[geno149]

You could use it to track the performance and to rebalance your own portfolio.

Here's some background on rebalancing: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Rebalancing

Btw, I highly recommend Bogleheads.com if you want to learn more about personal portfolio management.

[saryant]

When I got my first job after college I somehow stumbled upon Bogleheads.org after receiving an indecipherable 401k information packet and trying to figure out what to do. An invaluable resource, their wiki led me to the church of low-cost index funds.

And that's the story of how I realized my roommate had screwed me over when he convinced me to open a Roth IRA with him at Primerica with the money from my junior-year internship. >1.5% ER, 12b1 fee, front-load sales, the works.

He ended our friendship when I transferred the account to Vanguard.

[seanp2k2]

You don't need friends or funds like that :) I always recommend low-cost index funds to anyone who asks, even though I'm no pro investor. It just seems like a pretty obvious way to not miss out if the market moves without risking much more than anyone else if it tanks.

[tunesmith]

I've been rebalancing religiously every quarter, sector-balanced low-fee mutual funds etc. Lifetime APY so far, 2.5% . S&P500 APY over same time period about 8.3% . Grumble.

[zo1]

Why is no one considering investing offshore? Is it really that risky?

I've seen some ridiculous returns on offshore funds. Have a look at some of the Southern African funds (though it does include non-SouthAfrican funds as well):

http://www.morningstar.co.za/

[pjc50]

Is that USD-denominated returns or ZAR-denominated? Offshore investment exposes you to FX risk as well as that of the underlying investment.

[zo1]

A few of them are USD-denominated (so it's difficult for me to invest in it). Others are ZAR.

So it's the foreign-exchange rate that adds risk/volatility, I see.

[vladko]

purely from a technical standpoint for wealthbot.io the challenge is acceptance of these securities by custodians.

for example our platform doesn't really care which security it works with whether it's a stock, and EFT or bitcoin it doesn't matter.

the problem is finding the financial custodian that will execute your trades using the said currency. we did have real interest in someone supplementing their portfolio with bitcoins... but we can't find a clearing house/custodian that would execute relevant trades for us.

if there is an international custodian that we can hook into to work with securities from other countries, it's a no brainer.

that's why open source wins. we are not restricted by any regulation or market conditions. if the technology exists and we can hook into it, it's possible.