Yi Xianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says housing costs, which have been rising fast in many cities in recent years, are not given due weight in the index (food accounts for a third of the index and housing less than 14%).
ECONOMIST: Inflation in China: An old worry nags again | The
So while oil major Petrobras accounts for 13% of the Bovespa index, and therefore the iShares Brazil ETF, it accounts for just 9.4% in the mutual fund.
FORBES: How the Dreyfus Brazil Mutual Fund Beats the Brazil ETFs
Vale also accounts for 13% of the index, while it is just 6.3% of the Dreyfus mutual fund.
FORBES: How the Dreyfus Brazil Mutual Fund Beats the Brazil ETFs
Rate cuts ding already low rates on savings accounts, and the broad stock market index is down 36% so far this year.
None of this, however, entirely accounts for the strange disconnect between high growth and low index rankings.
Assets were flowing out of traditional brokerage accounts and into mutual fund firms in order to gain index fund exposure.
But many families can wring even more tax savings from a 529 by investing it all along in taxable bonds--whose interest would otherwise be taxed at a federal rate of up to 40% (including the effect of an itemized deduction clawback)--and holding index funds or individual stocks in their taxable accounts, says Yale School of Management professor Matthew Spiegel.
Brazil accounts for 12.6 percent of the MSCI Emerging Markets index, so most investors are underweight.
FORBES: In Investor Circles, Brazil Losing Popularity Contest
One way I trim the fees charged by fund companies on my retirement accounts is to invest in a handful of stock and bond index funds, which carry expense ratios ranging from .05 percent to .16 percent.
However, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index, which measures the service sector (which accounts for 80% of jobs in the U.S.) fell to 51.5 in August from 54.3 in July, worse than forecasts, and the lowest reading since January.
FORBES: Employment Report Stokes Stocks, Housing And Autos Still Limp
London's benchmark FTSE 100 share index, hit by doubts over the reliability of corporate accounts in the wake of the Enron and Worldcom scandals in the US, has lost about a third of its value so far this year.
According to the IMF's index of capital controls, only two emerging economies closed their capital accounts between 1995 and 2005, whereas 14 countries opened up fully.
The IRS is now getting more timely updates from the Social Security Administration and blocking electronic refund requests for those accounts, while the SSA has reduced some of the information, including addresses, on the index.
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China also may soon allow QFII license holders to open new yuan-denominated onshore bank accounts, in addition to their sole existing accounts under the QFII program, that are designated for investment in China's nascent stock index futures market, the people said.
WSJ: China May Give Foreign Pension Funds New Investment Opportunities
Japan accounts for the largest country weighting in the MSCI EAFE (Europe, Australia, Far East) index, a global stock index covering more than 20 countries.
Select low-cost index funds to represent asset classes, mix those asset classes to your needs, place them in proper accounts for the best tax efficiency, and let the magic of compounding do its thing.
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