NEW LISTINGS

The obvious start to any green portfolio is the green energy options, some of which I laid out in my Beginner's Guide to Green Investing on Seeking Alpha. However, green energy is just a piece of the overall puzzle, albeit it an important one. The best way to start expanding the notion of a total green portfolio is to redefine asset allocation categories - instead of Small Cap, Mid Cap, Large Cap, and Bonds, Smug Investments' allocation classes look like this:

However, now that the original up and down shares have terminated MacroShares has launched a new series with a higher termination trigger. The up shares (UOY) and down shares (DOY) just started trading yesterday and surprisingly the volume is fairly low compared to their recently expired siblings. I guess all the gamblers who were betting on oil going down have lost all of their money at this point. Also surprising is the fact that the down shares are not trading at much of a premium to NAV. In fact, yesterday the down shares closed at a 1.4% discount to NAV, which just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense because these shares are basically LEAPS and LEAPS are worth more than intrinsic value, or NAV in this case.

Barclays Capital has launched a new family of "investable" power indexes tied to the price of electricity nationwide. The main index tracks the price of electricity in at six major regional hubs based on peak power forward contracts with a range of maturities. Subindexes covering the different regions and maturities are also available. The indexes are weighted by region based on historical annual peak electricity demand.

The MacroShares Oil Up and Oil Down funds have been resurrected ... sort of.

Do you surrender? Do you give in? The rest of the market participants are darn close to doing so.

The problem with the idea of stock market capitulation is that it's nearly impossible to predict. In fact, most of the time, we use 20/20 hindsight to identify it.

Last June, gas prices at the pump were well below $3 a gallon and a rampaging mortgage meltdown wasn't even a reality yet.

IGM held more than half its assets in its top ten holdings during those three months—standard operating procedure for this fund—so strong performance by the largest U.S. tech stocks gave the fund's momentum a strong boost. IGM ranked 14th on the ETF Momentum Tracker Sector Table last week, up from 33rd on April 8. Whether IGM's momentum continues to build will depend largely on a few factors: how much tech spending slows in response to the turmoil in the U.S. economy, the success of the latest products released by major U.S. tech firms, and the ability of those firms to tap into overseas markets.

Another quarter has come and gone, the dust has settled, and now its time to see who made our top ten best and worst ETFs year to date. To avoid duplication, we've eliminated the lesser known ETFs that essentially track the same assets as the more popular issues, as well as funds with built in leverage.

Global inflation is now a major worry for investors. Many emerging markets nations were keeping a lid on inflation with fuel subsidies. Sky-high crude oil prices have put a stop to that. Now they are passing costs onto consumers.

From a pure investment standpoint, yes, this is market timing. From a personal finance standpoint, this is hedging against continued high oil [gas] prices and in the event I lose money due to a rapid drop in energy prices, at least I will have a lower personal outflow for energy. If I played the opposite way, I would be compounding the pain with double increases. The trend is your friend and I am doubtful we'll see a rapid decline in oil prices given supply/demand dynamics and global political issues developing. Airlines and trucking companies hedge energy prices, why shouldn't consumers and investors?

IndexUniverse [IU]: Axel, how did you get into the ETF market?