Mutual Funds

Clean-energy stocks and exchange-traded funds are on a tear this year, sharply outperforming the broader market and traditional fossil-fuel investments. The clean-tech ETFs with the most powerful year-to-date rallies include Invesco Solar ETF TAN, +0.35%, up 81% through Thursday; First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund QCLN, +1.32%, up 58%; and iShares Global

For the 55 calendar years from 1965 through 2019, Berkshire Hathaway’s stock rose at an 18.6% annualized pace, versus 11.8% for the S&P 500 SPX, -1.11%  . (Both returns reflect reinvested dividends.) Warren Buffett can take credit for this, and he appears to be very much in charge of Berkshire. But, given that he just

Two proposed rulemakings from the Labor Department in the past eight weeks would largely gut sustainable investing options and strategies in retirement plans. These proposals would reverse the Labor Department’s 2015 and 2016 guidance while ignoring the growing consensus among academics, retirement plan fiduciaries and professional money managers that responsible companies are likely to outperform

Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund celebrated its 50th birthday in July. A mutual fund being in business that long has become about as rare as couples reaching their 50th wedding anniversary, and so the fund’s longevity is noteworthy in its own right. But, by analyzing this mutual fund’s performance, we can draw important investment lessons for

A century after winning the right to vote and in the midst of a pandemic, female fund managers are outperforming their male colleagues on Wall Street. That is according to a team of equity strategists at Goldman Sachs, who crunched the numbers in honor of 2020, which marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment’s

In the wake of widespread outrage and protests about racial injustice, many people are looking at their stock portfolio and wondering: what can I do to support racial justice with my dollars? If you are an investor of any type — whether you have a 401(k), IRA, or trading account — there are a few

Index-fund investors who didn’t sell into a crashing stock market in March should be pleased, as the S&P 500 has returned 1% in 2020. That’s despite a drop of as much as 30% earlier this year. Active fund managers want to beat the S&P 500 Index SPX, +0.33%, but most can’t do it because it’s

Wall Street is so full of greed, fraud and ego, a cynic might say it’s no place for any kind of spirituality to find a home. But several religious precepts might actually help investors if they paid them more mind, judging by the long-term returns of Amana Growth Fund AMIGX, +0.93%. The fund avoids companies

It’s possible to squeeze more yield out of the cash you are keeping on the sidelines. That’s important, because long gone are the days when you could earn even one percent from a money-market fund. In fact, yields consistently have been below 0.5% for the past decade; nowadays the average national money market fund yield

The shocking death of Alex Kearns, a 20-year-old day trader who recently died by suicide, highlights a broader caution to young people: do not get sucked into digital trading platforms — no matter whether they have noble-sounding names or are “free.” You will most likely lose your money or worse. There are better ways to

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Low-volatility ETFs appear to be yet another example of an investment product that should have protected investors during the coronavirus pandemic but didn’t. These are exchange-traded funds that invest in stocks with the lowest trailing volatility. Researchers have found that such stocks not only continue to exhibit below-average volatility going forward,

Locked-down music lovers are dusting off golden oldie playlists to reminisce about time spent with friends, lip-syncing songs such as Don’t Stop Believin’ through kitchen-tong microphones. The 1981 classic by Journey, Don’t Stop Believin’, is seeing 362,000 streams a week, launching it back into the top 200 chart, and a Nielsen survey showed almost two-thirds

In the world of exchange-traded funds, the big keep getting bigger, not just drawing more of the investing pie but also making a mark on how the industry defines itself. Meanwhile, several funds with exposure to commodities have spent the past several weeks blowing up. For all that, Jan van Eck, CEO of a small

The biggest problem with exchange traded funds (ETFs) has to do with concept of indexing itself. Indices cover different asset classes (equity, bonds, currencies, commodities), geographical markets or investing styles and strategies. An index, effectively a basket of securities, is provides a proxy for price movements, returns and relative performance of an individual portfolio. Except

As long as I can remember, people have worried about ETFs. When I was trading ETFs back in 2005, my partner and I used to wonder if they would increase correlation in the stock market — the property of stocks moving together, like a marching band. Over the short term, as in seconds and minutes,

Amid the coronavirus-led shutdown, the internet has become an increasingly important part of people’s lives and the economy. As a result, it just makes sense that stock market investors want to invest in internet-related stocks. If you could buy only one ETF on a market pullback, maybe it’s not the S&P 500 ETF SPY, -0.24%,

S&P Global Inc. said Wednesday that it kicked out big-name companies and added others to its sustainable version of its bellwether S&P 500 index, a move that will impact a growing swath of investments tied to the benchmark. Following this year’s rebalance of the S&P 500 ESG Index, the New York–based ratings agency firm now

Research company CFRA on Monday said it was upgrading a low-volatility exchange-traded fund that has a history of underperforming, saying its recent record and defensive portfolio may give it an edge in the future. The Invesco S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF SPLV, -1.00% beat the broader market during the March selloff, CFRA’s head of ETF

You might call it the “ETF-ication of everything.” Mutual fund managers are launching special products that allow them to use the exchange-traded fund structure but keep their portfolios hidden. Others are exploring outright conversions of their funds to ETFs. And brokerages are becoming more comfortable with buzzy marketing, lower fees and fractional share trading. But

It’s been a rough couple of months for all investors, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.75% and S&P 500 SPX, +2.14% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, +2.93% indexes plunged more than 30% from their all-time highs before bouncing back nicely through last week. (They sold off again Monday, but were higher midday Tuesday.) And

Investors have spent the past couple of weeks in a “sell everything” mind set. That’s turned into a windfall for money-market funds. Money flowed into those funds at a breakneck pace in the most recent week, data from Refinitiv Lipper show. It was the third straight week of record highs, each one nearly doubling the

How often do you wish you could go back in time and make what now appears to be an “obvious” investment in a transformational company or industry? It seems perfectly clear now that smartphones would become ubiquitous and allow Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. You might say the same thing

Should you invest in any of the new breed of non-transparent ETFs that the SEC recently approved? The best advice might be to wait and see how they are received by the market. They represent such a radical departure from the traditional ETF model , it’s unclear they will even work. To appreciate just how

The benefits of index funds include diversification and low cost. But the trade-off investors endure is that these funds lurch downward with the market — as they did last week. Despite Monday’s strong U.S. market rebound, some investors may not have the patience (or the stomach) to sit on their hands until the market gets

Internet memes can be funny — and annoying — but they can also remind us of lucrative investment opportunities from time to time. A current trend is for young adults to make fun of baby boomers for being clueless. Elizabeth Tippett recently tied the “OK, boomer” fad to age discrimination in the workplace, while Grace

Americans love investing in real estate. When asked their preferred way to invest money they won’t need for more than 10 years, Americans’ No. 1 choice is real estate. And yet there are many challenges to owning a house or rental property. The upfront costs can be daunting — a down payment might be anywhere

Many investment firms have been touting new products as socially responsible. Now, regulators are scrutinizing some funds in an attempt to determine whether those claims are at odds with reality. The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent examination letters to firms as record amounts of money flow into ESG funds. These funds broadly market themselves

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been.That they are what they are, do not blame me!” — The Ghost of Christmas Past from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. I frequently hear from readers haunted by past investments. Many of you are trying to build an investment portfolio that meets your

Almost since its founding in 1975 by the late, great John Bogle, I have held Vanguard Group, the mutual-fund giant, in only the highest regard. Vanguard’s mission has been to deliver the lowest possible cost for services to investors and to conduct itself in a highly ethical manner. By structuring itself — unlike other mutual

Many stock market bulls are expressing surprise that a net $88 billion was pulled out of U.S. equity funds and ETFs last year. They would have predicted that the net fund flow would have been in the opposite direction. After all, the stock market in 2019 had one of its best years in modern U.S.