WisdomTree, the New York-based ETF issuer best known for its line of fundamentals-weighted and currency ETFs, reported on Monday its operating results for the fourth quarter of 2009. Most ETF issuers are either privately held or operated as divisions of larger public companies, meaning that gaining insight into the financial health of the industry can be challenging. So WisdomTree’s results are often eagerly-anticipated within the ETF community since they shed some light on an otherwise murky area. [click to continue…]
Last year saw more than 100 new product launches, ranging from plain vanilla equity and bond funds to ETFs offering exposure to exotic new investment strategies and asset classes previously available only to a limited slice of the investing community. The innovation that has made ETFs a popular alternative to mutual funds seems ready to continue through2010. Based on discussions with industry executives and others covering the industry, it seems like a safe bet that 2010 will shatter existing records for new ETF launches.
But there has also been some concern over saturation in the ETF industry, as well more than 100 funds currently have less than $10 million in assets. Hype around the launch of new products doesn’t always translate into sustained investor demand. While many investors and advisors are looking forward to some of the exciting products in the pipeline for 2010, we take a look back, checking in on ten of the most interesting ETFs launched in 2009 (we should note the the numbers don’t reflect a ranking of any sort). [click to continue…]
Whenever a company prepares for a public offering, executives have been known to spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the combination of letters that will serve as the company’s ticker and often nickname within the investment community. To many, the fixation on selecting the perfect ticker seems like an irrational obsession on par with [...]
Fidelity Investments announced today that it will offer its retail customers commission-free online trades for a suite of 25 iShares ETFs. The funds included in the commission-free platform include ETFs in all nine domestic equity style/size categories, as well as international equity and fixed income options. “Fidelity has partnered with the leading ETF provider in [...]
ETFs have come along way in their relatively short existence, evolving from plain vanilla funds tracking major equity benchmarks to include more exotic products such as ETFs with triple leverage, and ETFs that employ long/short strategies, hedge fund tracking ETFs, and actively-managed funds. While some investors point to the several dozen funds that have struggled [...]
Coming soon to an ETF near you: Warren Buffett. Well not exactly, but shares of Berkshire Hathaway, the company run by the “Oracle of Omaha” will soon be included in the S&P 500 Index and find a home in many of the most popular large-cap and all-cap ETFs.
One of the best sources of information on the state of the ETF industry is the monthly data download from the National Stock Exchange. While the most interesting numbers are generally the fund flows into exchange-traded products and the issuer “totem pole,” the release has some pretty thorough statistics on notional and share trading volumes. [...]
Charles Schwab is continuing its push into the ETF industry, recently introducing six new managed portfolios of ETFs available through a low cost fee-based portfolio advisory program. The managed accounts program will offer an efficient way for investors to immediately establish a well-diversified portfolio, each of which will be composed of up to 24 ETFs [...]
In a continued effort bid to make Shanghai the financial capital of the 21st century, the Chinese government has approved “in principle” the creation of stock index futures, trading on margin, and short selling. Although the Chinese government has had reservations about allowing short selling for some time, the move will allow the government to [...]
PowerShares announced yesterday that 116 out of its 117 ETFs paid zero capital gains distributions in 2009. The only PowerShares ETF to make a capital gains distribution on the year was the NASDAQ-100 BuyWrite Portfolio (PQBW), which paid out Long-Term Capital Gains of just under 15 cents a share. PowerShares noted that the unique index [...]
The final numbers for the ETF industry are in for 2009, and the results are truly impressive. Total ETF assets grew nearly 50% on the year, aided by a strong recovery in financial markets but also by strong cash inflows across the board. ETFs have clearly been established as much more than a passing fad, [...]
For most investors, 2009 has been a very good year, with a surge in liquidity leading almost all asset classes to big gains. As many national economies emerged from recession, investors regained their appetite for risk, sending emerging markets funds through the rook (these funds dominated the list of the Top Ten Performing Equity ETFs). [...]
