The title as a nod to one of my wife's favorite shows; Top Chef. Padma is ok too.

IndexUniverse reported that Van Eck has filed for a non-dollar denominated emerging market bond fund. There are two EM bond ETFs that I am aware of and both own dollar denominated bonds which makes them less than ideal but this new one has potential to be useful. We'll see when it comes out.

Later today I will be turning in an article to theStreet about the EG Shares INDXX Brazil Infrastructure ETF (BRXX). I am not going to front run the article but I will say that I think it is a very compelling product and that the methodology is sound. The China Infrastucture fund clearly had some positives to it but BRXX looks like a better product.

On a related note I have come to the conclusion that the tollroad stocks are a valid segment to own but are essentially utility stocks. They might be a little more cyclical and so more volatile that most utilities. Indeed a lot of the bigger toll road stocks I have studied were down more than the typical utility sector ETF during the bear market.

Andy So had an article published at Seeking Alpha yesterday called How To Prepare For Retirement Jeopardy. Some of the comments echoed the sentiments I have been writing about for a while like working longer, staying physically fit and realizing how important it will be to be self sufficient which I found encouraging that maybe more people will pick up on this sort of stuff. The government balances could be forever ruined but if more people (I realize it won't be everyone) pull themselves up by their own bootstraps then it will mean fewer demands on the government which helps us all in the long run even if your neighbor is on the dole while you are not.

Reader Jeff from Milan left a link to this article on CNBC's website (I saw it syndicated on Yahoo) about there being different segments of boomers. Per a study conducted by Strategic Directions Group there are four segments of boomers. Financial Positives (really rich) make up 29% of the demographic, followed Upbeat Enjoyers (quite well off) 34%, then Threatened Actives (they can probably make it work but there is no certainty) 23% and finally Insecure (these people are in trouble) at 14%. It was not clear if the study was supposed to represent all boomers of just the leading edge (older) boomers but only 14% in trouble? This strikes me as complete flackdoodle culled from some sort of non-representative sample. 50% of boomers being in trouble might be too optimistic if you follow me.

Bear with me on this next one. I was engaged in an email discussion by someone who is a dramatically bigger fish on a thread I've been writing about here for ages. It does not matter at this point who the person is. All I will say for now is whatever you do to build and then manage your portfolio make sure you are cognizant of the forest not just the trees.

I would not be surprised if the employment rate as reported a few minutes from now is strangely affected by the weather in terms of people coming and going from the labor force the way the gubment defines it. I'm not sure , if correct, if it means a lower print or a higher print but we'll all find out shortly.

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