 |
Vanguard ETF: |  |
7.4%* |
|
Diversified Core: | |
8.1%* |
|
Six Core Asset ETFs: | |
7.3%* |
Articles on GDX
- Dividend Payout Reflects the New Reality
08/02/2011
With many energy and high tech stocks paying more and more dividends, the landscape of dividend payout percentages in S&P 500 has changed. In a recent article titled as Burned Before, Dividend Funds Diversify Beyond Same Old Sectors, author Sarah Morgan reported that many dividend stock funds have diversified their investment beyond financial sector concentration to other new sectors.
The following chart from the article shows the change:
It is interesting to see that now, consumer staple stocks (XLP) is the largest sector for dividend payout. With Energy (XLE) and technology (XLK) being very close to the second largest financial sector (XLY), investors are now more in favor of these two sectors.
This change bodes well to our long standing argument that
- technology companies, being one of the main beneficiaries of globalization, have better balance sheets and are now more shareholder friendly.
- resource (energy) companies will do well in the era of depleted natural and energy resources.
Dividend investors should also focus on dividend appreciation (rising dividend) instead of merely current dividend amounts (dividend hogs). The rising dividend approach will allow you to find more energy and technology companies. In fact, it will allow you to even consider those gold mining stocks (such as Newmont (NEM)) that have increased their dividends steadily recently. As gold price continues to rise, these stocks or ETFs (such as market vector gold mining stock GDX) might be worth a look.
See Retirement Income ETFs plan for portfolios using dividend and interest paying ETFs such as DVY, VIG, VYM.
Symbols: XLK, XLE, XLY, GDX, SPX, COMP, VIG, DVY, Dividend Investing, Retirement Investing
- Leuthold Fund Uses Gold, Silver and Real Estate for Inflation Hedging
04/13/2011
Leuthold Core Investment [LCORX] [LCRIX] is a flexible or go anywhere tactical asset allocation fund. It is adept to use various non-traditional assets in different economic cycles.
Steven Leuthold is the chief investment officer and veteran for the fund, having managed the fund for 15 years. The fund mainly invests in stock market, including U.S and emerging country, and fixed income securities. However, in the past, the fund has used alternative investments for its advantage. This is reflected by its long term performance: as of 3/31/2011, the fund achieved 7.91% annualized return in the past 10 years, ranked number 1 in Morningstar’s large blend category.
Based on its Feb. 1, 2011 report, the fund invested 49% of portfolio assets in U.S. traded stocks (SPY), with an additional 16% of assets invested in Emerging Country Equities (EEM). These two holdings account for 65% of total assets. There is a 2% equity hedge focused on shorting small cap stocks (IWM) which reduces net equity exposure to 63%. The short hedge is a common strategy employed by Leuthold in the past.
In addition to the above holdings, the funds has exposure in Real Estate Investment Trusts (7% holding) (IYR) (ICF), Gold and Silver (5% holding) (GLD), (SLV). It further has 4% Brazilian Bonds, indicating the manager's optiministic outlook on Brazilian currency Real.
For the latest Leuthold fund (LCORX) asset allocation analysis, we use MyPlanIQ's SmartMoneyIQ tool. The following table illustrates the analysis as of 4/8/2011
LCORX Asset Correlation Analysis
Date IntlBond CASH USBond EmergStk USReits IntlStk USStk 2011-03-18 0.68 5.48 20.46 27.83 -0 -0 45.55 2011-03-25 0.88 7.04 17.31 30.39 0 0 44.39 2011-04-01 0 21.57 6.18 28.66 0 0 43.59 2011-04-08 -0 4.2 23.46 22.13 0 0 50.21 The above table is derived by MyPlanIQ SmartMoneyIQ tool. The percentage on each column reflects the portfolio’s correlation coefficient with the asset class benchmark for that column. (assuming all correlation coefficients are summed to 1). They do not necessarily reflect the actual asset allocation of the fund.
It is interesting to note that the fund's correlation with U.S. bonds (AGG) has increased in the last week. Given the manager's outlook in Q4/2010 " We continue to believe that the bond market is vulnerable to a significant correction, with interest rates poised to move much higher.”, this might be just due to its short term tactical move or purely because of its holdings were more correlated with U.S. bonds recently.
Symbols: LCORX, SPY, EEM, IYR, IWM, GLD, SLV, GDX, ICF, AGG, BWX
