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Editor’s
Note: The following is a roundup of articles about ETFs, index funds and
indexes from other sources than IndexUniverse.com. Comments and suggestions are welcome through email
at:
<!–
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document.write( ‘‘ );
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//–>mcoleman@indexuniverse.com
or  mhougan@indexuniverse.com. 

Has Buffet Lost His Touch?

This catchy title no doubt will
get a lot of attention. And the author, Simon Maierhofer, makes some pointed short-term
observations about Warren Buffett’s advice as viewed from his latest press
clippings.

Maierhofer then leaps into a
discussion of how most ETFs are selling at significant discounts from their
high points. Not a startling revelation, but if you’ve got some time to kill,
this piece from the ETFguide.com might
be of interest.

Note, however, this isn’t an ad-free article. The piece is laced with references and links to its newsletters. You can view it here.

John Spence II?

In Wednesday’s Fund Track
column in the Wall Street Journal,  an earlier story by MarketWatch’s
John Spence on Barclays Global Investor’s move into the target-date retirement
market appears. You might prefer the original, which usually gets a fuller airing
at its original point of creation. (The MarketWatch
site is also free, whereas WSJ still charges.)

It’s your pick … the link to the
WSJ version is here. The original, which we discussed in Monday’s roundup, is
here.

Shorting The Ruble With XRU

The new Rydex Russian Ruble ETF (NYSE:
XRU) has been getting lots of attention. A professional derivatives trader,
Rakesh Saxena, discusses shorting the ETF.

Rather than using inverse funds,
he likes such an approach and explains in detail his reasons for making such a
move. He also suggests not making any short-term bets, rather looking at now
through next year as a proper time horizon for timing such emerging markets
currencies.

One caveat here, though. With Seeking Alpha pieces, most anything
goes. We always read the bios of authors not readily familiar to us. In the bio
supplied, he’s identified as a “risk pricing specialist” at Quote Platform Syndicate
and an active derivatives player. In this case, you’ll notice that Saxena
provides some transparency by explaining at the end what he’s currently
shorting. But please use some common sense here, folks.  

The piece can be found here.

Waiting For A Breakout In Energy

Another professional trader, Jim
Farrish, takes a look at the technical aspects of energy ETFs and what signals
to look for in order to make a play in various subsectors.

As in keeping with most pieces
on Greenfaucet.com, it’s rather short. But it has a graph and gives some general
pointers to those inclined to trading.  (We’re
not familiar with Farrish other than the fact he’s apparently an advisor and
that Greenfaucet.com is run by Chip Hanlon and his Delta Global Advisors group. The
Web site features pieces from the professional advisement
community. )

You can catch the article here.

Lazy Asset Allocation Portfolio

One of those Greenfaucet.com
contributors is Roger Nusbaum. Of course, he also has his own blog site and
regularly pens columns for TheStreet.com.

In this piece written for the
latter, he puts together a portfolio using asset allocation funds with
different set levels. Nusbaum adds other ETFs and ETNs to the mix to fill out a
more diversified portfolio.

You can find the column here.

Last 5 posts by IndexUniverse Staff

• NASDAQ Launches Index Tracking TARP Companies - January 8th, 2009
• Dec. 8: The Best ETF Articles In The National Media - January 8th, 2009
• Jan. 7: The Best ETF Articles In The National Media - January 7th, 2009
• DJ-AIG Commodities Index Changing Weightings - January 6th, 2009
• Jan. 6: The Best ETF Articles In The National Media - January 6th, 2009