Insightful Investing

Our Bond Funds were led by two Fidelity funds this month; Fidelity High Income (SPHIX) which earned 2.3% and Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond (FINPX) which gained 2.4% this month.

The good month for Fidelity Funds continued with Fidelity Small Cap Discovery (FSCRX) leading our list of Stock Funds with a gain of 8.2% in April. Our leading Mid Cap fund was Scout Mid Cap (UMBMX) which picked up 5.3% for the month. Our leading International Fund was Lazard Emerging Markets (LZOEX) which earned 1.2%.

On the ETF side of the house the big gainer was SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB) followed the lead of Real Estate Funds by chalking up a gain of 12.2% in April. iShares Russell Microcap Index (IWC) was our best performing diversified ETF with a rise of 8.0% for the month. While all the talk on TV has been about Gold, it was actually outperformed by Silver as you can see by the results of iShares Silver Trust (SLV) which showed its luster by picking up 7.7%.

Internationally, our top ETF was iShares MSCI Sweden Index (EWD) which was up 4.4% in April. Our top Bond ETF was iShares Barclays TIPS Bond (TIP) which picked up 3.0% for the month.

Our Mutual Fund Portfolios, ETF Investment Portfolios, and Best Fidelity Funds have been updated through March 2010. The Mutual Funds in our Mutual Fund Portfolios are chosen from our 50 Best Mutual Funds. The ETF’s in our ETF Investment Portfolios are chosen from our List of 100 Best Exchange Traded Funds. The investment performance history of our mutual fund portfolios and ETF investment portfolios are tracked on our investment portfolio performance page.

It was a relatively quite April for the financial markets with Large Cap stocks up 1.6% and Bonds up 2.8%. Leading the pack once again was Real Estate, which gained 7% in the first month of the second quarter. The market favored Small Cap Value Equities this month with those stocks also picking up 7% for the month. Large Cap Growth stocks, on the other hand, only picked up 1.2% in April as the market once again that it is far less correlated in a bull phase than it is in a bear market.

The only category that was not on the plus side of the score board this month was International stocks which fell 1.7%, thanks mostly to financial crisis in Greece. European stocks were hit with the double whammy of poor performance and a stronger dollar.