Since January 2008 ING Direct has been offering Canadians their own brand of mutual funds which they have chosen to call “Streetwise” Mutual funds.  It is my opinion this new portfolio of funds has brought Canadians a great investment opportunity that has not yet been available. In this article I hope to resolve the following questions:

• What are Streetwise Mutual Funds?
• How do they differ from other fund offerings?
• Most importantly, how are they my best investment choice?

What is a Streetwise Mutual Fund?They are is one of three mutual funds currently offered by ING Direct Canada.  These funds invest exclusively in market indexes; specifically Canadian Bonds (DEX Universe Bond Index), the Canadian market (S&P/TSX 60), the US market (S&P 500) and International Stocks (Morgan Stanley Capital Inc. EAFE).

As stated there are three funds Income, Balanced, and Growth each having progressively higher risk then the previous with correspondingly potentially higher returns.  One way of thinking of it is the closer you are to when you plan on spending the money the less risk you want to take.  So if you were planing on spending the investment in the next few years you’d probably want to invest in the Income Fund, or if your time line was more like 20 to 30 years away you’d probably consider the Growth Fund.  This of course leaving the Balanced one somewhere in between.  Note that there are many other factors to selecting your level of acceptable risk and this only takes one into account.

How do they differ from other fund offerings?

Many other banks and fund companies also offer index funds this is true.  The two biggest advantages that most advocates of index funds are as follows:

• Index funds have historical performed better then managed funds
• They have lower management fees then managed funds so you keep more of the income

What this means is that the choice for the average person to invest in mutual should more or less be a no brainer and that they should choose to invest exclusively in Index Funds.  However, you still would want to get proper expose to the various markets.  This is where the Streetwise Funds come in not only do they invest in Indexes they already invest in several so you don’t have to buy a bunch of different ones.Most importantly, how are they my best investment choice?

As stated already not only are Street wise funds invested solely in indexes they also invest in various different indexes.  The degree that each of the three funds invest in each index is continuously maintain meaning that once you start investing in one of these funds you don’t have to do anything unless you decide that you want to change you level of risk (ie buy into a different fund).

On top of this ING has put a cap on the management expense ration (MER) to 1% (which at the time of writing was actually 0.8%)  this amount is actually as good or better then what is being offered by most other index funds that invest in only one index.

To my knowledge the only other good option are TD e-series or iShares ETF.

The TD e-series portfolio offers basically the same option as the ING Streetwise funds, however they’re MER is a bit higher so your returns would likely be lower.  But if you want the convenience of dealing with a major bank and possibly a better online banking system, you might decide on it instead.

As for iShares they do not actually offer mutual funds but rather what are called ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) which is a fancy way of say you buy mutual funds through the stock market.  It is more work to buy them and you can only invest in one index at a time but at an MER of around 0.17% it could be worth the work.

Martin Harford is a happy customer of ING Direct Canada and is offering you the chance to use his Orange Key “16157624S1″. By simply entering this number in when signing up with ING Direct Canada you will receive $25 within 24hrs of opening an account with a balance of $100.

For more information see his blog at: http://ingdirectorangekey.wordpress.com/orange-key/

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Retirement funds are best dealt with early on in your life. The earlier your start saving and investing for your retirement, the better it is for you. There is no way to guarantee how much you can get out of your 401k. There are, however, ways by which you could make projections or estimates as to the accumulation of your retirement funds. Some employees are allowed to make additional contributions to the amount of 401k contributions that they have elected to make on a regular basis, subject of course to certain eligibility requirements. The good thing about using 401k as your source of retirement income is that you cannot touch it for your short-term and medium-term cash needs. There are only a few scenarios that allow for the disbursement of a partial or a full withdrawal of the 401k fund before retirement. 401k disbursements are slapped with penalties for early withdrawals.

Those who would like to be more aggressive in building up their retirement funds could do so by managing their own portfolio or having a professional retirement planning consultant help them plan out and implement their own strategies to grow their investment portfolio specifically intended to fund retirement. It is not difficult to get more information about how to do this these days as there is a wealth of resources available all over the internet. You are likely to find a reliable retirement planning consulting services website that will be able to help you set up your retirement fund at the earliest possible time, and with the best possible combination of instruments to give you the highest possible yields without exposing you to risks beyond what you can tolerate.

While your basic 401k plans and IRAs would do well towards your financial preparation for retirement, you can do more on your own in order to give you the retirement life that you deserve. If you have more disposable income on your hands, you can look at the various investment instruments that are available in the market to day and see how they can help you maximize earnings on your money. Keep in mind that you have to balance the risks that you are taking with the potential yields that you will get. Diversifying your investment portfolio is a good way of covering yourself against possible losses. There are retirement planning consultants that you can ask about how to do this successfully. There is, however, no one that could guarantee earnings on a particular investment product. Be warned that those who promise you heaven and earth could also run away with your arm and your foot. Choose only to work with those who are straightforward, transparent, and reliable.

For more information about retirement funds, please visit: http://www.retirement-planning-center.com/retirement-funds

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They do this by investing in other asset classes such as bonds as well as stocks. Some of the major benefits are.

1. Escaping volatility

Stocks can be very volatile and that can be very risky at times. So if you just buy a portfolio of stocks and the market crashes you could lose a large chunk of your portfolio. But if you had a diversified portfolio between both stocks and bonds a market crash might not affect you as much.
Bonds can be used to help you get through a bears market.

2. Diversified

How many times have you heard about diversification? Well that is because it works for a long term portfolio. The first thing you need to consider is risk so if you only invest in 1 asset class you are going to hold a high amount of risk.

If all you have are stocks and they start falling all of a sudden your portfolio is going to go down with it. This can be used for bonds too. A more diversified approach gives you a better long term outlook.

3. Some Funds Can Switch

Some Asset Allocation funds can switch from investing primarily in 1 asset class to another. So if stocks start outperforming bonds you can switch into being more heavenly waited on invest in stocks which can help you benefit from changes in any market.

For more on asset allocation funds visit http://www.stocks-simplified.com/Asset_Allocation_Funds.html

For more on mutual funds visit http://www.stocks-simplified.com/types_of_mutual_funds.html

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Exchange traded funds are a special kind of closed end fund. They are set up to follow a specific index or other target. Unlike ordinary mutual funds that most investors are familiar with, ETFs don’t buy and sell trying to beat the market. They try to track one. This saves investors a lot of money in fees.

ETF shares are bought and sold in the secondary market just as shares of common stock are.

Because of its history, gold occupies a special place in the financial market. On one level, it’s simply a commodity metal in wide use in various electrical industries, for dental fillings and for jewelry.

However, for many centuries gold served as the universally recognized form of money. Gold coins could be issued by various countries, kingdoms and emperors. But they were always worth whatever they weighed. Coins of the same weight bought the same amount of good whether issued in Rome or China.

It now has enormous emotional appeal. Many people believe it is the true store of monetary value.

For nearly forty years it was illegal for Americans to own gold. President Richard Nixon lifted that restriction, and in the economic turmoil of the 1970s, gold spiralled in price until it reached a peak of $800 per ounce in 1980. Then its price quickly tumbled, and it went through a long bear market for over twenty years.

Thanks to the current economic and political turmoil, gold is again in demand as a store of value. It’s gone from about $250 per ounce in 1999 to over $1100 in 2010.

It generally goes up when the stock market goes down, down when the stock market goes up. People are more likely to buy gold when they perceive a lot of economic and political risk.

But traditional ways of investing in gold carry risk and expense. You can buy gold coins, but in small amounts they can be stolen. In large amounts they’re hard to handle. Bullion needs to be stored in a secure area. Therefore, you must pay storage fees.

You can invest in gold mining stocks, but you’re exposed to company risk. That is, if that company is run poorly you can lose money even while the price of gold is increasing.

ETFs offer investors a way to profit from the rise of gold without taking possession of any of the metal or worrying about whether a particular mine will pan out or not.

The very first gold ETF was launched on the Australian stock exchange in March 2003. Gold Bullion Securities (ticker symbol “GOLD”).

In the United States, the gold ETF is SPDR Gold Trust (formerly streetTRACKS Gold Shares) (NYSE: GLD).

GLD buys and sell gold bullion. Each share is about one-tenth the price of an ounce of gold. The bullion is kept in the form of London Good Delivery bars (400 oz.) and held in an allocated account. The Custodian is HSBC Bank USA, in its London vault.

GLD was first listed on the exchange in November 2004. Shares also trade in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. It owns over 1,000 tonnes.

Because it owns a physical metal, GLD earns no income and pays no dividend. However, because of the expense of storing it, taxpayers are allowed to include those expenses on their tax returns. It includes a lot of calculations that aren’t user-friendly.

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Investing in Internet companies is attractive considering their excellent growth potential. The use of the Internet is growing rapidly as it enables convenient, quick, and secure connectivity between consumers and suppliers. Internet usage is gaining traction not only in the developed countries but also in emerging economies like China, which now claims to have the largest base of Internet users.

Internet funds have performed well in the past two years. First Trust Internet ETF (FDN) for example has gained 145% that is more than three times of the S&P 500’s 45% gain.

Although Internet funds are viewed as sector funds, in reality they offer exposure to companies spanning a variety of sectors.

Internet companies fall in two broad categories, those that enable the Internet to generate profits and those that use the Internet to generate profits.

Internet enablers typically fall within the information technology sector. These include companies like Cisco Systems (CSCO) and content delivery networks like Akamai Technologies (AKAM).

Internet users often hail from other sectors like consumer discretionary, financial services, or health care. Examples of such companies include:

* Amazon.com (AMZN), the largest online retailer selling goods from books to shoes

* Netflix (NFLX), an online provider of movie rental subscription services

* priceline.com (PCLN), a company offering travel-related services online

* TD AMERITRADE (AMTD), an online securities brokerage and financial services firm

* WebMD Health (WBMD), an online health care information provider for consumers and medical professionals

Additionally, there are behemoths like Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) that enable the Internet with search capability they provide and connect customers to businesses through their advertisements networks.

There are three families offering exchange-traded entities for investing in the Internet: First Trust, Invesco PowerShares and Merrill Lynch.

First Trust Dow Jones Internet ETF (FDN)

FDN seeks to track the price and yield performance of about 40 Internet companies included in the Dow Jones Internet Index. The fund invests in companies that derive at least 50% of their revenue online. The top 10 holdings include well-known names like Google, Amazon.com, and eBay (EBAY). The fund is relatively concentrated with the top 10 holdings accounting for over 50% of the portfolio’s assets.

PowerShares Nasdaq Internet Portfolio (PNQI)

PNQI tracks the price performance and yield of over 50 Internet companies listed in the Nasdaq Internet Index. The top 10 holdings include Google, Yahoo! (YHOO) and Amazon.com. This fund is also concentrated with the top 10 holdings accounting for nearly 60% of the portfolio’s assets. An interesting feature of this fund is that Chinese companies, Baidu (BIDU), SINA (SINA), and Sohu.com (SOHU) represent about 12% of the portfolio assets.

Merrill Lynch Internet HOLDRs (HHH)

Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch HOLDRs offers four Internet-related investment products: Internet HOLDRs (HHH), Internet Architecture HOLDRs (IAH), Internet Infrastructure HOLDRs (IIH) and B2B Internet HOLDRs (BHH).

Although HOLDRs (an acronym of Holding Company Depository Receipts) are traded like stocks on the exchanges, they do not track an underlying index. The holdings include stocks of companies with which the HOLDRs were initiated in years 1999 and 2000. Over the years, the number of holdings has declined due to exit or takeover of some of the companies. B2B Internet HOLDRs is left with just two stocks and Internet Infrastructure HOLDRs has less than 10 stocks. A notable omission in all of the Merrill Lynch HOLDRs is the industry titan Google.

Among these series of products, Internet HOLDRs (HHH) is worthy of consideration. Internet HOLDRs with 13 holdings arguably does not subject investors to the same degree of company concentration risk as the other HOLDRs. Investors in Internet HOLDRs (HHH) should however note that Amazon.com accounts for over 40% of this investment product.

Offering the above investment products to choose from, the Internet space has the potential to deliver the best ETFs for 2011.

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An interesting development in the exchange traded fund (ETF) arena has been the creation of leveraged ETFs. A leveraged ETF is created to produce a 2x or 3x the return of its underlying index. Unlike normal ETFs which are designed to replicate and index or commodity, the leveraged ETF is designed to create exponential returns. Moreover, the goal of a standard ETF is not to outperform the correlating investment, but to give investors a beneficial way to mimic price. Leveraged ETFs provide a higher risk reward payoff. In contrast to standard ETFs a leveraged ETF does want to outperform the index or commodity they track. A leveraged ETF looks to provide 2 to 3 times the return of the underlying asset. So if the tracked index rises 1%, a 2x leveraged ETF wants to create a 2% ROI. You can obtain a list of leveraged ETFs from www.etffunds.com.au

Leveraged ETFs can also increase in value in a falling market. Such an ETF is called an inverse ETF and can also be leveraged which would offer multiple positive return if an index declines in value.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding leveraged ETFs. Higher risk, borrowing issues, tracking errors, and even issues surrounding the short and long term performance results. Contrary to popular belief, leveraged ETFs are constructed to create a multiple return on the daily performance of the underlying index and not in any other time frame. For example with a 2x leveraged ETF, the simple concept is that if the index rises 1%, the leveraged ETF should create a 2% return on a daily time frame, not a weekly or any other time frame.

Leveraged ETFs are designed to include the securities in the underlying index, but also include derivatives of the securities and the index itself. These derivatives include, but are not limited to, options, forward contracts, swaps and futures.

In summary leveraged ETFs are fast-becoming one of the most popular types of ETFs. And whilst they are an aggressive new ETF innovation, they are also very controversial. There are other issues such as tracking errors, borrowing complexities and other constraints.

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www.etffunds.com.au is a website dedicated to ETFs. Whether you’re an individual investor interested in learning about ETFs or a financial advisor using ETFs for high networth clients the ETF Fund website will have the answer.

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Today people are more focused on improving their lifestyle and achieving their goals. Higher education, availability of multiple career options has led to rising income levels and rising aspirations and an increased focus on planning for the present and the future. Living costs on the other hand are getting higher because of the rising inflation which acts as a frictional force in the individuals attempt to realize his goals. People now realize that their savings will not be enough to keep pace with rising inflation and are therefore seeking different investment avenues which help them grow their money.

We have various investment options available today ranging from fixed deposits, mutual funds, stocks, shares, etc. of these mutual funds are gaining more momentum and popularity because of their ability to generate long term wealth and the inability of common people to devote the time and effort that investment research demands.

In India, infrastructure as an investment destination has been making quite a buzz over the past few years. India is the second most populous nation and among the world’s fastest growing economies. With all this growth there is a huge need for infrastructure in the country. Rising income levels leading to consumption demand is fueling demand for products and services and infrastructure needs are increasing very rapidly with increasing consumption demand For eg, next year India will see a new car sold every 2 secs, leading to a high demand for roads, highways and bridges. This demand for infrastructure can lead to a virtuous cycle of growth and economic momentum. This presents the investor with a great opportunity to benefit from investing in this sector with huge growth and profit potential.

Infrastructure assets generally have high development costs and long asset life. This means that they are generally managed and financed on a long-term basis and thus give steady returns in the long-term.

Though there is some skepticism in the markets about the infrastructure because these funds have not performed very well in the last few years. That’s probably because the theme was overplayed; the valuations went high making the stocks expensive leading to poor returns.

Some companies underperformed, some did well but at the cost of the profitability very few companies could match the balance sheet build up with commensurate profits. All this was further aggravated with the challenges that long term projects face – timely availability of cheap capital, execution delays, material availability and policy risks. But now when some of these projects are near completion and are ready to be monetized, valuations in infra sector are getting corrected and appear attractive and government has increased infrastructure spends drastically; it seems like the right time to invest in infrastructure funds and benefit from growth the sector promises.

Other factors which make the growth in this sector as significant as ever are the new initiatives the government has taken in the area of public- private partnerships. If we take roads, we have one of the largest private public partnership programmes in the world. Investment in ports by the private sector is dotting the coastline and a private port in the next couple of years with is amongst the top two in the country. Airports, Metros etc are all assets that have been tendered out to the private sector.

Infrastructure sector has a good chance to see return of profitability in 2012, with sizeable reduction in balance sheet/debt by all companies operating in this space. The projects which are near completion will start functioning and will probably move towards becoming higher yielding assets. All this coupled with the attractive valuations at which the companies in the sector are available, makes it a great time to invest in infrastructure funds.

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Funds, of all kinds, give small investors access to a wider range of investment choices. The funds are managed professionally and diversified. Assets held within the fund may include stocks, bonds and other securities. So, it resembles a smart investor’s portfolio.

Instead of being held by a single investor, funds are held by a large number of investors. The accumulated pool of money is invested and the profits, which ideally are larger than a single small investor could make alone, are shared.

A mutual fund’s net asset value (NAV) is calculated once a day. The value or price of an ETF will change throughout the day, as shares are bought and sold.

As little as one share of an ETF can be purchased and day trading is possible. Mutual funds are typically held for long periods of time and a minimum number of shares must be purchased in order to buy in.

Trends are used in all markets, but the trends that are most important to an ETF investor are 50-day and 200-day trends. A smart investor identifies the trend before he or she buys in. Simply put, a 50 day trend would look at the average price of the ETF over the last 50 days. A 200 day trend would look at the average over the last 200 days.

A trend can cover any time periods. When analysts say that stocks historically earned average returns of 10-12%, they were looking at very long trends. Obviously, the historical trend did not hold true in the last several years.

Investors have different strategies when they are using trends, but a good rule of thumb is to buy in when you see an upward trend for the last 200 days and start thinking about selling if the value falls below the 50 day average. If it falls below the 200-day average, then the fund is trending downwards and it’s a good time to sell.

If you decide to use trends, you need to decide what you are going to do before you buy. How much are you willing to lose? If you buy in today and start making money, you are likely to lose some of those profits eventually.

Knowing when to sell is the key to making profits with ETFs. There’s no guarantee, but analyzing the trends should help you do that.

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Investment management is to allocate funds in stocks, equity, bonds, mutual funds and insurance in a step by step manner in order to minimize the risk of losses and increasing the profits and dividends that you can earn from these investments. As an investor you have to get real world inputs to make a realistic decision in regards to Investment management. You would require an Investment management system which is qualitative, quantitative or a combination of both to ensure ease of decision making. Also you will have to decide which broker you want to work with, you will have to decide which individual broker, brokerage houses, financial institutions, or banks you choose.

Investment management also requires you to set your objectives before you start to invest. You will have to decide which portfolio suits you best. For example if you are working 5 days a week and on Saturday you are busy with household work and you get only Sunday to relax so you would rather be playing game than think investment. So it is best to invest in fixed income securities as you don’t have the time for thought, analysis and action. Here there are lower but assured returns. If you still want higher returns on your investments then you need to invest in equity market for a relatively higher rate of return and you will have to create time for the thought, analysis, and action that is required for such an endeavor. This will help you decide your Investment portfolio.

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The driving force behind a company to organize MLPs is tax avoidance. A shareholder in a corporation will have to pay tax at two levels- one at the corporate level and secondly at the individual level (when the dividends are shared). However, in a limited partnership tax has to be paid only once- at the personal level. There is no partnership equivalence of corporate income tax. In an MLP, the tax accountability of the partnership is passed on to the unit holders. The investor would receive annually a notification of his or her shares and profits.

Mostly MLPs have heterogeneous yields and tax avoidance, with mostly companies offering really attractive yields. The shareholders normally have the percentage revenue of 3-4% of general partnership and 7-8% of limited partnership. The tax benefits combine to the value. Cash flow would commonly better that of the taxable income of the partnership, and while doing so the dissimilarity is considered as a capital return for the limited partner. This return is apt to be taxed when sold to the unit share holder. This deferral causes the unit holders to pay an effective tax of less than 10% (and this rate may at times even go down to 0!). However incomes from MLPs are taxable even in retirement accounts like 401K s and IRAs. This causes investors to move away from MLPs when in retirement accounts. This applies equally in case of institutions as well.

In an period earlier the MLP, it was many times needful to create a minimum investment (which many times turned out to be quite a appreciable amount) to take part in a partnership, limiting the potential equity market to entities from the upper-income range. Once a partnership was created were extremely burdensome to withdraw from if an investor wished to strip earlier liquidation. The MLP business structure addressed these issues by breaking partnership interests into smaller, more affordable units that are purchased and sold, equivalent to stocks or mutual fund shares. This attribute greatly enhances the liquidity of the partnership while also opening the door to investors for far less capital.

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