1% of your income or a bit more if you're in your 20s or 30s, 2% for those in their 40s, and 3-4% if you've reached the Big 5-0.  This may not sound like much, but try doing it (remember, this amount would be in addition to other saving you should be doing for retirement).  A lot of Americans can't.  Those who fail should acquire a taste for dog food, because it looms in their futures.

President Obama may think that proposing the Chained CPI keeps federal spending at a relatively stimulative level in the near term future, to help pull the economy out of the Great Recession, while reducing long term spending to help control the deficit.  But if rational Americans begin saving more to compensate for the lower benefits and higher taxes promised for their retirements, the near term impact of the Chained CPI would be to reduce consumption and retard recovery.  And continuation of the Great Recession would prolong the large deficits we now have.

The President seems obsessed with attaining a Grand Compromise.  He seems to think doing so will burnish his legacy.  That's weird.  Consider the Presidents who attained greatness through compromise.  There's . . . uh . . . well . . . I mean . . . you know . . .  Okay, look at the flip side of the question.  Consider the great Presidents.  George Washington, who lost 7 of the 9 major battles he fought in the American Revolution, didn't compromise with the British.  Abraham Lincoln, who dallied initially with compromise until the Confederates digitally and martially expressed their views, became the great non-Compromisor who rid America of the curse of slavery.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, greatest President of the 20th Century, allowed Republican leaders as much input into the New Deal as Mozart had into Jailhouse Rock.  Let us recall the great proponents of compromise in America's history:  Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun.  Their accomplishments as progenitors of accommodation are known to as many as 26% of all high school students for a period of time not exceeding 36 hours before and 2.14 minutes after exam time.  This is a desirable legacy?  Well, maybe in the eyes of some, but, please, not at the expense of those least able to bear that expense.

Political Risks of Social Insecurity

The financial press has reported that the United States ranks 19th worldwide in the retirement security, lagging behind Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, among other nations.  http://www.cnbc.com/id/100534205.  We're one step ahead of Britain, but well behind France and Germany.  The Scandinavian countries rank at the top, along with Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and tiny Luxembourg.  Even Japan, after more than two decades of economic malaise, ranks 15th, four steps higher than America.

This probably doesn't surprise many Americans, particularly those who are approaching or in retirement.  They have probably already viscerally sensed their comparative insecurity.  Herein lies great risk for politicians who would reduce America's social safety net.  Our net is modest compared to the protections offered by most of the industrialized world.  If it's cut, the pain--particularly for moderate and lower income Americans--could be pronounced.  It's one thing if your retirement benefits may not cover as many restaurant meals as you would like.  It's another if your cost of living increase is so paltry that you can't afford needed prescription medications.

That we have a fiscal imbalance is because our taxes are even lower on a comparative basis.  (See http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2009-11-25-oecd25_ST_N.htm.)  America could without enormous pain pay for its current social safety net without having to borrow.  We just don't want the taxes it would take to get there. 

Many politicians in Washington sound off about cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.  This isn't just Republicans.  President Obama has been quick to offer reductions in Social Security.  One is to change the Social Security inflation adjustment from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the Personal Consumption Price Expenditures Index (PCE).  The effect of this change would to gradually erode the relative value of Social Security benefits, with the most elderly being the hardest hit over time.  Is is really a good thing to whack the most vulnerable, who may have exhausted their savings and be unable to work? 

Consciously or subconsciously, Americans know that their retirement benefits aren't great.  And many of them won't be happy with politicians who make their retirements bleaker.  If the President and the Republicans somehow reach a Grand Bargain to stabilize or even balance the budget, the political impact may surprise them.  As Republicans clumsily attempt to embrace diversity, their core of older, white Americans may abandon them if they lead the charge to cut retirement benefits.  President Obama, instead of being viewed as a latter day FDR, may end up appearing to fall into the mold of Herbert Hoover.  And the liberal left, annoyingly shrill as they can sometimes be, may end up inheriting the White House in 2016. 

Over the Fiscal Cliff and Through the Woods

Over the cliff and through the woods,
To a grand recession we go.
Congress knows the way to waste its last day,
raising taxes and adding woe.

Over the cliff and through the woods,
To a grand recession we go.
The Fed is on deck, printing money like heck,
Investors are losing dough.

Over the cliff and through the woods,
To a grand recession we go.
The Dems go their way to make the rich pay,
Republicans say no no.

Over the cliff and through the woods,
To a grand recession we go.
Where the deficit shrinks, while the jobless drink,
Eating cake is for the po'.

Happy New Year.

How Statistics Can Lower Your Standard of Living

What you don't know can hurt you.

Nothing glazes over as many eyes as economic statistics. And with good reason, since most of them, even if accurate (a big assumption) don't mean much of anything by themselves. At best, even the most important economic statistics are meaningful only when considered in light of numerous other statistics and the big picture revealed thereby.

But there are a few statistics that really matter: the ones used to figure out how much we are paid and taxed. The ongoing debate over Social Security and tax reform revolves around three of them. Pay attention, because money talks and these statistics are talking loudly.

Social Security benefits and federal pension payments are adjusted by an inflation index called the CPI-W, or the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Federal income tax brackets are adjusted by the the CPI-U, or the Consumer Price index for All Urban Consumers. The CPI-W and CPI-U are not identical. But they both gather information about the prices and amounts of goods and services people buy, put the information in a giant mixing bowl, swirl things around vigorously, dump the contents in a large blender, and churn out a value that reflects a composite price value, weighted by the relative amounts of goods and services people buy. Changes in prices over time increase or decrease (usually increase) the value of the composite. These changes are treated as the measured inflation rate. The CPI-W and CPI-U also take account of changing consumption patterns of consumers--i.e., as consumers buy less iceberg lettuce and more arugula (or vice versa, which may be the case in times of recession), the weights assigned to the prices of iceberg versus arugula are adjusted. These adjustments are made once every few years.

The debt ceiling/budget deficit debate has included a proposal to use the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (or Chained CPI) in place of the CPI-W and CPI-U as the measure of inflation for adjusting Social Security, federal pensions and tax brackets. The Chained CPI takes account of substitution of goods as prices rise. For example, if the price of beef rises, consumers may eat less beef and more chicken, thus lowering their overall spending on meat. The Chained CPI doesn't increase as much as the CPI-W and CPI-U because overall meat expenditures don't rise as fast when chicken is substituted for beef. If consumers substitute beans for beef and chicken, then the Chained CPI would rise even less. The Chained CPI may, over time, rise about one-third more slowly than the CPI-W or the CPI-U. (Actually, the CPI-W and CPI-U also incorporate the substitution effect but reflect those changes only once every few years, while the Chained CPI accounts for the substitution effect much more quickly.)

Using the Chained CPI, instead of the CPI-W, to increase various federal payments will be less costly to the federal government. But that's only part of the story. The Chained CPI, as an index for increasing Social Security and pension payments, punishes people for economizing, because it treats substitution solely as a matter of price, without taking account of the loss of perceived quality. Given a more miserly inflation adjustment, people might economize some more, only to be further punished through next year's use of the Chained CPI to get a lower inflation adjustment. That in turn would continue the cycle of skimping, followed by punishment, followed by more skimping, resulting in more punishment, until people are eating sawdust instead of bread. At a time when we need to sustain and support consumer spending in order to have a foundation for economic recovery, using the Chained CPI lessens the potential for recovery.

The use of the CPI-W as an index for adjusting payments to retirees has been criticized for not fully reflecting the rising costs of health care, which are more burdensome for retirees than younger, healthier people. But the Chained CPI would only make things worse, and if people turn to alternative medicine because they can't afford mainstream care, their cost of living adjustments will be further limited by the Chained CPI. Witch doctors will rejoice.

As if retirees and other Americans receiving Social Security haven't been penalized enough, look at what happens when the Chained CPI is applied to the tax code. By law, the CPI-U is applied to increase the level at which higher tax rates are imposed. In other words, the more inflation there is, the lighter taxes become at a given income level because inflation has effectively lowered the value of that amount of income.

The inflation adjustment was enacted in the 1980s as a matter of fairness and to take away an incentive for the federal government to inflate the dollar, slyly obtaining tax increases without legislating them. If the Chained CPI is substituted for the CPI-U, the effect will be to weaken that policy by raising tax brackets less quickly when there's inflation. The Chained CPI would, in effect, to raise taxes from what current law provides. That, in turn, would squeeze consumers, forcing them to cut back on their standard of living.

The combined effect of substituting the Chained CPI for the CPI-W and CPI-U would be that retirees and others receiving federal payments would be hammered harder by inflation, and their taxes would increase in real terms to reward them for having to live with lower standards of living. As they tried to cope with their reduced circumstances, their inflation adjustments would be even less, while their taxes would effectively rise some more. Catch-22, only this isn't fiction. Even if you're not receiving Social Security yet, don't think this doesn't affect you. Your taxes will be higher than otherwise because the brackets will adjust slower.

The Chained CPI provides useful information to economists and others trying to understand consumer behavior. But if it becomes the legal basis for deciding how much the government pays to retirees and other people (recall that many receiving Social Security are disabled), and also for how much government will tax its citizens, then it may end up automatically lowering standards of living. Why this beggar the citizens policy in a time of economic stagnation is a good idea hasn't been explained. Yes, it would tend to reduce the federal deficit, but only by making the electorate poorer.

The times are beginning to hark back to the pinched, self-flagellating malaise of the late 1970s, when it seemed we could do little about OPEC oil price hikes except turn down the heat and wear sweaters. The Chained CPI proposal takes advantage of the unfamiliarity of most citizens with the complexities of economic statistics. It would lower standards of living for tens of millions of Americans while raising taxes on all, and encourages the federal government to foster inflation. Why is this a good thing? The federal deficit needs to be addressed. But surreptitiously eroding the prosperity of citizens, most of whom aren't prosperous anyway, is the wrong approach.

The Easy Stock Market

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped almost 300 points in the last two days, and oil prices have popped up to $100 a barrel. Gas will reach $3.40 to $3.50 a gallon in a week or two. This, all because unrest in the Arab world has upended the government of Libya, a major oil producer. Libya's erstwhile leader, Muammar Khaddafi, is holed up with several thousand loyal troops. Much of Libya is now in rebel hands, and some military units have abandoned Khaddafi. His survival looks increasingly unlikely. But if his forces are well-provisioned, the fighting could continue for who knows how long.

Libya has no governmental structure (no constitution, no formal process for succession of leadership). If Khaddafi falls, a hundred claimants to leadership could step forward. That would take a while to sort out.

Oil production in Libya is grinding to a halt, and may stay halted for a long time. Other OPEC nations might be able to increase their production enough to fill the gap. But much of the new production would be sulfur-heavy, expensive to refine crude, not the light, sweet, low-polluting crude that Libya produces. And that assumes OPEC would be willing to increase production instead of cash in on the higher prices.

Gas prices have already drifted up 15% in the past six months. At some point, rising oil and gasoline prices, declining real estate values, continued high unemployment, stagnating (or in the case of many public employees, falling) incomes, and cutbacks in state and federal government spending will combine to chill the economic recovery. Whether we fall into recession again, or just idle in neutral, things won't be good.

It's no surprise the Dow fell so abruptly. Today's stock market is bipolar, either delirious with joy or down in the dumps. The market's recent meteoric rise created the conditions for an abrupt pullback. Whether it's easy come or easy go, we have an easy stock market.

Policy wonks on both the left and right will renew calls for energy independence. The programs they recommend will differ. None will be simple or cheap. However achieved, independence will be expensive.

The economic distress caused by volatile oil prices, the 5,000 plus American dead and hundreds of billions of American dollars spent fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the need for expensive continued U.S. presence in an increasingly unstable region haunted by seemingly unstoppable nuclear proliferation make the cost of inaction extremely high. That doesn't mean there will be action. America's divided government is struggling to accomplish anything. Thus far in 2011, it's mostly followed past policies of expanding the federal deficit by cutting taxes and increasing spending. A gargantuan problem such as energy independence may be impossible for the pushmi-pullyu in Washington to handle. Save your nickels. Cash money will command a premium as uncertainty grows.

Congressional Action in the Lame Duck Session

The mid-term elections in five weeks are likely to produce political deadlock. The Republicans will probably win control of the House and perhaps the Senate. The Dems have the White House. From January 2011 through December 2012, not much is likely to happen in Washington (although you'll need earplugs to save your hearing from all the partisan yammering).

As things are, Congress isn't likely to do anything significant before the elections--it's easier for a candidate to make promises to voters than explain a vote in Congress. There will be one moment for action: the lame duck session that follows the elections. In the last two months of this year, the current 111th session of Congress will have its last hurrah. The Democratic-dominated body will have one final chance to push through legislation it favors. The President will probably sign anything that vaguely serves his agenda, since he's not likely to get his way with Congress again during the remainder of his first term.

A number of Democrats facing re-election contests are momentarily wavering on their party's agenda, such as continued Bush tax cuts for all but the wealthy. After the election, though, some may be lame duck legislators, with nothing to lose by voting their convictions instead of for their survival. Others may see a last chance to serve the needs of supporters.

The Republicans will be in a tight spot. If they block all Democratic initiatives, the Bush tax cuts end on December 31, 2010, and everyone in the U.S. gets a tax increase. The Republicans won't want be tagged with responsibility for that. You can bet the Dems will introduce in the lame duck session a bill continuing the Bush tax cuts for all but the wealthy. They will also introduce the annual fix for the alternative minimum tax (a tax-the-rich measure signed by Republican President Richard Nixon to make sure the wealthy didn't deduct their way to no taxes). The alternative minimum tax isn't adjusted automatically for inflation, so over time it has reached well down into the middle class. It has to be fixed every year so that it hits only the upper middle class (the alternative minimum tax now taxes many millions more than just the wealthy and is a key revenue raiser that no one, Democrat or Republican, has the guts to fix permanently because doing so would cost the government a shipload of money).

The Republicans will have to find a way not to block all tax relief, lest they betray their asserted principles. But they don't have the numbers in the 111th Congress to control legislation. Even though the Republicans squirmed and squealed noisily during the last two years, the Dems had their way with stimulus legislation, expansion of health insurance coverage, and financial regulatory reform. Neither party can afford to allow nothing to happen during the lame duck session. Alternative minimum tax relief is an annual Congressional ritual, and will be accompanied by one or more attempts to extend at least some of the Bush tax cuts. It's impossible to predict how things will turn out. But keep your eyes open because the upcoming lame duck session may be the most important legislative event of the next two years.

How Can the Economy Recover If Bad Must Become Good?

The path to economic recovery, it would seem, requires bad to become good.

We're told consumer spending must rise. Instead, it's stagnant or dropping as consumers save more and pay down their debts. Improving balance sheets is good for consumers, because they can't spend with confidence if they're swamped in debt. When they try, we end up with a credit crisis, like the one in 2008-09. But policy makers want consumers to spend more even though it would be bad for them.

The Fed keeps lowering interest rates. The economy is growing, yet there is a good likelihood the Fed will resume buying longer term bonds after its August 10 meeting in order to rates. The effect is the same as printing money. Somehow, the concoction of dollars out of thin air is considered good even though it defies any common sense notion of value. Monetary relaxation hasn't spurred the economy because the banks aren't lending. Even though ultra low interest rates subsidize banks, they don't produce much of anything for the rest of us. Holders of capital are punished for their thrift. It's no surprise even the well-to-do are spending less. Lower rates will only discourage them more, but the Fed seems to believe that bad is good.

Conservatives want to reduce federal deficits while keeping in place the Bush 2001 tax cuts. Those are the same cuts that, along with President George W. Bush's foreign misadventures, produced the monumental deficits we have today. Why repeat Bush the Younger's errors? But conservatives think bad is good.

Liberals never see a spending bill they don't like. The most recent is a $26 billion bailout of the states that has passed the Senate and will probably pass the House next week and be signed by the President. This bill is couched as a measure to prevent more layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters. But money is fungible. If states didn't get this money, they wouldn't necessarily lay off more teachers, police officers and firefighters. They might make other cuts to keep important personnel on the payrolls. The $26 billion bailout allows the states to avoid facing problems of their own making. It's one thing to bailout unemployed people who were laid off through no fault of their own. Even bailing out Wall Street banks in order to save the financial system is defensible on some level. But providing a bailout to states that can raise taxes if they want to keep spending or cut their budgets, simply pushes the costs of state government political miscalculations and profligacy onto federal taxpayers. This bailout is bad, even though it's couched as good.

So, we can see that bad must become good for the economy to improve. If we can just bring ourselves to believe six impossible things before breakfast, everything will be all right.

Investing in Individual Stocks and Bonds

Back in the days when cars had fins and a household felt lucky to have one television, people invested mostly by buying individual stocks and bonds. The market swung up and down in the 1950's and 1960's, and then really dipped in the 1970's. After that, the benefits of diversification became much more apparent, and investors have gravitated toward mutual funds, and now their latest iteration, ETFs. But what about investing in individual stocks and bonds? Is it a workable way to invest? Is it a good idea? Here are a few thoughts.

1. It'll take a lot of research and analysis. You'll have to look into a number of potential investments before you find a good one. And you'll need a number of good ones to have a reasonably diversified portfolio. Don't invest based solely on someone's recommendation, especially if you got it in a social setting. Would you take financial advice from a financial planner who's had a couple of drinks? If not, why would you take financial advice from an acquaintance or neighbor who's had a couple of drinks? People will boast about their winners, but you won't hear much about their losers. So you'll get only half the story.

2. You'll have the problem of too much choice. There are thousands of mutual funds and ETFs to choose from. There are many, many more individual stocks and bonds. Knowing where to begin your research, and where to stop, will be a challenge. Sure, the Internet provides you a lot of information. But it provides everyone a lot of information. You'll have no informational advantage from using the Internet. You may be thinking that if you had been an early investor in Microsoft or Berkshire Hathaway, you'd be trading up to a bigger yacht today. But which of the many thousands of stocks available today is the next Microsoft or Berkshire Hathaway?

3. You need to keep a lot of records. In order to do your tax returns correctly, you'll have to have a detailed history of the stocks you own. Of course, you need a record of how much you paid for it--and it has to be a good record, like an account statement or a trade confirmation. Your personal notes or your entry in some computer software won't carry a lot of weight with the IRS. And that's just the beginning. You'll need to keep track of stock splits and stock swaps resulting from mergers or corporate recapitalizations. If you participate in a dividend reinvestment program, keeping track of the tax basis in your shares becomes more complex. And if you inherit stock, you need to know the "carry over" basis in the stock (i.e.., its value on the date of death of the person who bequeathed the stock to you). Get used to the idea of keeping some paper records for a very long time, because many computerized records often don't have much legal value as evidence. Further, as computer storage technology changes over time, the data on those floppy disks in the back of your desk will be inaccessible soon, if they aren't already.

4. You still have to diversify, but diversification is much harder with individual stocks and bonds. You need a fair amount of capital to have reasonable diversification, with stockholdings across a number of different industry groups, and in foreign as well as American companies. You'll also need to have some bonds, and the bond part of your portfolio should have a variety of maturities, ranging from at least two to ten years.

5. Unlike mutual fund investments, you'd have to pay commissions to purchase stocks, and also the "bid-ask spread." Stocks are quoted in two prices in the stock market: (a) the "ask" price, at which you buy; and (b) the "bid" price, at which you sell. The difference between these two prices, called the "bid-ask spread" is tantamount to an expense of investing. If you invest for the long term, buying and holding stocks for years or decades, these costs tend to amortize over a long time and become fairly minor. But if you trade stocks a lot, these costs can significantly reduce your returns.

6. You'll face the temptation to trade stocks and bonds on a short term basis, selling whenever you have a bit of a profit. This is a bad idea, because short term trading generally is less profitable than buying and holding. But your stock broker may encourage short term trading because it generates commission income for him or her.

7. At the same time, you have to monitor your portfolio and sell the investments that seem to be going downhill. The value of stocks can sometimes evaporate very quickly. Ask Enron shareholders about this.

8. If you see finance as a hobby or avocation, and are willing to put a lot of time into it, investing in individual stocks and bonds may be enjoyable and profitable. But if all this investing stuff is just work and more work for you, stick with mutual funds and ETFs.

Crime News: what some people will do to get their fruits and vegetables. http://www.wtop.com/?nid=456&sid=1170738.

Exchange Traded Funds for Beginners

A relatively new product of the financial services industry has been getting a lot of publicity lately. That's the exchange traded fund, or ETF. The ETF is type of mutual fund that you can buy or sell while the stock market is open. By contrast, traditional mutual funds are bought or sold only after the stock market closes. (You can send in an order for shares of a traditional mutual fund any time, but the order will be filled only after the market closes, at a price based on the closing prices of the stocks and/or bonds that the mutual fund holds.) Although ETFs have been around for about 15 years, they have attained widespread popularity only recently. If you're unfamiliar with them, here are a few basic points.

1. ETFs generally have low costs and expenses, but you have to buy them through a stockbroker. That means you pay a commission. In addition, ETFs have two prices in the market: the "ask" price at which you buy them, and the "bid" price at which you sell them. The "ask" price will be higher than the "bid" price, and the difference between the two--called the "spread"--is a cost of investing. That's because if you buy at the ask price and immediately sell, you'll lose some money from selling at the lower bid price.

Consequently, ETFs are not always the lowest cost product. A low-cost traditional mutual fund may actually be cheaper, because you can buy it without paying a commission or incurring the "bid-ask spread" as a cost of investing. If you're saving small amounts at a time (e.g., $100 or $200 a month), a traditional mutual fund is a cheaper way to invest than an ETF.

2. ETFs are based on market indexes--in other words, the stocks or bonds they hold are the same ones that comprise a market index. For example, an ETF that mimics the S&P 500 will hold the 500 stocks in that index. ETFs started off with broadly based market indexes, like the S&P 500, and were often good choices for long term investment. However, more recently, ETFs have been created to represent increasingly narrow sectors of the stock markets--like just telecommunications stocks or stocks of one particular country. The narrower the index, the more risky the ETF, because it is less diversified. It may provide excellent returns, or terrible losses. The more you invest in narrowly-based ETFs, the more attention you'll have to pay to the overall diversification of your portfolio. In other words, the more work you'll have to do managing your money.

3. ETFs are often tax efficient, in that they are not required to distribute capital gains each year to investors. Investors report gains on their tax returns only when they sell their ETF shares at a profit. But a carefully managed mutual fund can also achieve a high degree of tax efficiency.

4. ETFs theoretically should trade at the same price as the aggregate prices of their underlying assets. This, however, doesn't always occur. Variations in supply and demand at any particular moment can cause an ETF to trade at a discount or premium to the value of its underlying assets. In addition, technical market problems can cause pricing problems. Trades that occur in the underlying stocks and bonds necessarily are reported after they occur. There is always a time lag between trade prices of the underlying assets and the trade price of the ETF. While the time lag may be minor in normal market conditions, when things become hot and heavy, trade reporting in the underlying assets may become delayed, and discrepancies between the value of the underlying assets and the price of the ETF can occur. If this happens, you could pay too much (or get a bargain) on ETF shares. Conversely, you might sell at a price that either is too high (good for you) or too low (bad for you). But, because you won't know about the trade reporting problems, you won't have any idea until after-the-fact whether you got a good or bad price.

5. You can trade an ETF like a stock. In other words, you can own it for minutes, or even seconds, and then sell it. You can sell it short, buy it on margin, use a limit order and the like. Some people may be tempted to trade ETFs short term because they have so many trading options. Stock brokers may encourage such short term trading because it generates commission income for them. However, the history of the stock markets teaches that short term trading generally is less profitable than long term buying and holding. Indeed, many people lose money, rather than make it, when engaged in short term trading. Be cautious using ETFs for short term trading. With their commission expenses, the bid-ask spread, interest charges on margin debt and the risks of trading short term, ETFs probably offer the typical individual investor few advantages, if any, for short term trading.

The ETF is a good long term investment option. If you buy and hold it, you get the most out of it. If you trade ETFs short term, you might money. But you might lose it. You wouldn't use a spoon to eat a steak. Don't use an ETF in ways that aren't likely to help you.

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