The economy and markets are heavily influenced by purely psychological factors. People spend or invest based on fear, optimism, and expectations for the future. Consumers and investors make decisions based on tangible factors like wage growth and tax rate changes, but they're also surprisingly motivated by fluctuating optimism. It's entirely possible that most booms and busts are largely caused by swinging collective expectations.

We run a huge mega-database each month to calculate things like our MAXratings and to identify the most attractive (generally less popular) investment areas. In addition to our regular calculations, we also look at composite performance data. Each time we  evaluate the thousands of open-end funds vs. hundreds of ETFs,  the average mutual fund beats the average ETF. The ETFs are cheaper, and most have less turnover. Why is this?

We executed a trade in both the Conservative and Aggressive Powerfund Portfolios on August 15th, 2013. 

The June Swoon proved temporary as stocks rebounded to new highs in July. Even previously lackluster foreign stocks joined the party as both U.S. and foreign larger stocks rose just over 5%. Emerging market stocks weren’t in a festive mood though – they continued to underperform returning less than 1% in July. Bonds were mostly flat after sliding in recent months.