This post provides links to some thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Tom Lauricella (The Wall Street Journal): Is this bull cyclical or secular?, June 15, 2009. Many investors are now calling the rebound in stocks since early March the start of a new bull market. But it could be only a temporary respite from a longer-term bear market dating back to the beginning of this decade.

• Andy Xie (Caijing.com.cn): Tight spot for Fed, blind spot for investors, June 8, 2009. If you are a speculator and confident you can get out before it crashes, this is your market. If you think this market is for real, you are making a mistake and should get out as soon as possible. If you lost money during your last three market

Leveraged ETFs Blamed For Late Trading Surge

Traders are blaming leveraged exchange-traded funds for huge fluctuations in the last hour of activity on stock exchanges, reports a trio of Wall Street Journal reporters.

The article points to outside data that shows a big uptick in last minute trading recently. "In November, an average 26.2% of trading volume in the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index took place in the final hour and 17.1% in the last 30 minutes, according to data from Credit Suisse," the journalists wrote. 

To see how leveraged ETFs are being tied to the issue, you can find the story here.

Asset Allocation Divided In Thirds

As we all are well-aware of at this point, formulating an asset allocation plan -- and sticking to it -- during a recession can be quite tricky. 

But Tom Lauricella of the Wall Street Journal  talks to advisors who break the process into three

Wall Street Journal: Leveraged ETFs Blamed For Late Trading Surge

Traders are blaming leveraged exchange-traded funds for huge fluctuations in the last hour of activity on stock exchanges, reports a trio of Wall Street Journal reporters.

The article points to outside data that shows a big uptick in last minute trading recently. "In November, an average 26.2% of trading volume in the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index took place in the final hour and 17.1% in the last 30 minutes, according to data from Credit Suisse," the journalists wrote. 

To see how leveraged ETFs are being tied to the issue, you can find the story here.

Wall Street Journal: Asset Allocation Divided In Thirds

As we all are well aware at this point, formulating an asset allocation plan—and sticking to it—during a recession can be quite tricky. 

But Tom Lauricella of the Wall

The Basics Of Buying ETFs

With market volatility a clear-and-present danger heading into a new year, Ian Salisbury at Dow Jones Newswires offers some tips on how to buy exchange-traded funds.

He discusses looking at trading volume, indicative intraday values and ETF prices trading at discounts as well as premiums to their net asset values. You can read the article as it appears in the Wall Street Journal  here.

More Bad News For Mutual Funds

If you want to feast on more bad news for active fund investors, the WSJ offers a rehash of projections for mutual fund tax bills this year.

As most anyone who owned such an animal in 2000-2002 will recall, down markets present a double-whammy of sorts for investors in actively managed funds. That same scenario seems likely to play out this year with many large active funds projecting big distributions at year’s end. Such unwelcome

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