Investors have enjoyed the bull market that has been 2012, as a number of asset classes have experienced marked gains. But many are also aware that the growth in major equity benchmarks could come to a screeching halt at any time, especially if (and when) euro zone fears spark up again. To protect their portfolios against unpredictable markets, many investors have turned to income investing over the past few years, using dividends to procure the majority of their gains. But finding strong yields in an environment with record-low interest rates can be a tall order. [click to continue…]
The year-end periods provides the ETF industry with a couple of opportunities to flex its collective muscle; performance comparisons generally tend to favor those products with lower expense ratios–a defining feature of exchange-traded funds. But early January also puts another benefit of exchange-traded products into focus: enhanced tax efficiency relative to traditional mutual funds. The [...]
Van Eck introduced the Market Vectors CEF Municipal Income ETF (XMPT) on Wednesday, giving investors another option for accessing a corner of the U.S. bond market that has been the subject of heated debate in recent weeks. The new ETF will seek to replicate the S-Network Municipal Bond Closed End Fund Index, a benchmark that [...]
The first half of 2011 is officially in the books, and many investors find their portfolios in approximately the same place as they were to start the year (though a furious rally in the final week of the quarter gave a nice boost at an opportune moment). Most major equity indexes are up slightly on [...]
With interest rates continuing to hover near record lows, investors accustomed to generating attractive current returns from high quality fixed income securities have been forced to get creative in their quest for yield. The prolonged period of low rates has posed problems for those who rely on their portfolio to generate proceeds to cover living [...]
Van Eck, the New York City-based ETF issuer known for its lineup of sector specific ETFs in the commodity space, filled with the SEC to expand its footprint in the bond arena with a proposal for a Municipal Bond Closed-End Fund ETF. The product would be the 39th fund from the company and it would mark the ninth [...]
Van Eck, the New York City-based issuer known in the ETF world for funds offering exposure to hard assets and emerging markets, continues to get creative in its product development efforts. In recent SEC filings the company detailed plans for a small cap emerging markets ETF and an ETF that invests in closed-end funds, putting [...]
As each week seemingly brings multiple new product launches, the ETF industry’s product pipeline continues to refill. Issuers continue to get creative in their efforts to expand their product lineups, laying the groundwork to launch products not currently available in the ETF wrapper. One of the latest filings to hit the SEC’s desk came from [...]
As investors have become more comfortable with the marriage of fixed income exposure and the ETF wrapper, billions of dollars have flowed into bond ETFs in recent years. Impressive innovation in the space has provided investors with more options than ever before, including enhanced granularity in virtually every corner of the fixed income market. Still, [...]
PowerShares seems ready to continue the expansion of its product lineup, recently filing for approval on four new funds. Each of the proposed ETFs would seek to replicate indexes maintained by KBW, which is already behind several ETFs offered by State Street. The funds detailed in the recent SEC filing include:
The first half of 2010 is in the books, and it is no surprise that the ETF industry has continued to grow at an impressive rate. According to the latest data from the National Stock Exchange, the universe of exchange-traded products saw almost $40 billion of cash inflows during the first six months of the [...]
