Tag Archives: Ytd

Short Term Bond Fund VFSTX

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Here we took a look at one of Vanguard Bond Funds: VFSTX. Yield 4.41%; YTD return 10%; investment grade corporate bonds; average maturity 2.6 yr.

It suffered a 10% drop in price in 2008. The actual return was -5%, which was big in short term investment grade bond fund.

What was the cause of that big drop? Client redemption? Maybe considering credit crisis occurred last year. A few bond holdings went under? Maybe too. Had it owned Lehman Brother, for example.

It’s quite interesting that it has a unusual V-shape recovery after the drop. Obviously the relative higher yield has been attracting a lot of investors looking for better returns on their short term investment. Has it also attracted a lot of people who are basically using it as money market funds? Maybe.

Another reason for the recovery might be the valuation of its certain holdings has recovered since the credit crisis.

For comparison, here’s Fidelity FBNDX chart, which showed similar drop last year.

If you have owned similar fund, you probably want to pay closer attention to its price movement.

Top 5 ETFs (YTD)

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I’m researching on ETFs for my Roth IRA investment options. The top 5 performers based on YTD data are XLE 19.89% (Energy Select Sector SPDR, not surprisingly, the crude reached at $57), IYE (iShares Dow Jones US Energy) 19.5%, VDE 19.44% (Vanguard Energy VIPERS), IXC 16.73% (iShares S&P Global Energy Sector) and IGE 14.17% (iShares Goldman Sachs Natural Resource).

Since I consider energy sectior quite extended for now, I won’t buy them at this point. The top 5 ETFs excluding energy related issues are EWY 11.52% (iShares MSCI South Korea Index), EWA 7.54% (iShares MSCI Australia Index), EPP 4.91% (iShares MSCI Pacific ex-Japan), EWS 4.88%(iShares MSCI Singapore Index) and ADRE 4.2% (BLDRS Emerging Markets 50 ADR Index).

We can see the underlying story, that is, Asia and Pacific are where the growth will be!



Top 5 ETFs (YTD)

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I’m researching on ETFs for my Roth IRA investment options. The top 5 performers based on YTD data are XLE 19.89% (Energy Select Sector SPDR, not surprisingly, the crude reached at $57), IYE (iShares Dow Jones US Energy) 19.5%, VDE 19.44% (Vanguard Energy VIPERS), IXC 16.73% (iShares S&P Global Energy Sector) and IGE 14.17% (iShares Goldman Sachs Natural Resource).

Since I consider energy sectior quite extended for now, I won’t buy them at this point. The top 5 ETFs excluding energy related issues are EWY 11.52% (iShares MSCI South Korea Index), EWA 7.54% (iShares MSCI Australia Index), EPP 4.91% (iShares MSCI Pacific ex-Japan), EWS 4.88%(iShares MSCI Singapore Index) and ADRE 4.2% (BLDRS Emerging Markets 50 ADR Index).

We can see the underlying story, that is, Asia and Pacific are where the growth will be!



JANSX and PMCGX

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JANSX continued to move up after a little dip. I actually closed my JANSX position (+6.13%) at that dip as I thought that it had reversed and didn’t want to wait for another confirmation. It has a major resistence at 24.

PMCGX is at 52-week high right now. I closed it at the same time when I closed JANSX. Bad move! The next resistence is at 25.

As we approach the 2004 year end, my current 401(k) has 75% in a stable value fund (earning a little over 4%) and 25% in international funds with exposure to Europe and Asia Pacific. I have always maintained at least 25% cash in this account.
The overall return is YTD 9.6%, compared to JANSX 1.75%, PMCGX 14.13%, TEMFX 13.18%, AEPGX 14.43%, S&P 500 about 6%, QQQ about 8%, RUT about 14% and INDU about 1%.