As the roster of exchange-traded products has grown to nearly 1,300, many investors find themselves with the luxury of multiple options for establishing a position in a desired asset class. There are, for example, four different pharmaceutical ETFs, three homebuilder funds, and even two choices for playing the automotive industry.
Once the ETF universe has been whittled down to funds that fit a given investment objective, there are a number of strategies for determining which of the candidates represents the most efficient way to play. It makes sense, for example, to compare ETFs on the basis of expenses, depth of holdings, liquidity, and tracking error. But many investors are much more basic in their assessments; there is a tendency among ETF investors to gravitate towards the biggest products in favor of smaller or lesser-known funds. If bigger is indeed better, this approach should work well; the size of a product would reflect its general efficiency and usefulness to investors. But in reality, a big AUM total is just as likely to result from a lengthy operating history and strong brand recognition. For ETF investors, following the crowd isn’t always the best path; often, there are better options available for those willing to dig a bit deeper [sign up for a free Pro trial to access the special ETF research report Gold ETFs In Focus]. [click to continue…]
Despite bleeding billions of dollars during the recent chaotic stretch on Wall Street, the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) is still the largest exchange-traded product in the world; with more than $75 billion in assets, the popular fund is larger than the GDP of many countries. A big chunk of the assets in SPY are held [...]
Over the past year, interest in commodities has skyrocketed as countless commodities from gold to wheat have surged to fresh highs. This trend has put renewed focus on not only physically-backed commodity ETFs, but commodity producing equities as well. At last count, there were 25 ETFs in the Commodity Producers ETFdb Category, with five funds [...]
As investors have grown more comfortable allocating more significant portions of portfolios to emerging markets, the number of ETFs offering exposure to these regions of the world has surged in recent years. Exchange-traded products now exist offering investors exposure to a variety of markets that were once hard-to-access for all but the largest and most [...]
The steady rise in the number of exchange-traded products available to U.S. investors over the last several years has been primarily driven not by duplication, but by innovation. The vast majority of recent ETFs to hit the market have been first-to-market products, offering exposure that wasn’t previously available within the ETF wrapper. Investors can now [...]
As the U.S. ETF industry has grown to nearly 1,000 products and $800 billion in assets, the pace of innovation in the industry has been remarkable. As issuers have rushed to claim their spot in the rapidly-expanding space, most have focused not on duplicating existing products, but rather being first-to-market with a unique type of [...]
One of the interesting developments to come out of the turmoil in global equity markets over the last two years is the surge in interest in the world’s emerging economies. While developed markets continue to be plagued by mounting debt, rising unemployment, and other macroeconomic issues, emerging markets have raced ahead, establishing themselves as the [...]
One of the hottest segments of the ETF industry is the commodity space, which has exploded in recent years as investors have embraced exchange-traded products as a means of reaching an asset class that offers potentially valuable diversification benefits. While most commodity products are physically-backed or futures-based funds, an alternative means of gaining commodity exposure [...]
After the Dubai debt crisis late last year, many investors feared that the Gulf boom was quickly coming to an end. But obituaries written for the Gulf economy turned out to be premature, as Gulf States such as the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain have bounced back from that scare to post solid returns in 2010. [...]
The first wave of growth in the ETF industry came as investors embraced the exchange-traded structure as an improvement over traditional actively mutual funds–a more cost-efficient and tax-friendly way to access traditional asset classes such as stocks and bonds. But in recent years much of the growth in ETF assets has been attributable to “democratizing” [...]
With the summer driving season just around the corner, surging GDP growth around the world, and another earnings season off to an impressive start, more and more investors are taking a closer look at oil markets. As OPEC begins to once again flex its collective muscle and demand from emerging markets continues to build, some [...]
