by Eric Dutram on October 22, 2010 | Updated April 20, 2011
As the ETF world continues to grow, the competitive landscape continues to evolve. In recent years, a growing number of firms have attempted to differentiate themselves by offering unique exposure to asset classes and strategies not previously available–such as funds tracking the Philippine stock market or ETNs linked to the price of industrial metals such as zinc or tin. More recently, the ETF industry has witnessed escalating price wars, with multiple issuers lowering management fees in an attempt to lure cost-conscious investors. These price wars have sent expense ratios to as low as six basis points, much to the delight of investors accustomed to forking over upwards of 1.5% annually to active mutual funds. But many ETF issuers have recognized that the total cost of ETF investing goes beyond just expense ratios, and have aggressively marketed programs designed to save investors money when executing ETF trades [see The Total Cost Of ETF Investing]. [click to continue…]
As ETFs have burst on to the scene in recent years and worked their way into the investing mainstream, the number of products available and complexity of exposure offered has increased significantly. Advisors and investors have taken steps to educate themselves on the ins and outs of ETFs, but many are still scrambling to play [...]
by Eric Dutram on October 10, 2010 | Updated October 20, 2010
As the ETF world continues to expand, more online brokerage houses are beginning to offer their clients commission-free trading on ETFs as a way to generate interest in these relatively new investment vehicles. Among the first firms to offer this program were Fidelity, which currently offers 26 commission-free iShares ETFs, Charles Schwab (11 ETFs), and [...]
It’s been a long time coming, but an S&P 500 ETF from Vanguard is finally here. The Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based firm rolled out the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) on Thursday, nearly 35 years after the company introduced an S&P 500 index mutual fund that laid the groundwork for the rise of indexing as an [...]
It is no secret that the ETF industry has been wildly successful in recent years, taking in hundreds of billions of dollars and being embraced by both cost-conscious buy-and-holders and more active investors. This rise in popularity has made ETF issuers attractive assets to some investors; acquisitions of iShares, Claymore, and Rydex over the last [...]
Charles Schwab may be a relative newcomer to the exchange-traded fund game, but the San Francisco-based firm has made quite a splash since wading into the ETF waters late last year. On Monday, Schwab shook up the industry again, announcing that it was reducing the expense ratios on six ETFs, or three quarters of its [...]
In the ETF industry record book, the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) is a frequent contributor. Launched in 1993, SPY is the first ETF to be traded on a U.S. exchange, and has been the largest ETF in the world since its inception. That first distinction is obviously safe in perpetuity, and for years SPY’s grip [...]
An already tumultuous day took a terrifying turn in afternoon trading on Thursday, as several major U.S. indexes lost multiple percentage points in a matter of minutes before reclaiming big chunks of the ground lost. At 2:40 on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 415 points, putting it on pace for one [...]
For someone who played such a major role in the introduction and widespread adoption of ETFs, Vanguard Group founder John Bogle has some surprisingly negative perceptions of these products. Bogle’s beef isn’t with the exchange-traded structure (he’s referred to that as a “truly great business model” that helps investors avoid the “tyranny of compounded costs”), [...]
Once investors have narrowed down the universe of 900+ exchange-traded products to those that could potentially match the risk/return profile they’re seeking, the real work begins (see Five Free Tools For Finding The Right ETF). When comparing ETFs to find the best fit for a portfolio, one of the metrics most frequently analyzed is the [...]
The rise of the ETF industry has changed a lot about the business of investing. It has altered the way investors look at expenses, making it difficult to justify handing over 200 basis points (or more) each year to an active manager who can’t regularly beat a benchmark. It has also expanded the universe of [...]
