Wall Street started the week with a rally as investors regained some optimism over the weekend, although the euro zone debt drama has by no means been resolved. Tuesday was a wild day, as equity indexes gapped much higher at the open, but failed to hold onto gains for the whole session and sold-off hard during the final hour of trading. Volatility is still lurking around the corner, and this was made crystal clear today as domestic equity indexes plunged lower with no major news headlines behind the sell-off. Gold is losing a bit of its luster as the precious metal sank deep on Monday, with futures prices hitting a low of $1,535 an ounce. Prices for the yellow metal settled just above $1,600 an ounce today while crude oil drifted back down to $80 a barrel in late Wednesday trading.
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As the ETF industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, the universe of asset classes and investment strategies accessible through the exchange-traded wrapper has increased dramatically. In addition to funds offering exposure to natural resources and volatility–two asset classes previously beyond the reach of many investors–a number of products have popped up that seek to [...]
Stock markets around the globe plunged last week following the Fed’s decision to proceed with “Operation Twist“, which sent waves of fear and panic-selling across every corner of the market. Long-term U.S. Treasury bonds were the only securities that didn’t get slaughtered last week, the S&P 500 shed more than 6% while the MSCI Emerging [...]
Wall Street finished in red territory yesterday, loosing its footing around lunch time as investors retreated after European debt woes returned to the forefront. European leaders failed to provide a concrete plan for dealing with the ongoing debt crisis in their latest meeting on Tuesday. However, German and French leaders did propose a tax on [...]
Global X, the fast-growing ETF issuer known for its lineup of commodity-focused funds, announced more plans for expansion in the space with the filing for two new MLP ETFs. If approved, the new funds would mark Global X’s first move into the increasingly popular space that has attracted billions of dollars over the last few [...]
Kenny Feng is the President & CEO of Alerian, a leader of MLP-market intelligence that provides benchmarks, data sets, and analytics that are used extensively by a range of stakeholders such as investment banks, stock exchanges, investment professionals and consultants, and Master Limited Partnerships. He recently took time out of his busy schedule to talk [...]
Investment banking giant Morgan Stanley made its first foray into the exchange-traded product world this week, rolling out an ETN offering exposure to the MLP sector. The Cushing MLP High Income Index ETN (MLPY) will offer exposure to a criteria-weighted index tracking the performance of 30 MLPs that hold energy infrastructure and related shipping assets [...]
As we enter year three of record low interest rates, many investors continue to face significant challenges in constructing a portfolio that delivers attractive current income without taking on considerable risks. With interest rates on investment grade fixed income securities pushed down, investors who require a constant stream of payments from their portfolios have been [...]
The ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) has been one of the most successful new products to hit the market in recent months, accumulating assets of more than $350 million in less than three months of operation. While the tremendous cash inflows reflect an overwhelmingly positive reception to AMLP, the new fund has also started a [...]
Continuing its push for dominance in the MLP space, UBS announced this week the launch of the E-TRACS Wells Fargo MLP Index ETN (MLPW). The new exchange-traded note will be linked to the Wells Fargo Master Limited Partnership Index, a float adjusted, capitalization weighted benchmark that seeks to measure the performance of all energy master [...]
Innovation throughout the ETF industry has been one of the primary themes of recent years, but perhaps no corner of the market has seen more progress on the product development front than the commodity space. U.S. investors now have the ability to invest in dozens of natural resources, primarily through exchange-traded funds than consist of [...]
