The Finance Center

An exchange traded fund that invests in Australia stocks is positive for 2011 but momentum has slowed recently as the near-term outlook on the country’s economy begins to weaken.

The $3.1 billion iShares MSCI Australia is up 3% year to date. The ETF is seen as an equity-based bet on commodities and a weaker dollar.

“An investment in EWA is sometimes viewed as an indirect play on economic growth in China and the Asia region, given its 30% weighting in export-focused materials and energy companies,” Morningstar says in an analyst report on the ETF. “The Australian economy has prospered in recent years, buoyed by the nation’s ample natural resources and supported by a stable government and economy. During the gl

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been outperforming the S&P 500 this year thanks in part to a trio of high-flying stocks at the top of the Dow and a relatively lower weighting in financial stocks, a market strategist said Friday.

The Dow has truly been the “rock star” large-cap stock index of 2011, said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group.

SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF was up 11.1% year to date as of July 21, compared with a 7.9% gain for iShares S&P 500 .

“That outperformance comes from a trio of stocks — IBM , Caterpillar and Chevron — with large weightings in the Dow and great year-to-date performance,” Colas said.

However, Caterpillar shares slipped 6% on Friday after the company’s earnings missed expectations.

The D

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You are now approaching your retirement and would like to enjoy your years doing something exciting and new. The option of going on a safari and roughing it up is not always the best option although it might seem exciting. There are so many details that have to be pre-arranged, the mere though of planning could become to feel like quite a job. Then you have to find something to do everyday to entertain yourself or you will just end up sitting reading newspaper from the stoep of your caravan and you could then realize that you could have done that at home as well. The best way to find a unique way to spend your leisurely days is to search options online and you will be surprised to find that renting a houseboat is at the top of the list.

A houseboat for rent offers you something totally different and interesting to any other activity on land.

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We have seen a surge of trading volume in Global X FTSE Colombia 20 ETF in recent sessions, with a 1 million share plus trading day and another that just fell shy of the million share mark.

Averaging only 225,346 shares per day, this volume has caught our attention and by monitoring the “flows” from a creation/redemption standpoint, we note that GXG has seen recent outflows, to the tune of about $17 million.

That said, GXG has rallied off of recent lows but the fund is still trading below its 50 and 200 day moving averages.

Interestingly, GXG was one of the top performers in the ETF landscape last year, rallying an astounding 51.7% in 2010, but has faltered somewhat this year, losing 5.1%.

In context, GXG is not alone, as iShares S&P Latin America 40 is down 7.3% year to date as well.

Currently, top holdings in GXG are CIB, EC, PEGFF, Grupo Aval Acciones Y Valores Grupo, and Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana.

For those portfolio managers who may want to use the recent relative weakness in Latin American equities to scale into the market slowly after last year’s run up, especially in the case of Colombia, GXG may present a compelling case.