After a strong close to last week–the Dow jumped by more than 150 points in the last two sessions–U.S. stock markets will have to wait until Tuesday to try to continue the positive momentum. Major exchanges are closed on Monday in observance of President’s Day, which this year falls two days before the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday. In a tribute to our first president, below we examine five ETFs that may have been appealing to the founding father [for more ETF ideas, sign up for the free ETFdb newsletter]: [click to continue…]
As the lineup of exchange-traded products has expanded dramatically in recent years, financial advisors have found themselves with more tools at their disposal than ever before. The extreme granularity of many of the equity products out there allows for cheap, low maintenance targeting of specific corners of the investable universe, while the development of some [...]
After a record-setting October gave investors hope that 2011 would finish on a strong note, the first couple weeks of November have effectively taken any wind out of those sails. The culprit–surprise, surprise–has been the cash-strapped PIIGS economies of Europe, with Italy now grabbing the spotlight as a serious credit risk and a grave threat [...]
This year has, so far, been a pretty strange period for municipal bond investors. It started off with a dire prediction from Meredith Whitney on the market as she stated her belief that we will see a large amount of defaults in the space in the very near future. “You could see 50 sizable defaults, 50 [...]
September was one of the worst months in years for global equity markets. Volatility swept throughout every corner of the financial markets as escalating Euro zone debt woes worried investors of an impending crisis. Investor confidence has been slowly eroding given the concerning global economic outlook, prompting many to pull out of the markets all [...]
Investor worries eased up a bit this past week as concerns over Europe were quelled by the ECB following its most recent decision to keep interest rates unchanged. Wall Street posted an impressive three-day winning streak starting with an impressive, high-volume rally in the final hours of trading on Tuesday. However, stocks couldn’t hold onto [...]
Wall Street started the week on a fairly weak note as investor worries regarding the health of the Euro zone resurfaced over the weekend. Equity indexes plunged further on Tuesday, although the bulls came charging to the rescue in the last hour of trading, sparking a strong, heavy-volume rally to end the trading session. Volatility [...]
Wall Street posted yet another up-down week of performance as domestic equity indexes fluctuated and ultimately fell victim to serious profit taking as the final trading session drew to a close. Worse-than-expected U.S. consumer confidence coupled with a decline in personal income were concerning data releases that only added to the piling uncertainty weighting down [...]
In recent years, ETFs have become increasing popular tools for accessing the fixed income corner of the market. The space initially grew much more slowly than equity ETFs, but investors have gradually become more comfortable with the combination of fixed income exposure and the exchange-traded structure. Innovation in the bond ETF space has been impressive [...]
According to the ancient Mayan calendar, the world will end in December 2012. If banking analyst Meredith Whitney is right, the beginning of the end might be around the corner. Whitney, who rose to prominence after a pessimistic report on Citigroup issued in late 2007 later proved to be painfully accurate, has been zeroed in [...]
When the Federal Reserve slashed the federal funds target rate to a range of 0.0% to 0.25% in late 2008, most expected that the drastic measure would be temporary, and that interest rates would gradually climb higher. But nearly two years later, the U.S. economy continues to languish as job creation has failed to materialize [...]
