THE KIPLINGER ETF 20 Navigating Rough Seas

We help you chart a course through this choppy environment with our favorite exchange-traded funds.

- NELLIE S. HUANG

INVESTING  

These days, checking on how your investments are doing feels a little like asking for a hard punch in the gut. Nearly every major asset class has suffered losses in recent months. It has been a total disaster. 

Over the past six months, the S&P 500 index surpassed the 20%-loss threshold that typically defines a bear market, though it recovered some. The bond market, which is supposed to provide ballast in a portfolio in times like these, is suffering its own rout. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index is down 9.2%. Foreign stocks have spiraled down, too. The MSCI EAFE index, the traditional benchmark for foreign stocks in developed countries, slipped 19.2%; the MSCI Emerging Markets index fell 17.1%.

It's in this environment that we conduct our annual review of the Kiplinger ETF 20, our favorite exchange-traded funds, and the ETF industry as a whole. As you can imagine, there's little green-as in positive gains-to be found among our Kip ETF 20. It's a sea of red. But losses are an inevitable fact of investing. "This is part of the price of admission," says Ben Johnson, head of global ETF research at Morningstar, the financial data firm. "If it's too hard to watch, then step out and look at the trees, which at this time of year are mostly green, unlike the markets."