Commodities are all the rage lately.  How are they doing?  Generally, they are ahead for the year-to-date period. The energy commodity funds are leading the pack. The broad based commodity funds GSG, DJP and DBC, which we reviewed in some detail in a prior article, show middling performance.  The other narrow scope commodity funds are generally doing less well than the broad based funds. On a three-month basis, the narrow scope funds are generally in negative territory. Many of the funds currently have too few assets under management and too little trading volume to warrant investment.

Lately, it’s been hard to find a safety zone in the markets. Most key classes are down for the YTD, 4-week and 2-week periods. Only commodities, oil in particular, have been bright spots. The following charts use these ETFs as proxies for key asset classes: VTI - US stock market EFA - non-US developed stock markets EEM - non-US emerging stock markets VNQ - US equity REITs DJP - global commodities* USO - oil alone AGG - US aggregate bond market * DJP represents the DJ-AIG Commodity Index which is a “balanced” index. It limits any one of the 19 commodities it follows to a 15% weight, and any of the 5 commodity groups to a 33% weight. Since oil has been the overwhelming performer lately, DJP underweights oil in comparison to its world significance. The S&P GSCI Commodity index represents its commodities on a world production basis. For a more detailed ...

Now that the primaries for both US political parties are over, it is time for investors to begin to evaluate the likely tax change scenarios under the new government that will soon be installed.

All signs are that taxes will rise, but how much and in what ways will differ depending on who is president and which party controls the House and the Senate.

None of the changes are likely to be favorable to investors in general.  Accordingly, there will probably be shifts in what is more or less attractive to investors, with resulting changes in money flow and returns for types of investments.  Company behavior may change as well.

For example, dividends are a case in point.  After the tax laws changed to reduce taxes on dividends, equity income became more popular, several high-yield funds were launched, and companies increased dividend payouts.

If dividends taxes are increased, there may be a shift toward

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Large banks are way down in the past 12 months, and as a consequence their trailing yields are well above normal.  That potentially creates substantial long-term equity income opportunity, but the big question is whether the dividends that make those yields will hold or be cut. 

If you subscribe to the “buy it when it’s cheap” philosophy, then you really need to evaluate any sector when it sinks the way large banks have done.

If you conclude that taking a position (partial or full) in large banks is the right thing to do, we believe that you should buy the sector, not individual banks (unless you have high research-based conviction about the individual company).

If you buy the sector, you are exposed to systematic risk for banks (general market risk and industry specific risk, such as more mortgage market trouble).  You would probably hold some stinkers in the group, but you would also hold

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It is ironic that US REITs year-to-date have outperformed US stocks, non-US developed market stocks, and emerging market stocks, as well as directly owned commercial and residential real estate. Only commodities have outperformed REITs so far this year.

VNQ, ICF, IYR and RWR are still down from 17% to 20% on a trailing 12-month basis, but they provide a 12-month distribution yield of from 3.90% to 4.75% which is more than the current 10-year T-Bond rate of about 3.70%.

How vulnerable REITs are to a reversal of fortune is unclear.  If the economy is as vulnerable to major recession as some say, the rental income of REITs may not prove as strong as expected, which would tend to lower the distribution yield.  Continued outperformance itself, would reduce the yield rate.  Rising interest rates due to inflation* could reverse the yield spread between REITs and T-Bonds, which would take steam from the REITs.

*

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The ETF market is looking crowded in terms of numbers and diversity of funds, and the number of ETF sponsors. However, the market shares are highly concentrated with a steep gradient of fund sizes and sponsor market shares.

As of April (according to score keeping by Vanguard) the top ETF sponsors by asset market share were:

#1 Barclays: 53.0% (iShares & iPathETNs) http://www.ishares.com http://www.ipathetn.com

#2 State Street: 24.8% share (SPDRs) http://www.ssgafunds.com

#3 Vanguard: 8.0% share (Vangurd) http://www.vanguard.com

#4 Invesco: 6.5% share (Power Shares) http://www.invescopowershares.com

#5 ProFunds: 2.8% share (ProShares) http://www.proshares.com

#6 Merrill Lynch: 1.1% share (Holders) http://www.holdrs.com

#7 Rydex: 1.0% share (Rydex Funds & Currency Shares) http://www.rydexfunds.com http://www.currencyshares.com

The top four sponsors have 92+% market share.  The top seven sponsors have 97+% share.  All the rest divide less than 3% between them.

Richard

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We selected the single country funds available in the Index Universe database for calendar year return analysis. Cumulative and annualized returns are important, but so too are discreet calendar years.

While statistical tools may theoretically, adequately describe variation or consistency of returns, a visual impression can be helpful too. This analysis is primarily visual.

Within the list we used a traffic metaphor with colored backgrounds of red, yellow and green for each year for each fund as follows:

red for returns < -5% yellow for returns between 5% and -5% (or no data) green for returns > 5%

Funds with no data, were not in operation for those full years.

If you are interested in those country index funds with missing data, you may benefit by researching the index on which the fund is based to estimate how the fund might have done had it been in operation during the missing years. Don’t

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We selected 70+ stock, bond and other indices for calendar year return analysis. Cumulative and annualized returns are important, but so too are discreet calendar years.

While statistical tools may theoretically, adequately describe variation or consistency of returns, a visual impression can be quite helpful too. This analysis is primarily visual.

Within the list we used a traffic metaphor with colored backgrounds of red, yellow and green for each year for each index as follows:

red for returns < -5% yellow for returns between 5% and -5% green for returns > 5%

The file is physically large at 1104 X 1075 pixels (399 Kb data size). Depending on your screen resolution you may have to scroll around the image to see all of it.

Click image to enlarge.

Richard Shaw QVM Group LLC

This screened ETF list is based on a combination of features that are often requested by more cautious equity investors:

funds with history and reasonable liquidity acceptable expense ratios for the type of portfolio not too much volatility for the return some current yield better total returns than bonds

The funds in the list are not recommendations. They are simply idea possibilities for do-it-yourself investors who may find the particular screening criteria useful.

The funds do not represent a full spread of the asset classes which we believe should be in a well designed portfolio.

The universe from which they were filtered is the entire database of hundreds of ETFs at www.IndexUniverse.com.

Important Note:

The fact that cautious investors ask the kinds of questions on which the filter is based, does not mean the funds that make it through the filter are conservative or necessarily good investments. In fact, some

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As you select asset classes and class weights for your portfolio, you should take into consideration, among other things, the mean return of those classes over different periods of time.

History is no guarantee of the future, but lack of understanding of the past may result surprising returns. It’s a good idea to do all you can to minimize surprises.

The chart shows the relative 1, 3, 5 10 and 15 year annualized returns for six major asset classes. The key feature to observe is the relative size of the return for each class within each year.

You can see bonds as a low return, but stabilizing asset class. You can see the US market has been weak relative to foreign markets. Commodities have been strong. Real estate did well, until it fell out out bed in a major way during the last 12 months.

A representative (but not exhaustive) list

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