JR98

Same goes for writing about funds. Seriously, they're so boring most journalists look for ways to spice them up. Well, I tripped over a doozy: A heated battle between fund industry giants fighting over the dullest, boringest of all funds, the ultimate snoozers: lazy index funds.

This hot drama involves Jack Bogle, Vanguard's founder; Burton Malkiel, author of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street;" Jeremy Siegel, author of "Stocks for the Long Run;" the new WisdomTree Funds; and our own lazy portfolios. Nobody falls asleep watching this drama unfold. It kept me on edge, like "Prison Break," "24" and "The Departed."

Opening scene: It started with readers' e-mails demanding I look at WisdomTree's exchange-traded funds. Their ETFs are based on "fundamentally-weighted indexes" not the familiar "market-capitalization indexes" like the $70 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX ) . My first reaction was to dismiss them: Too new, too small, no history, high expenses and a tad esoteric. More for nerds, quants, pros and Wall Street insiders.

But with heavyweights like Bogle, Malkiel and Siegel in the fracas, I was wide awake, fascinated, and glad I stuck my nose in because it led me to a new "lazy portfolio." More important, what I discovered may help you better understand the overall value of lazy portfolios: How these well-diversified portfolios of just three to 11 low-cost, no-load index funds beat market-timing and stock-picking strategies for passive investors.

So, let's begin at the end: With "Professor Siegel's Lazy ETFs Portfolio." As things unfold you'll see how the plot lines tie together: 1) How to make practical use of Siegel's strategies in his latest book "The Future for Investors;" 2) The pros and cons of "fundamentally-weighted indexes" versus "market-capitalization indexes;" and 3) why WisdomTree Funds, with a mere $2.5 billion under management in 36 funds, just might someday catch up with Vanguard, manager of about $500 billion in index funds.

Here's the good professor's portfolio:

* Results are back-tested; data through 12/31/2006

Sources: WisdomTree, S&P, Morningstar

Yes, WisdomTree is a new company, so there's no hard data to stand up against cap-weighted funds. They did, however, back-test the underlying indexes several decades. On that basis, they deserve a second look, because their index returns beat the S&P 500's cap-weighted index returns.

Still, given WisdomTree's newness, you might just want to wait until they get some history, as Morningstar suggests. Or reject them outright, on principle, if you agree with Nobel economist Bill Sharpe, who says they're actively managed funds, not indexes. But before you decide, here are a few more facts about the drama that led us to a new eight-fund lazy portfolio.

At the WisdomTree site you'll find a simple rational that describes the conflict between the two methods of indexing:

"Because market-cap-weighted indexes provide more weight to stocks with the highest market capitalization, WisdomTree believes they tend to become overweighted in overvalued stocks and underweighted in undervalued stocks --what Siegel calls the "growth trap."

WisdomTree's fundamentally-weighted indexes are designed to avoid this issue. In contrast to cap-weighted indexing, the WisdomTree fundamentally-weighted indexes anchor the initial weights of individual stocks to some metric of fundamental value.

WisdomTree studied the approach and believes that an effective approach is weighting stocks by cash dividends or core earnings.

You'll find the detailed formulas they use to calculate indexes on their site. For now, just remember the formulas are grounded in Siegel's research proving that dividend-paying stocks are better long-run performers than hot stocks and IPOs.

The opening page of WisdomTree's site has a photo of Siegel with WisdomTree's chairman, Michael Steinhardt. That raised a big question for me because Siegel's latest book, "The Future for Investors," doesn't mention any specific WisdomTree funds. Siegel does, however, outline some fascinating "Strategies for the Future." So I contacted him.

Siegel teamed me up with his long-time research associate, Jeremy Schwartz, who is now WisdomTree's deputy research director. My questions focused on Siegel's all-important "D-I-V Directives" strategy, with a 100% "Allocation of Equity Funds:"

Siegel's allocations include 50% in core indexes and 50% in "Return-Enhancing Strategies." His strategy eliminates the "bias" in market-weighted funds (an over-emphasis on growth stocks), while creating a more balanced allocation toward value stocks. Schwartz went through WisdomTree's 36 funds and created a new lazy portfolio with eight ETFs that reflected Siegel's "D-I-V Allocation Strategy."

Then, the tension flared: I ran across a Bogle/Malkiel challenge to Siegel's index strategy. Last summer, Siegel called fundamental indexes a "new paradigm" in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal. Two weeks later Bogle and Malkiel came back with a strong rebuttal.

While admitting "there is no doubt that fundamentally weighted indexes have outperformed capitalization-weighted indexes during the past six years," Bogle and Malkiel argued "we need to be cautious before accepting any 'new paradigm' that implicitly suggests that the 'old paradigm' -- reflected in more than $3 trillion of capitalization-weighted index investment funds -- is in error." So a lot's at stake in this battle.

Their rebuttal is required reading before investing in these new ETFs. Especially note: "While index [mutual] funds also incur expenses, they are available at costs below 10 basis points. The expense ratios of publicly available fundamental index funds range from an average of 0.49% (plus brokerage commissions) to 1.14% (plus a 3.75% sales load), plus an undisclosed amount of portfolio turnover costs. The portfolios of market-weighted index funds are automatically adjusted for changes in the market caps of their portfolio holdings, and they require no turnover."

And for more, read the section on ETFs in Bogle's fabulous new book, "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing."

Finally, I ran across a Morningstar review of WisdomTree's flagship Total Dividend Index fund: Their "methodology has a lot of arguments in its favor. [But] because the ETF focuses only on the last 12 months and doesn't screen for historical dividend growth, its portfolio likely includes stocks whose current dividend rates are not sustainable. As of Oct. 31, 2006, the fund's more-than-700-stock portfolio had 61 stocks with negative dividend growth over the past five years, 34 stocks with 0% growth over that same period, and 161 stocks that didn't even have five years of dividend-paying history. ... Also, the ETF could have higher turnover, as its index will drop stocks that stop paying dividends. ... Wait for it to prove itself before jumping in." You decide.