Idiotic New Way To "Invest"

Just came across a wonderful new way to lose money to Wall Street in the form of Advisor Shares ETF GIVE. Appropriate that it should come from  the badly overpriced Advisor Shares since I believe it wins the prize as the Worst Non-Leveraged ETF (leveraged ETFs will always be absolute worst, so I'm excluding them here).

GIVE ETF charges an astounding 1.70% in annual management fees for what is effectively a 50+% cash portfolio (27% of its allocation is explicitly cash and another 15% is short equity which offsets 15% in the long equity exposure to add up to another 30% in cash). Under today's zero interest rate environment this ETF will have you paying 1.70% per year for zero returns from more than half of the portfolio. The remainder of the portfolio is mostly equities with a bit of bonds and will also charge you 1.70% for the same results that can be obtained for about 0.15%.

Words fail me when trying to convey the true horribleness of this monstrosity of an "investment". There is absolutely no way or reason to put this nicely: only a complete and utter idiot would knowingly invest in this ETF. No exceptions to this statement. There is not one remotely plausible scenario of doing due diligence and concluding that this ETF is anything other than a way to transfer your wealth to Advisor Shares and their cronies.

Unfortunately there will be at least a few suckers who will invest in this ETF unknowingly. Part of the reason is that Advisor Shares -- who no doubt fully appreciates the awfulness of this ETF -- is positioning and aggressively marketing it as some sort of charitable, environmentally-conscious endeavor with 0.40% of the 1.70% expenses going to Philippe Cousteau Jr.’s Global Echo Foundation.

I could (and would, if I had the time) write several pages outlining the painful details of how ridiculously bad this ETF is. But I will spare myself and you the pain and fast-forward to what you should be investing in instead if you find this monstrosity appealing:

• Keep 55% of your portfolio in "high"-yield FDIC-insured savings accounts or certificates of deposit
• Keep 20% of your portfolio in Vanguard ETF VTI
• Keep 20% of your portfolio in Vanguard ETF VEU
• Keep 5% of your portfolio in Vanguard ETF BND
• Every year donate 0.50% of your annual portfolio net worth to Global Echo Foundation (the 0.50% coming from some of the interest and dividends thrown off by the portfolio)

The above portfolio will have identical risk profile to the GIVE ETF, but will net you full 1% or more annually even after you donate more money to Global Echo Foundation!