Questions and comments are very welcome.

Updated May 11, 2009

A smidgen of good news came with the release of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices this morning. Although single family home prices continue to fall at an 18.8 percent rate across the country, the decline seems to be stabilizing (Chart 1). For the first time in 38 months the 10-City Composite index’s year over year performance improved from the previous month’s report. While “one robin” does not make it spring, let us hope this “robin” is soon joined by more friends.

We applaud the growing price war between Vanguard and Fidelity. Not only
will investors save money, which directly adds to returns, but publicity
over the rate decreases will raise investor awareness of costs in general
and the benefits of indexing. But even with the expense ratio drop of
Vanguard's Total Stock Market VIPER to 0.07%, we still do not recommend this
ETF.

The SEC is considering new rules around the issue of "CERTAIN BROKER-DEALERS DEEMED NOT TO BE INVESTMENT ADVISERS." The File Number is: S7-25-99 and the Release Number is: 34-50980.

Further information is available at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed.shtml

Farm Creek submitted a comment letter on 2-7-05. While we agree with most of the Commission's release, we diverge when it comes to the amount of advice a broker should be allowed to give investors. We do not believe there should be a limit as long as the broker stays within his or her competence and obeys the law. If anyone has any comments on the letter, please let us know.

Save Money by Carefully Managing Your Taxable and Tax-Qualified Accounts

We believe that investors who pay attention to this area of portfolio management will save themselves money. How much depends upon a number of factors, but for some investors it could be 0.30 - 0.50% of your portfolio's value every year. If you have a portfolio of $100,000, that comes to $300 to $500 in the first year. This may not sound like much money, but if you save it every year and your overall portfolio grows, the savings could be substantial. While we cannot predict the future, we believe that committing an hour or so of your time to understand these concepts is definitely worthwhile. First, you can determine if there are good opportunities to start saving money now. Secondly and just as importantly, you can start to incorporate these best practices into all your buying and selling decisions. If you do that, hopefully you will reap the potential long-term benefits of this strategy with relatively little effort each year.

Should Investors Hold Foreign Stocks to Reduce Their Volatility Risk?
For US Individual Investors the Answer is No!

Investors need to question the conventional wisdom, take a new hard look at the facts and then decide for themselves. The bottom line is that if an investor is a forced seller of US equities in a bad market, it's bad everywhere. This leaves holders of foreign stocks with little or no diversification benefit at the only time they really need it.