by sethd on March 19, 2010
A week highlighted by the relatively uneventful Federal Reserve meeting saw equity markets head generally higher, as investors cheered the prospect of several more months of low interest rates. After months of heated debate, a vote on health care reform looms over the weekend, and health care funds above-average volumes throughout the week. Below, we offer our picks for the week’s most important and interesting ETF stories from around the Web (sign up for our free ETF newsletter to get ETF analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox): [click to continue…]
The rise of ETFs has led to the democratization of many asset classes which were once reserved for the ultra-rich. While investors have quickly adapted to ETFs offering exposure to commodities and quantitative strategies, another alternative asset has also seen a recent surge in popularity. Traditionally, hedge funds have been known for their ability to deliver strong returns with low volatility and low correlations to other asset classes. These returns often come in return for big fees; hedge funds generally charge 2% of assets per year plus 20% of profits, enabling fund managers to live handsomely off of profitable investments. Furthermore, some hedge funds require that their investors earn a minimum amount of money annually and have a net worth of more than $1 million, thereby limiting the universe of available investors. [click to continue…]
A recent survey released by InvestmentNews highlighted the ten ETFs financial advisors researched the most, based on data provided by Morningstar. It’s tough to know exactly what to make of the list, but at the very least it gives some interesting insights into the minds of investors. The list included many of the usual suspects: [...]
In recent years, investors have begun moving away from traditional active management in favor of more cost-efficient indexing strategies. The result has been a tremendous surge in the popularity of ETFs and a serious threat to actively-managed mutual funds that have dominated the investment industry for decades. As market indexes have transitioned from performance benchmarks [...]
After enjoying a record year in 2010, many in the ETF industry were disappointed when January figures revealed a material decline in total assets, breaking an impressive string of month-over-month expansion. The latest ETF statistics from the National Stock Exchange are out, and February results were more typical of the industry’s recent growth. Total ETF [...]
Emerging markets have been one of the hottest investment trends in recent years, as U.S. investors have begun to question assumptions about the relative risk profiles of advanced and developing economies in the wake of the recent global recession. Government intervention, a risk usually associated with emerging economies, has become common practice in the U.S. [...]
ETFs have surged in popularity in recent years in part because of the numerous advantages they offer over traditional actively-managed mutual funds: lower costs, potential tax efficiencies, intraday trading, and enhanced transparency. But ETFs aren’t without potential drawbacks of their own. Although most funds appear relatively simple on the surface, there are some rather complex [...]
Usually the monthly release of ETF trading data from the National Stock Exchange provides a good opportunity for those covering the industry to feed the hype machine just a little more. Big asset growth and cash inflows have become as certain as death and taxes, with each month adding momentum to the runaway freight train [...]
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 [...]
One of the major stories in the ETF industry over the last year has centered on the appropriate uses and potential abuses of leveraged ETFs. In the wake of the unprecedented equity market volatility during 2008 and the first quarter, some investors expressed dismay over the performance of 2x and 3x leveraged funds over multiple [...]
The past year was a stellar one for almost all global equity markets, but it was the world’s emerging economies that truly stole the show. As investors regained their appetite for risk, those markets that have historically been deemed to be the most risky surged. But the impressive gains for emerging markets in 2009 weren’t [...]
