As of this week, Vanguard’s new Emerging Market Government Bond Index Fund is open to new investors. Because the fund is still raising cash, the fund’s description page doesn’t have much information just yet.

Given the information currently available, I don’t have much to say about the new fund (and international bonds in general) other than what I wrote in my reply to the original announcement and the followup piece earlier this year.

Investing Articles

• Even Indexing Takes Work from Roger Wohlner
• Investing with a Three-Fund Portfolio from Financial Ramblings
• Markets and Memory Banks from Jason Zweig
• You Just Can’t Change Some People from Rick Ferri

Other Money-Related Articles

• Medicare Basics from Steve Vernon
• Should You Buy a Medigap or Medicare Advantage Plan? from Steve Vernon
• Budgeting for Medical Expenses with Medicare from Steve Vernon
• Pay a Fee for Better Value from The Finance Buff

Thanks for reading!

As an individual investor, it’s difficult to know who is on your side. It can be hard to distinguish one financial services firm from another or one industry group from another.

That’s why I was interested to see Daniel Solin’s new series for US News in which he categorizes various industry parties as “friend” or “enemy” — no room in between. (In reality, I think there is a bit of a gray zone. But quick categorizations can still be helpful for investors trying to work their way through the morass that is the investment industry.)

• Investing: A Friends and Enemies List from Daniel Solin

Investing Articles

• Penelope Wang of Money interviews Charles Ellis
• Stock Market Gains Come from A Few Top Performers from Larry Swedroe
• Lessons from the Top 11 Mutual Fund Companies of Today and 1989 from Allan Roth
• Are Investors Really This Clueless? from Canadian Couch Potato
• Why Financial Advisors Favor Bond Funds Over CDs from The Finance Buff
• Stock Market Highs and Your Retirement from Roger Wohlner
• Dividing ETFs Into ETIFs and ETAFs from Rick Ferri
• Is It Time to Reform the 401(k)? from Matthew Amster-Burton

Thanks for reading!

“How much money should I save each month?”

That’s one of the questions I get most often. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think it might be the single hardest investing-related question to answer. But, I thought Matthew Amster-Burton did an admirable job of tackling the topic this week for Mint.com’s blog:

• What Percentage of My Income Should Go Into Savings? from Matthew Amster-Burton

Investing Articles

• When Fund Selection Is Done Right from Rick Ferri
• Lending Club — A Critical Review from Allan Roth
• Why Investors Don’t Realize CDs Are a Better Deal Than Bonds from The Finance Buff
• The 401(k) Debate from Steve Utkus
• No Free Lunch from Equal-Weight S&P 500 from Rick Ferri

Other Money-Related Articles

• Meet Mr. Money Mustache: The Man Who Retired at 30 from Kelly Johnson
• Save Money by Re-Shopping Your Recurring Expenses from Financial Ramblings
• Why Aren’t Checklists a Financial Planning Standard? from Michael Kitces

Thanks for reading!

PBS Frontline aired a documentary this week titled “The Retirement Gamble.” The message of the piece — while not exactly news to regular readers here — is an important one. In short, it explained that most investors are well behind schedule with their retirement savings due to:

1. Insufficient savings rates,
2. Lack of knowledge of how to build a properly diversified portfolio, and
3. Paying investment costs that are unreasonably high.

While the piece mentioned all three as problems, I was a little disappointed that it only discussed tips for how to deal with problem #3. Still, any documentary that includes interviews with Jack Bogle, Jason Zweig, and Zvi Bodie is worth watching.

Investing Articles

• Stock Analysts Tell All! from Jason Zweig
• Price-to-Bubblegum Ratio Predicts Stock Returns from Rick Ferri
• Big Market Drops Happen More Often Than You Think from Larry Swedroe
• Investing Beyond Your Target-Date Fund from Walter Updegrave
• Is Investing in Clean Energy a Good Idea? from Allan Roth
• CD vs. Bond Fund: A Case Study from The Finance Buff
• Spending from Your Portfolio in Retirement from Larry Swedroe

Other Money-Related Articles

• Dare to Compare: The College Abacus Shopping Sheet from Matthew Amster-Burton

Thanks for reading!

I like ETFs. I think the expansion of the ETF industry, and the price wars therein, are good news for investors. It seems like each year we have more options for ways to build diversified, low-cost portfolios. And each year, those options get less and less expensive.

That said, ETFs are obviously not a panacea. While many investors struggle to reach their goals, such struggles are rarely due to a lack of good investment products being available. That’s why I especially enjoyed the following piece on the Bucks blog at The New York Times this week:

• Why ETFs Won’t Solve Our Behavioral Problems from Carl Richards

Investing Articles

• Target Date Funds Post Strong Gains, But… from Karen Damato
• Investing with Fidelity’s BrokerageLink from Financial Ramblings
• The Best Free Retirement Calculators, Part 2 from Darrow Kirkpatrick
• Why Canceling an Existing Whole Life Policy May Be a Bad Idea from Michael Kitces
• Average Return vs. Compound Annual Growth Rate from Joe Taxpayer
• A Sharpe Assault on Mutual Fund Fees from Rick Ferri
• Don’t Get Too Excited About the Bull Market from Larry Swedroe

Other Money-Related Articles

• Why I Didn’t Take the Home Office Deduction from The White Coat Investor
• Taxes from A to Z, W is for Worker’s Compensation from Kelly Phillips Erb

Thanks for reading!

Just an administrative note for today: I’ve decided to turn off comments on this blog. Please understand that this has nothing to do with not wanting your input. As ever, I continue to value your feedback, thoughts, criticisms, questions, and so on. In fact, I’m confident reader emails will continue to make up the majority of articles in the future.

Rather, the point here is simply about efficiency. The quantity of blog comments that are either spam, political diatribes, or simply rude remarks has increased over time. And rather than spending time moderating such things, I’d prefer to spend time writing, researching, and interacting with actual blog readers. (I suspect most comments in need of moderation are from one-time visitors.)

So please do continue to feel free to reach out to me via email, twitter, or (when you want input from several people about a topic discussed in an article here) over on the Bogleheads forum. For those of you who subscribe via email, you can always reach me by simply replying to one of the emailed articles.

Thank you for your understanding, and thanks, as always, for reading.

Investing Articles

• Your Retirement Savings: Will You Take the Bet? from Dirk Cotton
• Strategies for Existing Variable Annuities with GLWB or GMIB Riders from Michael Kitces
• What Should I Put in My Roth? from The White Coat Investor
• IRAs: Recharacterizations vs. Conversions from The Finance Buff
• Lessons from the 10 Most Valuable Companies on Earth from Allan Roth
• Busting the Sell in May and Go Away Myth from Rick Ferri
• The Obsession with Growth Investing from Larry Swedroe

Other Money-Related Articles

• How Uncle Sam Uses Your Tax Dollars from Jonnelle Marte
• What is Financial Literacy? from Matthew Amster-Burton
• Home Offices and Capital Improvements from Kelly Phillips Erb