After checking the 'Get A Quote' sub-button, we decide to add new source into it, the 'Pink Sheets' website. The Pink Sheets website provides and publishes financial information for OTC (Over The Counter) securities. The Pink Sheets information provider is not a SEC registered as well as not a broker-dealer. If you couldn't find a certain security in the regular quote suppliers you will be able to find it in the 'Pink Sheets' website. You'll find it under the 'Goolge Finance' quote source.
Yesterday and today we hear everywhere in the news commentaries on Madoff's Ponzi Scheme (also: CNBC- Additional charges may occur, Reuters- summary, The Wall Street Journal- closing report, CNNMoney- Madoff's Ruth hidden money enigma, Yahoo! Finance- general news concerning the issue). The facts are: Madoff pleaded guilty and go to jail immediately. Reuters' video to summarize it:
As a summary of our own, we want to deliver our readers the things we believe will be the talk of tomorrow.
(I) The full list of Madoff's casualties. This list demonstrate the magnitude of Madoff's actions and today, after this story comes to an end, it functions as a memorial board for good cause's investors and sophisticated personas or firms, yet naive investors (on the border of stupidity). The list contains firms from around the world and it shows the power they gave for one person's hands.
Madoff’s scandal becomes more and more annoying while the press from one hand updates us with closing to end news and “life in prison” verdicts, and from the other hand the authorities that not succeed with making Madoff plead guilty (admitting on conspiracy charges in exchange for life). This story demonstrate best how lack of capabilities in the authorities hands, prevent from this story to be over. More than that, nowadays, sophisticated people like Madoff with lots of power in their hands and with strong attorneys beside them are able to push over the law and bend it so the result will be best for them.
Here you get to see some updates concerning this issue, which surely won’t be over in short term. For once I hope the law enforcements will be more ingenious than those who played, gambled and finally lost it all and now are trying to get out of it when the party is over. We saw how Madoff tricked the most sophisticated investor and now the ball is in the authorities’ hands. Let’s not forget that the state attorneys general is expecting a wave of new suits on financial frauds, something that needs bigger budget for its department. The bottom line is that maybe until now the government could close their eyes to sophisticated frauds in the financial markets but after the latest events, we understand that being technology speaking and financial development speaking, unprogressive is kind of disability, which in these days, is something we can’t allowed to ourselves.
For those of who want to drill down inside the accusations of Bernard madoff, find the following document.
Today I'll finish, as I said in the last post, the 'ETFs' sub-button. we stopped at the 'Yahoo! Finance ETF Browser by Risk', where we partly described the meaning of the Beta parameter in the financial terms. Take your time check this last post. Back to the reviewing part. As a continue, the next source is 'MSN Money ETF Performance Tracker', which delivers a list of ETFs based on its market price performance. In addition, the list attaches to each ETF the score (grade) of it by MorningStar. If you want, it is possible to reduce the amount of ETFs in the list by preferring a fund family or a category which the ETF aims to. The best pro of this source's list is that it gives you, for each ETF, the performance of it for several periods, (1-Wk, 4-Wks, 13-Wks, YTD, 52-Wks, 3-Yrs and 5-Yrs), something that really shorten the time to check historical performances. 'ETFConnect Find A Fund' gives a kind of special searching ability. It's not like it gives different list of ETFs but more like better (or different) sorting ability. Parameters like Asset Classes (Fixed Income, Equity, Other
s), Taxable/ Municipal or All, Fund Sponsor, Premium/ Discount (in a NAV point of view, meaning, is the ETF reflects a premium or a discount concerning the base assets. Very important in order to understand where the ETF is heading to). It is also possible to review ETFs that are leveraged or not. That is important for those who object anything that related to leveraging in the financial markets. 'ETFConnect Fund Sorter' is a simple ETF sorting tool, delivers only two sorting abilities (working together): Fund Type and a selected criteria for your picking. The reason we chose this source to appear in Sargels Toolbar is that it gives a first look on the ETFs possibilities under general criteria sorting, so you'll be able to cut off a very long list of ETFs before you'll start drill down into a specific ETF, something that is a real time saver. The last source on the 'ETFs' sub-button is the 'ETFConnect Fund Sponsors'. This sorter gives you the ability to first choose your favorites ETFs' Sponsor, if there is any, and from the list given, you'll be able to choose the ETF you want. Many Institution investors prefer a specific ETFs' sponsor to work with, based on their personal or business acquaintanceship, or on a past experiences. If you, as an investor, prefer a specific sponsor, which you think is more reliable than the others, that better fits your needs, you can start the drill down routine by checking this source first.
Finally we finish the 'ETF' sub-button, covering all the sources inside it. If you have any question concerning this issue, or for that matter, any other issue concerning Sargels or anything else, put it as a comment and we'll response to it, or alternatively send us a query and we'll get back to you ASAP. That's it for this post. We invite any of you who want to help us spreading the word of Sargels Financial Toolbar, to use any of the distribution tools on this blog (see at the end of the post). Don't forget to subscribe to our RSS in order to be updated with any new post we publish. If you want, join us on Twitter. As of Twitter, We advise you to join us because it is very dynamic over there. Every time we have any input on the markets, we publish it on our Twitter and we are very active with new, up-to-date financial information. After all, We originally an active traders (check this post to know more about us, or here on Sargels Team's website).
Sargels Team
In the last Sargels reviewing post, we covered the beginning of the 'ETF' sub-button. In this post we will continue with this sub-button. We also want to advise you to check all the previous reviewing posts in order to be updated with the earlier sub-buttons. It is the place to mention that non of the former sub-buttons have changed since their reviews.Also, if one of the sub-button, or one of its sources, will be changed, we will publish a post concerning the changes made. Back to the current review. The next source on the 'ETF' sub-button is the 'CNNMoney ETF News & Info', a source that delivers up-to-date news concerning the ETF market, including a table with the mo
st Gainers, Loser and Actives ETFs for the current period. The next source is 'ETF Connect Interactive Charting'. It gives a nice interactive chart ability, to use on ETFs, with comparison, time frames, technical analysis and more features. The idea is that this source is ETF- dedicated but it can chart stocks as well. The 'Bloomberg ETFs' gives you a full-list ETF's table. This table contains all the ETFs that traded in a given region. Although it is a full list, which actually gives all the info there is, it is not enhanced list, meaning, it is neither sortable nor moderate. So you can use it as a preliminary list but not as a drill down function. The 'Yahoo! Finance ETF Browser by Return (mkt)' is an enhanced source, giving a list of ETFs sorted by a given criteria. In this specific source, we chose the criteria we believe is the primary one- Intraday Return. Meaning here, the list sorted by an ETF price descending, from the highest ETF's increasing price to the ETF with the highest price decreasing. The reason we chose this criteria in particular is to enable a quick and easy view on the ETFs market, from the ETF's price point of view. Another important criteria for the 'Yahoo! Finance ETF Browser' we believe needs to appear inside the 'ETF' sub-button is Risk. This criteria sorts the ETF's list on a Risk basis, or in financial terms- Beta. A bigger beta means a more volatile ETF- risky ETF and vice versa. The reference ETF (the ETF that considers as the natural market risk, meaning beta=1) is the SPY (SPDRs), which tracks the S&P500 index. It also considers as one the most traded (in terms of volume) ETFs as well as securities in the US (and internationally) market. The beta calculation for rest of the ETFs in the market are in a proportion to the SPY. This criteria is very important, as it illustrates the power level of general risk that the consider ETF holds. Always keep in mind that beta is a volatility measurement, meaning, the possibility of a given ETF (or for that matter, any other security on the market, any market- shares, options, currencies, ETFs, commodities, etc.) to oppositely change its rate. ETFs (and again, any other security) has many other measurements that need to be taken into investment considering so don't totally lean on this feature.
We will close this post here, as we think lot of general financial information poured in this post, so take your time to drill down inside this sub-button, and inside the former posts as well. In the next post we'll finish the 'ETF' sub-button and by that, closing the ETF field of investment reviewing and move over to a new field of investment- Options. Until the next post, share your comments with every reader of the blog, share Sargels Financial Toolbar with your friends and associates- let everyone else enjoy the beenfits of this financial information solution. If you like, follow us on twitter.
Sargels Team
It is a great pleasure to present here the Annual Letter of Waren Buffett to the Berkshire Hathaway's investors. Waren Buffett is the famous Value-Investor in the world. Every year his annual letter is a reason for a celebration of rumors, news, and mostly interpretations of "What Does Waren Mean By That?" I guess this year, with the latest reports from BRKA's holding companies, together with the not-so-good year (financial and economic speaking), the "Oracle of Omaha" has some instructive news and commentaries to share. I think we will talk about it for a long time. For a change, he needs to deliver some explenations and not just talking and waiting for applause. Enjoy the reading and start to comment on the letter at the end of the post. We all have something to say this year concerning the latest events. Share this post with friends and invite everyone to comment on the letter here in the post.
Waren Buffett's 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Letter
It has been a while since the last review post, basically because of some unsolved issues concerning the markets, like deals to close and new thoughts about further investments. This post will deal with the next sub-button: 'ETFs'. This one concentrates all the most important sources on the web concerning the ETFs investments channel. I can say already that it will be a little bit longer post so I'll split it into two or three separated posts. Let's begin.
The first source in this sub-button is 'Yahoo! Finance ETF Center', which centralizes in one place all the important information about ETFs with a quick view on the top performers among the ETFs. Basically you can access to every part of Yahoo! Finance ETFs' area but as a begining, it gives an overview. The next source is 'MorningStar ETF'. This source is the cover page of MorningStar's ETF section and it mainly summarizes the biggest and most important ETFs in the market, delivers news concerning the ETF field. More important and interesting is the Domestic Equity Stylebox. This unique tool helps you to find ETF under specific investment style. It shorten the time to sort and discover ETFs under major criteria (i.e., Large, Medium or Small Cap). 'MarketWatch ETF Advanced Screener' is a full-featured screener, dedicated to ETFs, giving you criteria's basis sorting tool. It enables you to sort ETFs so it will answer exactly to your investment's method and by that, minimize the time you'll spend on searching and finding. The method of 'CNNMoney ETF Screener' is different. Here you act in the click&react approach, meaning, you click on a specific category (Asset Class, Style, Market Cap, Region and so on) that suite your determination and the platform opens for you a list that answer ex
actly to the criteria you've determined. The 'MorningStar ETF Screener' source is a pretty simple screener, delivers a short list of criteria choosing in an easy to use method. Although you can cover in this screener all the ETFs in the market, it is a simple one, that, as we see it, only enables you to review the major criterias you defined and not actually drill down and find a specific ETF. It misses the ability to sort ETFs based on a full-featured list of criterias. But, as we said, it is a good screener to find ETFs under major criterias. After finishing with the ETF ceneters and screeners, we think it is enough for this post. In the next one, we'll continue with covering the 'ETF' sub-button. The next sources are mostly news and updates sources and among them some really important and interesting ones. Stay updated with Sargels Blog Review by adding the RSS or by following us on Twitter. You are also invite to join our Sargels group on LinkedIn and to get associated on Facebook. As always, do share Sargels Financial Toolbar to your acquaintance.
Sargels Team.
