This week eBay announced it would stop selling ivory products -- even antiques. The idea is to make sure there's less of a viable market for ivory -- and help cut the demand that leads to more elephant killing.

The decision comes just before the International Fund for Animal Welfare issued a report Killing with Keystrokes that shows how illegal trade in animals and animal parts goes on right in the virtual public square -- online auctions.

IFAW looked at 183 publicly available websites in 11 countries for six weeks and turned up
7,111 online auctions for species that shouldn't be traded. The vast majority were for trade in endangered species, specifically elephant ivory, but also included live birds and some other animal products.

Mutual fund investors pulled $26 billion out of stock funds in July, the Investment Company Institute (the fund industry trade group) says. That's a net figure: we actually put in put in $108 billion, exchanged in $17 billion. We just withdrew $26 billion more than that.

To have any net negative month is peculiar. Think of all the money that just flows automatically into stock fund in retirement accounts. In June we collectively took out $5 billion. Just back in May we were putting in net $16 billion. (April was up $16 billion and March down $10 billion).

What's strange about these numbers is that we're pulling money out when the market isn't so bad. July, when we dumped stock funds, the S&P was down about 1%. So far this year we've actually pulled out $47 billion. By this time last year we had added $97 billion to stock funds. Meanwhile we're still putting money in hybrid and corporate bond funds, just not as much as last year.

If this isn't the typical story of investors getting spooked by short-term prospects, what is it? I think we all are getting nervous about the economy in the intermediate future, like the next five years. Second, maybe we're seeing the first impact of the baby boomers retiring. If they aren't pulling the money out to live on, they may be shifting it out of stocks or funds altogether.

Although some people have the knowledge, resources and savvy needed to successfully play the stock market for themselves, many other people don't. For the people who lack the time or talent to manage their own portfolios, there are funds that will handle the technical work for you. In oversimplified terms, you simply place your money into your fund account and let them grow it for you.

I found an article at Investopedia which is the best short course about funds that I have ever run across. By understanding the elements that define a particular fund, better choices can be made about how to structure your fund program to accomplish your goals. The article discusses life cycle funds, fund allocations, risk assessment, investing style and fund management. You'll also find guidance about fund fees, diversity and personal investment goals.

Based on what I have learned over time about investment funds, my personal fund portfolio is structured for diversity, conservative protection, and both long and short term growth. I have 20% of my fund assets allocated to global investments, 20% in real estate securities, 20% in small cap venture funds and the remaining 40% is in fixed income holdings. Because of my asset allocation structure I may have missed out on some big gains here or there, but overall I'm pleased with my performance. My fund portfolio shows about 23% total growth over the last three years and my portfolio structure has proven to be modestly bullet proof, yielding a loss of only 0.73% through the recent credit industry foibles.

Even if you don't plan on investing in a fund for yourself, if you have a retirement plan at work, those assets are probably in investment funds and you probably have some control over the allocation of your assets. It pays to have an understanding about how funds work and how your goals affect the way you might tune your own retirement account. The article at Investopedia can be a helpful tool and it does a great job of making investment funds easy to understand.