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 assets increased from about $745 billion to $765 billion, while monthly cash inflows totaled $5.4 billion. [click to continue…]
ETFs finished February range-bound, as most equity markets remained choppy to finish the week. This came after continued weakness in the euro zone and some disappointing news on the jobs front, with 20,000 additions to the list of people seeking unemployment benefits. In other news, AIG reported a $8.87 billion quarterly loss, raising concerns that it may need further federal assistance to stay afloat. Below, we offer our picks for the week’s most important and interesting ETF stories from around the Web: [click to continue…]
Barack Obama’s first year in office has, by most accounts, been a mixed bag. The massive $787 billion stimulus plan helped to avoid an even deeper recession, but failed to impact joblessness in any meaningful way. Instead of seeing a downturn in the unemployment rate as promised, Americans have seen the rate grow to double [...]
As the ETF industry has continued its rapid expansion, there has been much debate surrounding the sustainability of the current growth and the potential saturation of the market. The first ETFs were relatively simple products, offering exposure to the world’s most widely-followed equity benchmarks. But the last ten years have seen hundreds of new ETFs [...]
Despite still rising unemployment, abysmal consumer confidence, and signs of ongoing crises around the world, there is little doubt, at least technically speaking, that the recession is finally over in most of the world. The downturn proved to be far more severe and prolonged than many had imagined, leaving its mark on even the most [...]
Earlier this year, San Francisco-based Grail Advisors broke onto the actively-managed ETF scene with the launch of its highly anticipated Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value ETF (GVT). After the follow-up launch of four additional ETFs last week, Grail is moving ahead with plans for two actively-managed fixed income ETFs. The proposed funds, both of [...]
Having been given the option, the vast majority of investors in storied hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management have opted to liquidate their holdings, rather than roll over their investments to a new Cerberus fund. The development is a blow to fund manager Stephen Feinberg, and on a higher level, to the hedge fund industry as [...]
Pimco, which made major waves when it launched its first exchange-traded fund in June, has introduced its second fund, the Pimco 1-5 Year U.S. TIPS Index Fund (STPZ). When Pimco filed to launch its 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Fund (TUZ), it also filed for approval on six additional indexed ETFs, including:
Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), the world’s largest bond manager, is making a run at the actively-managed ETF business, less than two months after launching its first passively-indexed fund. According to a filing with the SEC, Pimco plans to launch five new actively-managed ETFs, three of which will focus on bonds maturing in less than [...]
After growing at a torrid pace in 2008, the ETF industry had showed signs of slowing down through the first four months of 2009. But May represented a return to old form, with more than $14 billion in new assets flowing into ETFs during the month according to Morningstar, the largest monthly inflow of the [...]
In its first day of trading yesterday, PIMCO’s first ETF, the 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index Fund (TUZ), opened with a bang. While it would be foolish to read too much into one day’s activity, TUZ’s strong open must give the mutual fund giant hope that its entrance into the ETF arena will be a [...]
Over the last several months, a number of actively-managed ETFs have been launched. These investment vehicles are essentially a hybrid of traditional mutual funds and ETFs, providing many of the benefits that have boosted the ETF industry (lower fees, greater transparency and flexibility, etc.), while implementing an active trading strategy in an attempt to outperform a market [...]
