Precious metal investors have been on a wild ride so far in 2011. After falling to start the year, gold took off from its level just above $1,300/oz., skyrocketing higher on inflation concerns and an increasingly weak dollar. The price eventually hit the $1,577 mark in early May before quickly selling off, falling by close to $100/oz. in a matter of weeks. While a stronger dollar and declining fears over inflation in some of the world’s key emerging markets has certainly played a role in gold’s short term demise, some believe that gold has hit a near term top and that this is just a speculative bubble popping. [click to continue…]
The ETF industry as a whole has grown tremendously in recent years, with both assets and the number of products surging as investors embrace the exchange-traded structure as an efficient vehicle for accessing everything from U.S. stocks to Asian bonds to corn and cocoa. Certain corners of the market have, of course, expanded more quickly [...]
When rattling off the advantages that ETFs hold compared to traditional actively-managed mutual funds, most investors usually start with the issue of expenses. The easiest comparison to make involves expense ratios, the fees charged by ETF and mutual fund companies for investing in a product. Though some mutual funds offer single-digit expense ratios, most actively [...]
Initially, the response from the markets to Ben Bernanke and Company’s historic attempt to revitalize the markets with a second round of QE was rather muted; U.S. markets stayed relatively flat yesterday after the Fed meeting, and volumes were well within a normal range. But overseas investors apparently had much stronger opinions on the ramifications [...]
Perhaps no corner of the ETF market has exploded as rapidly as the precious metals space, as the democratization of an asset class previously off limits to many investors has resulted in billions of dollars in cash inflows. The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is now the second-largest ETF by total assets, with more than $53 [...]
It’s difficult to put a finger on the exact cause of the recent surge in popularity of commodity investing. More than likely, the boom is attributable to a number of different factors. Correlation between international equity markets (and even between stocks and bonds) has surged in recent years, increasing both the importance and difficulty of [...]
It’s no secret that ETFs are rapidly attracting investor dollars away from traditional mutual funds and other investment vehicles. Coupled with the rise of the ETF industry as a whole, an extended period of extreme financial turmoil has made gold ETFs one of the most popular investments in today’s environment. To meet the demand, a number [...]
