Oxford Club’s Alexander Green says making the switch from mutual funds to ETFs can save thousands in taxes and expenses. Changing funds now can also help psychologically, by locking this year’s huge losses in the past. Alex lists eight ETFs that can “help turn market lemons into lemonade.”

This from Investment U:

With the stock market’s historic drop this year, some investors have fled to cash. Others are cautiously buying. Most, however, are sitting on their hands.

They shouldn’t be.

Even if you lack the cash - or the willpower - to buy into this market, there is still a very smart move you can make: switch.

Switch from your poor-performing, high-cost, tax-inefficient stock and bond mutual funds to index funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

It’s a very smart move. Here’s why…

Why Choose Exchange Traded Funds Over Mutual Funds?

Compared to exchange traded funds, most mutual funds are

...

Exchange Traded Funds: An Investment Move You Need to Make…

by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U Investment Director, The Oxford Club Monday, November 24, 2008: Issue #891

With the stock market’s historic drop this year, some investors have fled to cash. Others are cautiously buying. Most, however, are sitting on their hands.

They shouldn’t be.

Even if you lack the cash - or the willpower - to buy into this market, there is still a very smart move you can make: switch.

Switch from your poor-performing, high-cost, tax-inefficient stock and bond mutual funds to index funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

It’s a very smart move. Here’s why…

Why Choose Exchange Traded Funds Over Mutual Funds?

Compared to exchange traded funds, most mutual funds are a lousy deal, here’s why:

Each year more than three-quarters of them fail to match the performance of their benchmarks.

 

Many are loaded with front-end or back-end loads, 12b-1 fees, ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

September was a disaster for the stock market in general, but not necessarily ETFs.

Exchange-traded funds continued to grow in prominence as part of the overall U.S. equities market in September, reaching 35% of all trading, up from the previous record-level of 31%, just reached in August, according to National Stock Exchange data. The biggest part of that trading story has been State Street Global Advisors' SPDRs family of ETFs, which for the month of September represented approximately 50% of all ETF trading volume, with close to $1.4 trillion of the nearly $2.8 trillion in ETF trading volume. Year-to-date, the SPDRs also represent approximately 50% of ETF trading volume ($8.8 trillion), with Barclays Global Investors' iShares family a distant-second at $3.75 trillion.

But in a month of massive market turmoil, the news was not all good for ETFs. The iShares lost ground

...