As ETFs have become increasingly popular among more active traders in recent years, it may be easy to forget that the vehicle was originally designed with the long-term buy-and-holder in mind. For those who take stock in the numerous academic studies indicating that active management generally destroys value over the long haul, cost efficient vehicles that own the market have obvious appeal over pricey funds that attempt to beat it. While ETFs are now components of sophisticated and short-term trading strategies, they remain as critical portfolio building blocks of retirement portfolios and other longer-term investment objectives [see also ETF Alternatives To The World’s Largest Mutual Funds]. [click to continue…]
U.S. equity markets slumped in Thursday trading, as the major indexes broke their recent winning streak to finish the day marginally lower. The Dow finished lower by just one point while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both fell by roughly 0.3% on the day. Meanwhile, commodity markets surged higher with the dollar plunging to its [...]
Equity markets were off to a rough start in Wednesday morning trading, but within an hour rose into a more positive mood that helped major indexes finish the day in positive territory. The Dow and Nasdaq both finished the day ahead by half a percent while the broad S&P 500 finished up by a more [...]
Equity markets finished the week modestly lower, despite relatively strong data in the consumer markets and decent GDP growth numbers from Europe. The Dow finished down just 0.2% while the S&P 500 although the Nasdaq posted much steeper losses, falling by 0.4% and 0.8% respectively. Oil continued its slide to finish the day at the [...]
After lingering in the background of the ETF industry for the last several years, fixed income funds have stepped up in recent months to become one of the primary drivers of growth. Through the first seven months of 2010, cash inflows to ETFs totaled $49 billion. Of this amount, more than $23 billion has been [...]
Stock markets pulled back from their strong gains yesterday to finish the day in the red. Although investors were hopeful that a strong start to August would push equities forward, their expectations were halted today with the Dow losing 38 points, the Nasdaq dropping 11.8 points, and the S&P 500 falling 5.4 points. Though equity [...]
A significant portion of the growth in ETF assets in recent years has been attributable to bond ETFs, which saw cash inflows of $42 billion in 2009 and more than $11 billion through the first four months of 2010. Despite this surge in popularity and the importance of the fixed income asset class in portfolio [...]
The global economic recovery that began in March 2009 has, at times, seemed too good to be true. Despite continually-rising unemployment rates, government balance sheets pointing towards insolvency, and a lack of truly convincing earnings reports, equity markets climbed continually higher. After last week, it seems that those fears weren’t baseless after all, as crumbling [...]
For a nation that is home to just over 11 million people and the world’s 33rd largest economy, Greece sure has had a significant impact on global equity markets over the last year. Mounting government debt and declining tax revenues have forced Greek officials to take drastic measures to avoid defaulting on obligations, and sparked [...]
ETFs were range-bound this past week as most markets were looking to finish the week where they started. A European promise to bailout Greece boosted markets on Thursday, but markets fell back on Friday after China announced plans to hike bank reserves for the second time in the past month. Below, we offer our picks [...]
Investors have historically embraced international diversification in their portfolios as a way to smooth out volatility and reduce overall risk. But the last two years have shown that the benefits of such diversification aren’t what they once were. A meltdown that began in the U.S. mortgage market quickly spread throughout the world, sparking countless complaints [...]
