It’s been an interesting week in the world of ETFs: U.S. equity markets ended the week on a sour note with most benchmarks down about 2%. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web: [click to continue…]
Asia Pacific ETFs posted big gains on Thursday following the release of updated growth projections from the International Monetary Fund that included upward revisions for the region for both this year and next. The region as a whole – including Japan, Australia, and New Zealand – is expected to grow by 2.8% for 2009 and [...]
OOK Advisors LLC has launched a new ETF that consists of companies based in the Sooner State of Oklahoma. The ETF, which will trade under the symbol OOK, is the first fund for OOK Advisors. A second ETF focusing exclusively on Texas companies is expected soon. The new ETF, which is the first to focus [...]
The wild week on Wall Street continued Thursday, with most major U.S. and international benchmarks clawing back the prior session’s losses. Better-than-expected GDP data in the U.S. marked the end of the recession in the minds of many investors, sending the Dow to its best day in more than two months. Separately, investors continued to [...]
UBS, under its E-TRACS brand, launched a new exchange-traded note (ETN) yesterday that offers exposure to the DJ-UBS Commodity Index Total Return. This benchmark is designed to provide diversified commodity exposure based on the economic significance of each commodity. The index measures the collateralized returns on a basket of 19 commodity futures contracts representing energy, [...]
Earnings season continued on Wednesday with announcements from several major global energy firms. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, reported earnings of $4.7 billion, or 98 cents per share, representing a 68% drop from year ago levels when the company set earnings records. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.06 per share, and Exxon’s [...]
The label “gold bug” may suggest a kooky old man who spends a lot of time in his basement reading conspiracy theory newsletters. The truth, however, is that there are many legitimate reasons to trade in gold and its derivatives. Gold has been proven time and time again to be an excellent “safe haven” investment, [...]
Over the last two years, a slew of financial and economic crises have caused many U.S. investors to reexamine traditional asset allocation strategies that put the vast majority of their assets into U.S.-listed securities. As these investors have looked to move beyond their borders, Brazil has been one of the most popular destinations, identified as [...]
Wednesday was a wild day for U.S. and global equity markets, with huge losses for most major benchmarks that conjured up images of late 2008, when seemingly every day saw a triple digit swing in the Dow. The ETFdb 60 Index, a benchmark that measures the performance of the universe of investable assets available through [...]
With sluggish growth forecasted for the next few quarters an unemployment rate quickly approaching 10%, many U.S. investors are looking beyond their borders for new investment opportunities. While developed European and Asia Pacific economies have received a significant amount of attention, the most popular investment destinations remain the four largest emerging market countries: Brazil, Russia, [...]
The world’s largest steelmaker by volume posted better-than-expected third quarter net income on Wednesday, even though the results were well below year-ago levels as demand for steel continues to be weak. Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal reported a net profit of $903 million, crushing analyst estimates for a loss of about $50 million. But a significant portion of [...]
