Van Eck, the New York-based ETF issuer known for its hard assets and targeted international funds, has filed for a new ETF focusing on small cap stocks in Latin America. The Latin America Small-Cap ETF (LATM) would track the Market Vectors LatAm Small-Cap Index, a modified cap-weighted benchmark designed to track the performance of publicly-traded companies that are domiciled and listed on an exchange in Latin America or that generate at least half of their revenues in Latin America. As of December 21, the index consisted of 75 securities with a total market capitalization of more than $80 billion. [click to continue…]
Much has been made of the stellar performance of emerging market ETFs during 2009 and the importance of maintaining an allocation to these funds in investor portfolios. But these discussions have primarily focused on emerging market equity ETFs, overlooking a rapidly-expanding corner of the bond ETF market. Emerging market bond ETFs saw cash inflows of [...]
Investors returned from the Christmas holiday with a lot of international news to digest, ranging from a terrorist plot originating in Africa to unrest in Iran. But on Wall Street, all was relatively calm, with most major benchmarks little changed and little in the way of major news to give stocks direction.
Today is the last day of trading for the two exchange-traded products from MacroShares, following an announcement from the company that the MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up Trust (UMM) and MacroShares Major Metro Housing Down Trust (DMM) had reached an early termination trigger by failing to accumulate at least $50 million in assets. The registration [...]
One of the world’s most successful bond managers is encouraging investors to bet against predictions made recently by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who recently told a group of business leaders that inflation was not a major concern and could even move lower from its current levels.
The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) has found itself at the top of a number of lists this year. The natural gas fund has been one of the most popular exchange-traded products, with cash inflows to date in 2009 of $5.4 billion, more then four times the assets UNG maintained only a year ago. [...]
Platinum and palladium prices jumped to recent highs last week on news that regulators had taken an important step towards allowing London-based ETF Securities (ETFS) to list physically-backed ETFs linked to the metals to trade on U.S. exchanges. “The Securities and Exchange Commission in the past week approved proposed rule changes from the New York [...]
Goldman Sachs has filed for approval with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a line of exchange-traded funds, seeking to become the latest financial giant to into the industry. According to the 40-APP filing, Goldman’s initial fund will “offer an extensive representation of the Brazilian, Indian, Chinese and Korean markets by targeting all companies [...]
With 2009 winding to a close, we get ready to close the books on another very successful year for the ETF industry. The addition of more than a hundred new funds and almost $100 billion in cash inflows are sure signs that ETFs are the wave of the future, and that 2010 will surely have [...]
With the highly-anticipated Copenhagen conference now in the books, many are cheering steps towards drastic cuts and a coordinated response to global climate change. Some emerging markets are calling on rich countries to cut their emissions by 40% compared to 1990 levels, as well as making a personal call to President Obama to have the [...]
As more and more ETFs hit the market, it becomes difficult for some investors and advisors to grasp the investment theses behind some of the more innovative product offerings. While the last few years have seen a surge in the number of “plain vanilla” ETFs, there has also been a big jump in products that [...]
