As far as the majority of the ETF industry is concerned, size is everything. Institutions and financial advisors often have minimum AUM requirements for investing; a pre-screen that many ETFs fail due to their smaller size. Even individual investors are quick to write off a fund with low assets, as they assume its low popularity simply means that the fund is not of a high quality. Instead, most go with the biggest fund in the respective asset class, believing size to be the key factor. To put it rather bluntly, most of the aforementioned people and groups can often be wrong. There are a number of smaller products that present much more compelling investment methodologies than their larger counterparts, they just need a little more attention to get going. [click to continue…]
Though ETFs may appear as very simple and straightforward investment vehicles, there is a rather complex infrastructure that lies beneath the surface. Under the hood of exchange-traded products is a unique “creation / redemption” mechanism that allows for the number of shares outstanding to fluctuate based on supply and demand. Generally, this mechanism serves a [...]
For many investors, March 9, 2009 was a major turning point; on that day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below 6,550, capping a disastrous stretch that had erased billions of dollars from portfolios around the world. Fortunately, that proved to be the low point of the recent recession; the next day markets rallied, and [...]
Most risky asset classes have generally posted impressive three year performance figures at this point, delivering huge gains in the 36 months or so since equity markets bottomed out during the last financial crisis. Just about every equity index is well in positive territory for the latest three year stretch, thanks to improving economic fundamentals [...]
WisdomTree, the firm behind an already robust suite of international fixed income ETFs, announced on Thursday the launch of another first-to-market fund that expands the universe of bonds available to U.S. investors. The new Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund (EMCB) will be an actively-managed ETF that offers exposure to dollar-denominated corporate bonds from issuers in [...]
Investors have been gradually increasing their risk appetite since the start of 2012 thanks to improving economic data and renewed optimism in the global recovery. Likewise, emerging markets are off to a strong start this year and one particular country-specific ETF has attracted serious interest from investors. The iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index Fund [...]
Stocks are off to a shaky start this week as investors digested discouraging economic growth expectations from China. The Asian behemoth cut its growth goal down to 7.5%, previously at 8%, which inevitably caused concerns that spilled over onto Wall Street. The Nasdaq led the way lower, shedding 0.86% on the day, while the Dow Jones Industrial [...]
The WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity Income Fund (DEM) is positioned at the crossing of three of the most compelling trends in the investment industry over the past several years. As the developing economies of the world have established themselves as the clear drivers of global GDP growth, interest in emerging markets has surged–as have allocations [...]
The news on Wall Street have been good while the price action in major indexes has been back-and-forth throughout the week. Stocks are looking to end the week on a high note after digesting better-than-expected consumer confidence data as well as GDP results earlier in the week [see also Gold Hits Resistance, Time To Worry?]. [...]
As interest in emerging markets has accelerated over the past few years, many investors have sought to identify the economies from the developing world that maintain the most significant long-term potential. Many engaging in that search have gravitated towards Brazil, home to an abundance of natural resources, a successful clean energy revolution, and an economy [...]
State Street, the firm behind the two largest ETFs, announced this week the addition of two new international equity funds to its product lineup. The SPDR MSCI ACWI IMI ETF (ACIM) will offer exposure to global equity markets, casting a wide net across both developed and emerging markets. The SPDR EM 50 ETF (EMFT) will [...]
