Time to Rebalance Your Portfolio: Sell U.S. Small Value and Buy Emerging Markets

By Lowell Herr: Evaluating ETFs is not a trivial process. In many situations ETFs are used to populate specific asset classes, particularly sections of the market that are outside the expertise of ones stock picking abilities. ETF investors are not inclined to analyze a significant percentage of individual stocks held within the ETF and come up with an overall evaluation. Instead, they will buy an ETF to populate a particular sector or asset class and let it go at that.

By Vincent Deluard:The emerging markets ETF space is surprisingly simple. There are only 44 diversified emerging markets equity funds against a total of 503 US equity funds. The two largest ETFs, VWO (Vanguard Emerging Markets) and EEM (iShares MSCI Emerging Markets) account for 91% of the sector’s assets.

Emerging Money submits:By Tim Seymour

ByThe Chestnut:Too often, when constructing their portfolios, investors make a critical mistake. Focusing solely on asset selection and portfolio allocation, they spend little time thinking about a key issue: how to rebalance the portfolio over time. Rebalancing is critical. It reduces a portfolio's volatility and increases its return per unit of risk taken.

By Aggressive Dividends: Professionals frequently advise investors to rebalance their portfolio regularly in order to maintain the initial objective and risk to reward profile. But just how does an investor go about rebalancing his portfolio, and which method is right for you? Rebalancing Based on Target Allocation One approach is to have a certain percentage assigned to each asset class or stock type. For instance you may choose the following portfolio weightings:

Lawrence Weinman submits: Emerging markets have underperformed US stocks so far in 2011 with WWO (green) emerging -4.4% while the S+P 500 is +5.4%.

Michael Johnston submits:Vanguard led all ETF issuers in cash inflows last year, thanks in no small part to a shift among investors toward the most cost-efficient ETF options. Now the company is lowering expenses on six of its international equity ETFs, reflecting greater efficiencies realized in the form of asset growth and operating cost reductions. The ETFs impacted by the expense ratio reduction include:

Jarred Cummans submits:Emerging markets ETFs have become tremendously popular in recent years, as investors frustrated by the stagnant growth in the developed world have been lured in by the impressive economic expansion occurring in the developing world.