iShares Russell 3000 Value Index (ETF) (AMEX:IWW)

Way2Risky (< 20) Submitted: 9/7/2008 5:40:01 AM : Start Price: $84.20 IWW Score: +4.45

place holder - must have 7 active picks here at all times. This fund will not vary from S&P 500 significantly. Thus, it should not affect my score.

I plan to attempt to time the market here, so I will need to close my real picks and move to pseudo-cash from time to time.

mdavitian (51.68) Submitted: 1/29/2008 11:59:25 AM : Start Price: $89.10 IWW Score: -4.89

If the market doesn't completely collapse, investors will run to value. Here it is.

rmgebhardt (92.16) Submitted: 4/23/2007 11:02:43 AM : Start Price: $101.91 IWW Score: -9.76

This is going to stay ahead of the S&P at least 9 out of every 10 trading days. No brainer pick.

NetscribeETF (37.64) Submitted: 3/19/2007 2:29:23 AM : Start Price: $95.09 IWW Score: -9.99

iShares Russell 3000 Value Index tracks equities of the U.S market that have a low price to book ratio and lower forecasted growth rates. Being a subset of the Russell 3000 index it represents around 51% market capitalization of the same. Regarding asset allocation about 66% of the stocks is large cap with solid fundamentals with 24% going for small caps. It has total net assets worth $588 million at a reasonable expense ratio of 0.25%.

Analyzing its past performance it has been good with average annualized returns for the past three years at 14.92% considered best among its peers. Integrated oils sector remains a bright spot to cash due to geopolitical tensions supporting rise in oil price with volatility. Exxon Mobil justifies the top slot being one of the well-managed companies with proven oil reserves. Expectations of rising oil prices may constrain the growth performance of the materials sector. Double-digit subscriber growth in the wireless market and migration to third generation handsets make telecom industry a hot spot. Utilities constitute around 12.5% of the fund and electric related utilities is expected to witness further consolidation.

Partnerships, joint venture would decide the future of biotechnology. Huge margins favor the pharmaceutical sector, which is flush with new drug development, and sees huge potential as many patents are set to expire in the year 2007. Aging population favors the managed health care and the 6% exposure in health care allocation would help a great deal to the funds performance. Materials processing, technology and consumer discretionary account for 4.88%, 4.07% and 8.4% of the funds allocation. Financial services account for more than a third of the corpus that constitute the tradition banking, investment banking, mortgage, asset management and brokerage houses. Though the outlook for the financial sector is looks mixed, companies like Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Prudential, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo have strong fundamentals and show great growth potential that can drive the fund for another promising year.