Top 8 Popular Exchange Traded Funds for Investment

Exchange Trade Funds or ETFs are another popular investment fund choice for investor. The low cost index exchange traded funds can provide significant boost for long term investor in term of performance. Some of the best exchange traded funds are: SPDR S&P 500, SPDR Gold Shares, Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF, etc.

Intro

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are similar to mutual funds; they also can be categorized into 2 main classes such as Equity Exchange Traded Fund (stock ETF) and Fixed Income Exchange Traded Funds (bond ETF). As usual, the bond ETF is less volatile than stock ETF. In this article, I will get into details about Top 10 Popular ETF to invest in either bond ETF or Stock ETF.

Bond ETF can be classified into two main categories such as taxable bond ETF and municipal bond ETF. Taxable bond ETF can consist of short term bond, intermediate term bond, and long term bond ETF including Investment Grade Bond or High Yield Bond ETF. The other bond ETFs are non taxable bond ETF or municipal bond ETF. The municipal bond has advantages especially for people that pay high income tax on Federal and state level since these Bond ETFs are tax free.

Stock ETF can be classified into three main categories such as Domestic Stock ETF, International Stock ETF and Emerging Market ETF. Domestic Stock ETFs include domestic small cap stock ETF, mid cap stock ETF, and large cap stock ETF. International Stock ETFs include European Stock ETF, Pacific Stock ETF, and more. Emerging Stock ETF include most developing countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Some of these countries are known as BRIC acronym (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Other sector ETFs are: REIT ETF, commodity ETF (Gold, Silver, Natural Gas etc), and specific country ETF (Brazil, Russia, India etc)

Best Exchange Traded Funds

The Top 8 Popular ETF to invest is:

1. SPDR S&P 500
2. SPDR Gold Shares
3. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index
4. iShares MSCI EAFE Index
5. Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF
6. iShares S&P 500 Index
7. iShares Barclays TIPS Bond
8. PowerShares QQQ

Parabolic National Municipal CEF - $VMO

This post is about the parabolic move of national municipal bond closed end fund (CEF). The Invesco Van Kampen Municipal Opportunity (ticker: VMO) has a parabolic move on December 3, 2010.

This is why I invest in Muni CEF. There will be a day when institutional money come in and create a big gain for small investor. I sold my remaining VMO and swab them with VGM which is higher yield and sell at slightly premium than VMO. 

Interactive Brokers Online Brokerage Account Review IB

Interactive Brokers Review is one of the best online brokerages. It offers low commission rates for customers. There are two main trading platforms. More review can be found in this post.

Interactive Brokers (IB)

Interactive Brokers (IB) is popular among active traders, experience and professional investors and hedge fund. It was established and began executing trades for public in 1994. It offered its own clearing trading in 1998. Interactive Brokers Group is traded publicly on the NASDAQ under IBKR ticker. It has a market capitalization of $710 million. The current headquarter is located in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Chairman and CEO is Thomas Peterffy.

As one of the best brokerages, IB offers stock trading, option trades, ETF, mutual funds, future, Forex, CFDs, and bonds. It offers global products. You can trades in over 100 market centers in 19 countries using single IB Universal Account. There are 2 types of trading platforms: Trader Workstation (TWS), and WebTrader. Trader Workstation is one of the best desktop applications for trading. It also offers advance tools such as BookTrader, OptionTrader, BasketTrader, ScaleTrader Algo, Accumulate/Distribute algo, FXTrader, and SpreadTrader. There are 50 order types and algos supported.

The WebTrader is a web based trading platform. It is a scaled-down version of TWS with simplified interface. It offers in fourteen languages. As an online discount brokerage, it provides 11 supported order types.

Opening an account with IB can take a little longer than typical online broker. You need to fill your application online, and then you need to verify two deposits IB makes into your bank account. Then, Interactive Brokers will send you a code through a regular mail to start trading. You also need to deposit $10,000 initial funding to open an account. Most traders choose bundled commission to get the lowest cost for trading.

Products and Services

• Products: Stocks, bonds, ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, options, foreign investments, currency
• Market Orders: $0.005 per shares ($1.00 minimum)
• Limit Orders: $0.005 per shares ($1.00 minimum)
• Broker-Assisted Orders: $0.01 per shares ($100.00 min)
• Mutual Funds: $14.95/ trade
• Options: $0.70/contract
• Minimum to Open: $10,000 for US-based accounts; varied for foreign accounts
• Account Maintenance Fee: $10.00 - $20.00
• IRA maintenance Fee: $7.50 per quarter
• Some Other Fees: Wire Transfer outgoing: $10.00 per transfer.
• ACH Transfer Fee: $1.00 per transfer.
• Maximum Margin Rate: Based on proprietary base rate

Pros:

• Low commissions for stocks and option trading
• Low margin rates
• Offers several trading platform

Cons:

• High minimum requirement to open an account ($10,000)
• There is a commission fee of $10/month if you don’t trades more than $30 commission fee per month
• It can get quite expense for trades over 1,500 shares
• There is a quarterly IRA fee

Top 10 Popular Taxable Investment Grade Bond Closed End Funds

This article will be all about Top 10 popular Investment Grade Taxable Bond Closed End Funds. The fund providers include Western Asset, Eaton Vance, Federated, John Hancock, PIMCO, BlackRock and MFS. The list also include Western Asset Premier Bond, PIMCO Corporate Opportunity and more.

The following is the Top 10 Best Taxable Investment Grade Bond Closed End Funds:

1. Western Asset Premier Bond (WEA)
2. EV Limited Duration Income (EVV)
3. Federated Enhanced Treasury Income (FTT)
4. John Hancock Income Securities
5. PIMCO Corporate Opportunity
6. Franklin Limited Duration Inc
7. BlackRock Credit Alloc II
8. Blackrock Credit Allocation IV
9. MFS Government Markets Income
10. BlackRock Credit Alloc III

Best National Municipal Bond Closed End Funds

Closed End Funds or CEFs can provide an attractive alternative for investors to invest in municipal bond. These municipal debt funds provide tax free income for investors. Some of the best municipal bond closed end funds are: PIMCO Municipal Income III, EV Municipal Income, Invesco VK Muni Opps. Trust, etc.

Municipal Bond Fund

Closed end funds are not very popular in investment world and they rarely will get any respects. The closed end funds unlike mutual fund are being traded like stock. This article will provide top 10 national municipal bond closed end funds (CEF) which are tax free. The CEF sponsors include PIMCO, Eaton Vance, BlackRock, Invesco.

The following is the Top 10 Best National Municipal Bond Closed-End Funds:

1. PIMCO Municipal Income III - PMX
2. EV Municipal Income - EVN
3. Invesco VK Muni Opps. Trust - VMO
4. Invesco VK Muni Invst. Grade T - VGM
5. EV Municipal Bond II - EIV
6. BlackRock MuniVest Fund II - MVT
7. Invesco VK Adv Muni Inc II - VKI
8. Putnam Managed Muni Income - PMM
9. Invesco VK Select Sector Muni - VKL
10. PIMCO Municipal Income - PMF

updated on 11/27/2010

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a safe holidays!

Turkey anyone?

Top 8 Best Municipal Bond Mutual Funds

The following article will provide top 10 list of municipal bond mutual funds also known as non taxable bond funds. The non taxable bonds consist mainly the municipal bonds either investment grade municipal bond or non investment grade municipal bond. The list include Vanguard Intermediate Term Tax Exempt, Vanguard Limited Term Tax Exempt, American Funds Tax Exempt Bond, and more.

Tax Free Muni Bond Funds

My list mainly consists of 3 or more star of Morningstar rating and big asset underlying the municipal bond mutual funds. Usually, big asset means lot of confident by investor as well constitutional to invest in these funds. With 3 or more star rating, this means the fund has consistently perform under any market condition and should perform better or at least average compare to many of its index benchmark. I also provide list that doesn’t include only 1 state municipal bond funds, this means the list is more diversify and includes multiple states in US.

The following is the Top 8 Best Municipal Bond mutual funds:

1. Vanguard Intermediate Term Tax Exempt Fund - VWITX
2. Vanguard Limited Term Tax Exempt Fund - VMLTX
3. Franklin Federal Tax Free Income - FKTIX
4. American Funds Tax Exempt Bond - AFTEX
5. Franklin High Yield Tax Free Income Fund - FRHIX
6. Vanguard Long Term Tax Exempt Fund - VWLTX
7. Wells Fargo Advantage Ultra Short Term Municipal Income Fund - SMAVX
8. Vanguard High Yield Tax Exempt Fund - VWAHX