With time, new instruments are coming to the financial markets which are supposed to be more liquid, more flexible, more profitable and/or less risky. Enhanced Index Funds or EIF are one of these new products which enable traders to get above normal return from markets.

Enhanced index funds are mutual funds which fall into the category of Active Index Funds or AIF. These index funds try to outperform the normal index funds by active management of the fund portfolio. EIFs try to beat the market by many means.

By carefully managing the position sizes or allocation to a index or sector. By fine-tuning the market entry and exit timings. By investing only in certain securities of the index which satisfy certain rules. By avoiding certain securities which are prone to underperformance. By carefully utilizing the leverage and other tools. By periodically (often) changing the portfolio allocations and investment preferences with change in market performances or trends.

EIFs trades just like any other index funds but they have two important differences associated with them. First is they involve management risk – the risk arise as a result of (ineffective) active fund management. All normal index funds have only market risk – risk arise as a result of market volatility – but EIF have both market and management risks. Second is the high fee. Although lower than most mutual funds, EIFs have higher fees associated with them than normal index funds. This is because the active management of the portfolio requires higher fees (more buying and selling).

Investing in EIFs can offer both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of EIFs

Higher return than most other index funds. Increased portfolio diversity and less risk as you are investing in a broad index. Lower expense ratio than most mutual funds. Suitable for all type of investors. Advantages from semi-active fund management which enable investors to profit from changing market conditions.

Disadvantages of EIFs

More risk than normal index funds. High expense ratio than index funds. No sufficient performance history available as they are newer instruments. Risk of losing capital because of ineffective fund management.

Investors are advised to carefully choose EIF after properly understanding the funds asset allocation and active management strategies.

http://hamptonpreferredre.com/listings/res/185532/index.html?sort=price_asc

Best answer:

Answer by bonescontra04
Here’s a link that might help:

http://www.homefinder.com/content/Buying-Guide:Making_an_Earnest-Money_Deposit

Add your own answer in the comments!

I know that predicting the market is a difficult if not impossible task, but are there any early “warning signs” to warn me of an upcoming recession?

Historically, how many times have corrections (10% drop in the market) turned into a true, full-blown recession (20% drop or more in the market)?

Thanks for your help!

Best answer:

Answer by Michael K
Stock market fluctuations and economic recessions are two entirely different animals, and a market decline doesn’t ‘turn into’ a recession, though it may anticipate an economic recession. There is a weak correlation between economic recession and (past) market returns, but the correlation to interest rates is stronger. One reason for this is that some industries are quite sensitive to interest rates, such as home building, and higher rates reduce demand for new houses; we’re seeing that effect now. If the Fed reduces rates later this year, home building will almost certainly pick up again. High interest rates also affect the demand for financed consumer goods, such as automobiles, and for capital expenditures. If you want a good leading indicator for the market, watch the Fed.

Give your answer to this question below!

NewYork, NY (PRWEB) July 30, 2006

Index Stock Imagery, The Independent Choice for Your Imagination, enjoys a new alliance with Cellfish Media LLC, a division of Lagardere Active. Working with its “small office/home office” division, Photos To Go, http://www.photostogo.com, Index will provide contemporary and fun imagery for use as cell phone wallpaper for Cellfish worldwide wireless clientele. Today millions of users are enjoying access to “infotainment” in the form of images, music, videos and ringtones focused on the tech savvy media generation. Photos To Go will supply up to one hundred new images per month that cell users will be able to download and enjoy. Millions of images are downloaded per month worldwide in this industry.

Mike Kaltschnee, VP of Business Development: “We’re excited that Cellfish Media has licensed Index images to use as cell phone wallpaper, and we’ll be providing a wide variety of photos from our 1,700 professional photographers to help keep the Cellfish Media products interesting and up-to-date.”

“We’re constantly looking to bring our customers the most compelling content available. Simply, Index Stock brings us an exhaustive catalog of the highest quality,” says Jonathan Dworkin, VP of A&R for Cellfish Media.

About Cellfish Media LLC

Cellfish Media LLC a division of Lagardere Active, creates and distributes original branded content including ringtones, wallpapers, animations, games and applications. Its divisions feature some of today’s biggest music artists (Lil Jon, Tego Calderon, Q-tip, Pitbull and Emilio Estefan) and includes Barrio Mobile, BlingGames and the widely acclaimed BlingTones, the world’s first wireless record label. Headquartered in New York City, Cellfish Media LLC brings together a team of 250 skilled professionals and generated 2005 revenues of $ 116 million.

About Index Stock

Index Stock Imagery, Inc.™ The Independent Choice For Your Imagination, is an award winning and innovative supplier of photographs, illustrations, and digital images. It represents over 1,700 professional photographers and 80 independent still image providers and has agents in 70 foreign countries. It represents dozens of domestic collections and has 1,000,000 images available online, of which 250,000 are Royalty Free images. Index was the first stock agency to begin storing and distributing images electronically. It started scanning its collection in 1992 and launched its first e-commerce site in 1994. Index’s million-image library is one of the largest and most complete collections of commercially available images in the world. Its four major Web sites, http://www.indexstock.com, http://www.indexopen.com, http://www.photostogo.com, and http://www.photostogounlimited.com, support emailable lightboxes, e-commerce shopping, prints, posters, postcards, cell phone wallpapers, and customized price grids and high-res comps, for qualified customers in the high end design, Web marketing, small business and consumer marketplaces. Index Open and Photostogo Unlimited are subscription services offering access to over 80,000 high quality images for a set monthly price.

Index Stock Imagery, Inc. is a registered trademark. For more information on the Company, please visit its corporate Web site at http://www.indexstockimagery.com.

Contact:

Pat Hunt

# # #

©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

Best answer:

Answer by ADAMSMITH
Check this http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestfunds/2008/indexfunds.html

Add your own answer in the comments!

To an abundance of people out there, just the mere thought of stock index trading could be a bit chilling for lots of people as it might involve chilling numbers. To be perfectly honest, it will not be the easiest thing that you are able to try to master but you may know it more effortlessly if you only do some investigation. You may well not concentrate on it but you might even get pleasure from getting to learn all about stock index trading. You will never really know until you try right? Learning about it and getting into it could be the smartest thing that you will ever do and you could even wind up making lots of money in the long run.

But of course, you could like a little intro about it; maybe get to find out what it truly is and what it is all about. To let you know, these stock index funds are those mutual funds which you can manage in a passive way; they are going to in turn, invest similar amounts of cash in every other stock that thet can invest in. The very same funds will help track the movement in numerous  indexes to be found in the stock market. These Index funds are very appealing to individuals who like long term investments and those who don’t like to spend a lot time just managing their investments. What happens is that they purchase these stock indes funds while wishing that the historical trend of rising stock index prices will end up to be true.

So just how do these stock index funds function exactly? It happens that for every one of the major index that is available available like the Dow and Nasdaq, a mutual fund is in a position to buy shares in every company which will be on the index. Whenever a stock is removed from the list, then that fund will also behave identical way by either liquidating its holdings or it might buy some new shares. You can bet that a lot of younger investors could possibly get greta benefits form stock index trading. They can find some Bull and Bear markets which will stay active for long periods of time. This however could be risky for individuals who are already close to retiring.

Day traders trade a lot of markets. One of the favorite contracts that day traders love to trade are the stock index futures contracts. Currently there are more than 70 stock index futures contract that get traded on at least 20 exchanges in the world. The most famous stock index futures contracts are the S&P 500 futures, NASDAQ 100 futures, Dow futures, DAX futures and so on. As a day trader, you can trade these contracts and make a fortune. You don’t even need to use leverage with these contracts as it is inbuild into them. Now, you don’t need to trade all these contracts. What you can do is master trading one or at most two and become an expert on them.

So stock index futures are contracts based on indexes that are composed of stocks. For example, S&P 500 futures are based on the famous S&P 500 Stock Index; a group of 500 commonly traded US stocks. When you are trading stock index futures, you are betting on the general direction of the market not on some individual stocks. This way you are blocking out a good deal of noise that is associated with the daily gyrations in the stock prices. Stock index futures are used for both hedging as well as speculation. Stock index futures are used by hedge fund managers in hedging their stock portfolios.

The most popularly traded stock index futures contract is the S&P 500 futures. It trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). S&P 500 Index is made up of 400 industrial companies, 40 financial companies, 40 utilities and 20 transportation companies offering a fairly diversified view of the US economy. One tick on S&P 500 contract is worth . So there is an inbuilt element of leverage in these futures contract.

If the S&P 500 Stock Index moves one point, you either make 0 or lose 0 depending on which side of the market you were. These contracts also get traded on the GLOBEX Electronic Platform after the regular trading hours. Margin requirements can vary. If the S&P 500 Index is at 1000 points, the contract is worth 0*1000=0,000. A huge amount for most of the day traders.

NASDAQ-100 Futures Index contract is the second most popular stock index futures contract. It is based on the famous NASDAQ 100 Index that includes many technololgy and biotech firms. The margin requirements for this contract maybe too high for most day traders. Similarly, Dow Futures are written on DJIA. Due to these facts, a mini version of these contracts was introduced.

Most of the day traders can easily trade the e-mini version of these contracts that get traded on GLOBEX around the clock 24 hours. These mini versions have low margin requirements that is only one fifth of the regular contracts.

Best answer:

Answer by gosh137
Your question does not make sense. Are you asking “What is an index fund?” or “Which index fund invests in the world stock market?” or both?

Add your own answer in the comments!

Many people think that it is risky to trade stock index futures. Is this the case? Well, it can be, if you don’t educate yourself first, but if you can put some of your portfolio aside for this type of trading, the advantages really do far outweigh any disadvantages. Stock index futures trading is simply the buying (or selling) of an instrument which gains in value (or loses value) in the same way as the underlying index. Unlike buying the whole index, however, a future has a specified ‘maturity date’ when you are effectively closed out automatically. Other advantages include:

Leverage.
Gaining exposure to an underlying index as a whole. This can be used to gear up a long term exposure (why put 00 into a tracker fund each month, when you can simply buy a mini-sized Dow spreadbet contract with 00 margin, giving you a total value of ,000?).
Hedging your regular portfolio. Say you have ,000 in your portfolio, but expect a big short term drop. You could sell all your shares and buy them back later, but you would have to pay charges, commissions and taxes. Instead you could simply sell a stock index futures contract to cover any losses you might make on your regular portfolio.
You can bet on the market going up or down.
You can generally trade stock index futures contracts around the clock, compared to shares.

Which stock index futures can you trade?

You can trade most of the world’s major stock index futures by spread betting or regular futures contracts. Spread betting specifications for each index are fairly self-explanatory, as you can set the amount per point you wish to buy or sell. With futures, there are specific contract sizes, determining how much money you can win or lose per point move in the index. For many stock indices, there are regular sized contracts and mini-sized or E-mini sized contracts. The mini contracts are much better to start with. The most popular contracts are the Mini S&P 500 , the mini-sized Dow (as well as it’s full sized counterpart ). It is also very common to trade stock index futures not based on any US indices – you can trade the French CAC 40 , the German DAX , the ever popular FTSE 100 , as well as asian indices such as the Japanese Nikkei 225 , and the Hong Kong Hang Seng.

Online Futures Trading

Nowadays it’s possible to make a career out of trading stock index futures without ever even calling a broker. All you need to trade stock index futures online is a reliable internet connection, and a reliable broker. Check out these brokers, for review of some of the cheapest and most reliable spread betting firms and stock index futures brokers.

What affects the price of stock index futures?

As with all commodity futures, the price of stock index futures is determined by the supply and demand of the underlying commodity (as as these are futures, as well as the ‘cost of carry’ associated with holding the underlying commodity until the delivery date). In my opinion the most important factors to help you determine how price action will change is TECHNICAL ANALYSIS.

How can I get started trading stock index futures?

A great thing about trading stock index futures is that it is much easier to control your risk with them – they rarely have huge gaps like regular commodities do, so your stop losses are more likely to get triggered at the right price. They are a great place to start a trading career, but you must get educated.

A stock index looks at statistical averages for a certain part of the market or a stock exchange. Stocks are included in an index based on common traits-for example, they may be traded on the same exchange; be from the same industry; come from companies of a certain size; or represent a geographic location.

The best-known indexes in the United States are the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NYSE Composite index, and the S&P 500 Composite Stock Price Index; there are also many others. Stock indexes offer an overall look at the economic health of a particular industry or stock exchange.

Indexes are calculated in a number of ways. A “price-weighted index” is based exclusively on stock prices. This kind of index does not consider the importance of any one stock in the index or the company’s size. In contrast, a “market value weighted” index considers the size of the companies. That way, price shifts of small companies have less of an effect than those of larger companies in the index. Another third type of index, the “market-share weighted” index, is based on the number of shares instead of their total value.

In addition to providing an overall assessment of the health of specific economies, indexes can also be a worthwhile tool for investors. For example, “Passively managed mutual funds,” a type of fund based on indexes, have been shown to outperform managed funds on a consistent basis. If a mutual fund is based on an index, it duplicates whatever holdings the index is based on. That is, if the NYSE rises by one percentage point, the NYSE-based fund also rises by one percent. This results in lower costs for research and transactions – savings that can be passed on to the fund’s investors.

The best-known index in the United States is probably the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which tracks the stock activity of 30 of America’s most important companies, such as General Electric, Coca Cola, IBM, and General Motors. As a “price-weighted average” index, it assigns more weight to more expensive stocks. Some analysts believe, however, that this price weighting does not present stock market movements accurately, and they also feel that a group of 30 companies is too small to allow an appropriate assessment.

The S&P 500 Index is based on 500 carefully chosen U.S. companies that represent a wide variety of economic activity. Only the Dow Jones is more influential, and the S&P is considered to be an accurate predictor of the condition of the United States economy.

The FTSE 100 Index is the most influential index outside of the United States. Based on 100 of the largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, this index is one of the largest in Europe and is regarded as an indicator of the British economy. The CAC 40 from France and the Nikkei 225 from Japan are other major indexes in other countries.

Those wishing to trade the movements of a particular index have more options than ever. The introduction of ETF’s or Exchange Traded funds made it possible for more traders and investors to participate in the movements of an entire index without having to purchase every stock listed in the index. ETF’s have now grown to become very popular and therefore very liquid. For instance, the QQQQ, PowerShares QQQ Trust have over 100 million shares traded on a daily basis.