Low Cost ETFs

KYUR portfolios of ETFs position your capital to benefit from long-term return of stocks and bonds, with a focus on control of the risks of capital loss, to suit your risk tolerances, how much you are comfortable with.

At low costs – Fee of 0.02% a month of the market value of your investment account. That is $5 a month for accounts of $25,000.

For just about the cost of a Starbucks latte a month, you will enjoy the KYUR benefits:

  • Like the wealthy and large institutions such as college endowments – Enjoy the same care, discipline and sophistication in the investment processes that KYUR applies to every investor account
  • In diversified portfolios that KYUR recommend to be suitable for your comfort and tolerance for risks
  • Benefiting from the rising stock markets – With the risks of market downturns being the priority attention of KYUR investment discipline
  • All of these benefits add to additional growth to your accounts – as much as 3% a year higher than other ordinary strategies of ETF investing.


Rates of return are from model portfolios of various amounts of stock and bond ETFs. Mean-Variance Portfolio (“MVO”) is constructed according to Mean Variance Optimization.

See Model Performance Disclosure for detail on returns and performance data. Rates of return Include dividends and changes in the prices of the securities.

START WITH $25,000 AND CONTINUE TO GROW WITH ADDITIONAL DEPOSITS OF $1,000 A MONTH.

With this simple plan, you could see your investment of $365 thousand worth $1.583 million to spend as you wish assuming 7.5% return annually, 30 years.

Investing in ETFs

Exchange Traded Funds “ETFs” are convenient ways to invest. They charge lower fees and trade like stocks; investors do not have to wait until day’s end to liquidate their positions.

The proliferation of ETFs has posed a challenge to investors: Which ones to invest in? There were 2,100 ETFs as of the end of 2015, commanding about $3 trillion of assets worldwide. There is the straightforward SPY which mimics the well-known S&P 500 index. Among all ETFs, it has the largest amount of assets, close to $200 billion. VTI covers the “total” stock market, almost 4,000 stocks, including small companies.  Its assets are about one-quarter of SPY.

By definition, small companies have higher risks of losses, as compared to the large companies in the S&P 500. To have a stock market exposure, which ETF is to choose, SPY or VTI?

KYUR Portfolios of ETFs

Driven by the PMO engine, KYUR selects ETFs that have larger assets under management (“AUM”) to enhance liquidity and those that have risks of capital losses consistent with our selection criteria.

KYUR uses quantitative algorithms to evaluate the fundamental strengths and risks of the ETFs to be included in each PMO portfolio. Most important are the probabilities and possible amounts of losses of the ETFs, and consequently the portfolios overall.

KYUR’s PMO portfolios of ETFs are thus designed to suit your risk-of-capital-loss tolerances, as well as certain of your personal circumstances.  This focus on risk control has important consequences.


Rates of return are from model portfolios of various amounts of stock and bond ETFs. Mean-Variance Portfolio (“MVO”) is constructed according to Mean Variance Optimization

See Model Performance Disclosure for detail on returns and performance data. Rates of return Include dividends and changes in the prices of the securities.

Benefits of Loss Control – The Law of Compounding to Grow Wealth

Loss control allows gains to accumulate over time and produce optimal returns. However, in certain periods and market conditions, this strategy may result in your investments lagging behind market benchmarks. This can happen especially in strongly rising markets when securities are valued at unusually high multiples relative to their intrinsic values; or when markets are in “Irrational Exuberance” as former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan described the stock market conditions about a year before Black Monday in 1987 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed 22.61%, all in one day.

At the same time, loss control allows more consistent accumulation of wealth. For example, after a loss of 10% in year 1, your investment would need a gain of 11.1% the following year to get back to the original amount. If this loss was avoided, and year 1 produced zero gain, a small return in the second year, say, 3% would put you ahead, $103 – even though nominally your investment “underperforms” in the second year.

A vivid case of why loss control is critical to growing wealth is the market conditions in the three years ending March 2017; see the chart nearby.

As the conditions in the stock markets became negative, stocks took a tumble in summer of 2015, continuing till spring 2016. However, KYUR Investor Model Portfolio declined only modestly, not having a big loss to recover from. With this stronger footing, KYUR Investor Portfolio recovered in subsequent months, and continued to advance as markets kept rising.

Importantly, loss control reduces risks and amounts of capital losses in bear markets, such as the financial crisis of 2008.

Minimizing potential losses in financial upheavals help sleeping better! Containing losses in such worrisome market conditions not only help protect capital, it helps keeping calm to make rational decisions. For many, it means not having to cut back on such essentials as saving for college, buying a house, or gifts for loved ones on special occasions. Perhaps most important of all, not having to delay retirement because of large losses due to the market crashing. Such was the situation of many in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis.

KYUR offers three categories of ETF portfolios: Saver, Investor, and Wealth Creator Portfolios. Each portfolio category has multiple variations to suit your risk tolerances. The ETFs in the three Portfolios may be different although some may overlap. Also, the methodologies to construct them are different. This is because the value functions or behavioral reactions to risks are different among different individuals; in math-speak, they are neither linear nor uniform with regards to gains or losses. This real-world behavior is demonstrated clearly by 2002 Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and other innovators in behavioral finance and Modern Portfolio Theory.

To invest in the three ETF Portfolios, you are invited to click here.