Investors face some important decisions.  For those approaching retirement it is a crucial time. There is plenty of advice.  The television commercials, blogs, and email messages include a variety of appeals: Those telling you to buy an annuity to lock in your income, marketing to the fear of market losses, and perhaps playing down the death by a thousand cuts from inflation. Those telling you that you can do better than your financial advisor.  Go on your own!  You have a "feel" for the market. Those advising gold.  Everything is about to go wrong, so you need to have hard assets. Those offering speculative gains.  Here are some stock ideas that are "home-run" ideas, where you can triple your money in a couple of months.  Often these are penny stocks. Any of these strategies could be right --- as a part of an overall plan.  For those ...

You raise a good point, Jim: There's a huge need for better education in the ETF space. There's also a huge opportunity for advisors who are willing to learn.

You and I have discussed this before, but there is a major shift taking place in the financial advisor marketplace. It's no longer good enough for advisors to pick a few actively managed funds run by brand-name managers and charge their investors fees on top of extra-high fees.

The days of outsourcing alpha generation to actively managed mutual funds is over. That model didn't work. A new model, based around a core portfolio of ETFs where the advisor is responsible for generating the alpha, is taking its place.

ETFs are empowering. They allow advisors to manage money in ways we could not have imagined five years ago. Advisors can now build diversified asset allocation portfolios tapping into everything from commodities to emerging market bonds

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Oxford Club’s Alex Green explains how Wall Street’s supposedly safe structured products became an investor’s nightmare. In reality, they were just a gimmick. Alex says this just underscores why investors should be cautious of any product that comes with “guaranteed” returns.

This from InvestmentU:

Structured products are securities that are sold as an opportunity to enjoy substantial gains with full principal protection.

For example, an underwriter might offer investors the upside potential of the S&P 500 - or a substantial percentage of that upside - over a certain period of time (say, five years) while guaranteeing no less than full value of the initial investment at maturity, even if the index goes down.

(Or, instead of the S&P 500, the investment might be linked to Asian currencies, or commodities, or something else.)

How can you offer all or most of the upside of a risky investment with a principal

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The wild instability in current markets has me thinking...

"Washington Mutual Becomes the Biggest Bank to Fail in U.S. History," blares a headline.

"Bailout Talks Implode During Day of Chaos," screams another.

That can't possibly be good for the markets, right?  You'd have to think that the Dow and the Select Sector SPDRS Financials ETF (XLF) will be taking another nosedive today unless the government gets it together. In a major league show of brinksmanship, Paulson et al announced the big bailout assuming (correctly) that if you don't follow through and actually fund the plan, that it could exacerbate the situation.  I mean if you make the announcement, at that point, you can hardly NOT fund the bailout, right?

Crazy times.

And our job is to tell you what it means for you as an index and ETF investor.  Does it mean get ready to

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