Innovation remains a dominant theme in the ever-expanding ETF industry and the current product lineup is stacked with compelling strategies for investors of all walks. With over 1,400 ETPs to pick from, investors can slice-and-dice the investable universe practically which ever way they want. Although Apple’s recent distribution announcement may have introduced many investors to the concept of stock repurchasing (or share buyback), this particular phenomenon is nothing new in the investing world. In fact, one particularly interesting ETF is the PowerShares Buyback Achievers Portfolio Fund (PKW); this one-of-a-kind offering seeks to track an index of companies that have recently bought back significant portions of the company stock [see Free Report: How To Pick The Right ETF Every Time].
[click to continue…]
The ongoing evolution of the ETF industry has brought forth a host of previously difficult-to-reach asset classes right at the fingertips of mainstream investors. Commodities in particular have attracted serious interest lately as the exchange-traded product structure makes it easy and cost effective to access this corner of the market. The energy segment of the [...]
This year is off to a hot start for U.S. equity markets as encouraging economic data has helped to restore confidence in the domestic recovery, paving the way higher for stocks as investors increase their risk appetite. The bull-run on Wall Street has undoubtedly caught investors’ eyes, and many are looking for a way to tap into [...]
Last year was riddled with volatility across the board as European debt woes took center stage. Despite all of the uncertainty spilling over from the debt burdened currency bloc, U.S. stocks managed to end the year far better than their developed and emerging market counterparts. Nonetheless, resurfacing worries over the health of the global economic [...]
Financial markets all over the globe have taken investors for a wild ride this year and many are still dizzy from all of the wild up and down swings that seem to be abundant across virtually every asset class. A sluggish economic recovery at home coupled with ongoing debt woes in the financially fragile Euro [...]
The ETF industry took flight nearly two decades ago, an addition to the investing landscape spurred by disappointment with traditional actively managed mutual funds and interest in developing more flexible tools consistent with an index-based strategy. Though the very first ETF was built with traders in mind, ETFs quickly emerged as an ideal fixture for [...]
The last few years have seen no shortage of innovations in the ETF space. Opportunistic issuers have capitalized on a shift in investor mentality by rolling out ETFs offering never-before-seen levels of granularity in emerging markets. IndexIQ introduced hedge fund replication ETFs, a line of products that initially drew skepticism but has now been embraced [...]
When the ETF industry burst on to the investing scene, the initial wave of growth was driven primarily by equity products that sought to replicate the performance of well-known indexes, including the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq. In recent years cash flows to these “super index” equity ETFs has slowed, but exchange-traded [...]
With markets struggling as of late, value investing has seen a spike in popularity. Virtually all asset classes have been pummeled over the last week, as the debt crisis in Greece and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continue to weigh on markets around the globe, pushing equity prices down sharply in particular [...]
Post-recessionary periods often present an excellent investment environment for cyclical sectors, while non-cyclical corners of the economy tend to lag behind. Even after last Friday’s Goldman nightmare, financial ETFs are soaring higher in 2010, followed closely by retail and transportation funds. Meanwhile, energy and utility ETFs have shown significant weakness in recent months and have [...]
During the Great Recovery of the last 12 months, every sector of the U.S. and global economies have gained ground. But some industries have performed better than others, resulting in big performance gaps between various sector-specific ETFs. According to ETF Guide, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) rose 28.8% but the technology sector SPDR [...]
