TD Bank branch opening

I received a postcard in the mail informing me that TD Bank was opening (another) branch near me. They're giving away $500 cash (in a drawing) on the day of the opening, and then they're giving away a $1,500 gift card (also in a drawing) several days later. Better than a toaster. Look for these giveaways if one opens near you.

Where have all the cowboys stock analysts gone?

There are fewer employed stock analysts, their ranks having been decimated by layoffs as a result of subprime losses and mergers. This leads to less research available to individuals, since their brokers are less likely to now cover as many stocks. (Whether or not fewer analyst reports is a good or bad thing is something we can debate at another time.) What are some other options if your favorite coverage is no longer available? BusinessWeek has provided some options.

Research Edge is a boutique research firm that provides recommendations for $2700 a year, or $225 a month. From looking at the sample on their Web site, it appears they provide daily big picture market strategies and individual stock or ETF recommendations. Their CEO is a former managing director at The Carlyle Group, so he's a heavy hitter.

Footnoted.org has a premium section that contains more of the insights they pull from SEC filings. As they say - "For the past 5 years, Footnoted has been digging through SEC filings to bring the most interesting tidbits to our readers. But because we look at many more filings than we post on the site, we’ve decided to launch a separate product: FootnotedPro."

The most notable one of all is of course Morningstar. According to the article:

The Chicago firm started out providing reports on mutual funds, but since 2005 it has been steadily adding product categories. Currently, for an annual fee of $159, subscribers can read regularly updated reports from 200 analysts on 2,000 stocks and get access to fairly involved screening tools for finding stock or fund bargains.

The story mentions a couple more possibilities, so if you're in the market for equity research, check it out.

Where the returns were in 2008

Are you looking for where the investment returns were in 2008? Look no further, they were in managed futures funds.

[...] boon for managed futures funds, which climbed more than 13% last year. Hedge funds, by comparison, were off around 21%.

What are managed futures funds?

Managed futures are different from long/short funds and natural resource sector mutual funds. Managed future funds trade futures contracts and other derivatives. This allows them to take long and short positions. They use futures to make bets on oil and other commodities, as well as stocks and bonds. They tend to do well in markets with a lot of volatility, which we had in abundance last year (and still have now), and not as well in low volatility markets:

In 2005 and 2006, when stocks were steadily rising, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index—the infamous VIX "fear index" that measures whether fluctuations in equities are weak or wild—dipped to a low of around 10. During those two years, managed futures funds overall eked out gains of just 1.7% and 3.5%, according to research firm BarclayHedge, compared with 10.7% and 12.4% for hedge funds.

Don't break the buck continued

Following up on my last post on this matter,I received a new notice from my money market mutual fund manager that it was going to extend its participation in the Treasury's Temporary Guarantee Program until April 30, 2009 (the date to which the Treasury extended the availability of the Program). I would bet that as the Treasury keeps extending availability, my fund will keep extending its participation, and I'll get to keep paying for the 'privilege'.