The 8 Biggest Mistakes When Designing Portfolios - and How To Avoid Them 4. NEGLECTING THE EFFECTS OF PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPENSES. Over time, the compounding effect of portfolio management expenses can be quite large, thus depriving you of better returns. For this reason, you should focus on minimizing portfolio management expenses, specifically trading costs, advisory fees and taxes. 5. MAKING INACCURATE RETURN FORECASTS. Forecasting is the single most difficult task with designing portfolios. Although not a perfect solution, using historical returns rather than making forecasts is generally considered more appropriate for individual investors. [More] No Load Mutual Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? With all the positives for the investor, there is one disadvantage, which may not be applicable to you unless you are a hot shot no load mutual fund picker. It is that in any given economic environment really super performing mutual funds can outperform the indexes, but an ETF can never outperform the index it's tied to. You would need to look at your own investment record to know whether this is a downside for you. [More] No Load Mutual Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? In a nutshell, an ETF is a specific kind of no-load mutual fund that you might consider to be a basket of stocks. ETFs are diversified like mutual funds, only they trade like stocks. They are cheap to trade (as low as $8.00) and don't hit you with any short-term redemption fees. And they offer investing opportunities across the board. [More] Wal-Mart to Sell Generic Drugs for $4 in Florida Today I was looking at my stock ticker chart and saw shares of CVS and Walgreens plunging (I don’t own those stocks but have been watching them). I didn’t realize why until I heard the big news on CNBC. Walmart is going to start offering generic prescription drugs for just $4 in Florida and then [...]. The Importance of Stock Research When preparing to choose stocks in which to invest, investors will perform a great deal of stock research to help them determine whether a particular stock may be a sound investment.. Actuant Boosts Outlook Actuant (ATU) slipped into the earnings confessional this morning to report that fourth-quarter earnings came in at %2425.2 million, or 82 cents per share...(Read More).