Total Stock Market

The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (Ticker: VTI) has been added to my Watch List.

VTI tracks about 95% of the top U.S. common stocks, totalling over 1,200 different US stocks. The stocks VTI tracks cover all U.S. markets: NYSE, AMEX, Nasdaq and OTCBB stocks.

Advantages of VTI

VTI is very diversified and when you buy the VTI ETF, you’re buying a small piece of over 1,200 different stocks in the US stock markets. VTI offers a long term, low volatility play for investing. When the markets go up, VTI will go up.

Disadvantages of VTI

Being very diversified, you may miss out on gains from investing in invidual stocks. VTI holding are very spread out, which means your total return on VTI will be about the market average. You shouldn’t expect to sigificantly “beat the market” with VTI. When the markets go down, VTI will also go down.

Related Links

• Learn about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) at Investing Winner
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) at Vanguard.com.
• VTI stock chart

I Bought China

My portfolio has grown a little bit bigger. I bought the PGJ PowerShares ETF which is an ETF focused on China stocks.

I am looking to hold on to PGJ for at least 1 year and I will likely add to my PGJ position.

China

Investing in China was an easy decision for me to make. China has over 1 billion people and this number is rapidly growing. As the Chinese population makes more money and more people enter the middle class, the number of investors will surge, as will the prices of goods. More people will be investing in Chinese stocks. And people will be paying more at the stores, which is more capital for Chinese businesses.

I purchased a PowerShares exchanged traded fund (ETF) - PGJ - comprised of a number of China stocks and ADRs traded in US markets. PGJ is the Golden Dragon Halter USX China Portfolio. My goal with PGJ is to capitalize on the growth of China and to diversify my ETF holdings with some international flavor.

PGJ Info

Last Price: 16.93

Top Holdings:

• CHL - China Mobile Ltd.
• PTR - PetroChina Co. Ltd.
• HNP - Huaneng Power International Inc.
• CHU - China Unicom Ltd.
• SNP - China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.
• LFC - China Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (ADS)

Related Links

• Chart of PGJ at EnhancedCharts.com
• PGJ at Yahoo! Finance
• PGJ at Google Finance
• PGJ Info Sheet at PowerShares.com

TradingWinner.com Updates

I am putting together some new articles and other ideas I think should really enhance TradingWinner.com.

The articles will cover trading and investing strategies including creating trading & investing plans.

A major feature will be stock price quotes and charts available for every stock.

I am thinking of setting up forums. Would anyone use them? I think the primary focus for forums would be for newcomers and beginners to ask questions. Is anyone interested in this?

I’m also putting a new design together and hopefully TradingWinner.com will have a fresh new design later this month.

My Portfolio Grows

My portfolio page was a bit out of date. I’ve added some new gems to my portfolio of stocks and investments.

I wanted to buy something long term (1+ years) and exchange traded funds (ETF) were the perfect fit for me. All three ETFs I bought are PowerShares exchange traded funds. My three ETFs cover different goals: Growth, Value and Oil

Growth

For growth I purchased PWB. PWB is the PowerShares Large Cap Growth ETF. My goal with PWB is to capitalize on the gains of future stock trading. PWB ETF invests in companies that are poised for growth. Growth is one element my investing strategy.

Value

Value is very important to me and is my most useful investment strategy. PWV is my value choice. PWV is the PowerShares Large Cap Value ETF. Large cap value finds stocks that are at a comparitively lower valuation than other stocks in their sector. The thinking is that buying stocks at a low valuation will hopefully blossom in to a very fruitful tree in the future.

Oil

I am betting on oil prices going up in the US to the $4+ per gallon range. In order to take advantage of higher oil prices and gas prices, I bought PXJ. PXJ is the PowerShares Oil & Gas Services ETF. As oil and gas prices rice, so too will the price of PXJ.