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 nuances of the exchange-traded structure have the potential to bring additional tax efficiencies to investors thanks to the availability of an “in kind redemption” that ultimately gives investors more control over the timing of tax obligations. Mutual funds, on the other hand, have a nasty tendency to stick remaining shareholders with tax liabilities incurred as a result of redemptions by others–a development that can obviously be undesirable [see Tax Loss Harvesting With ETFs: 6 Ideas To Lower Client Liabilities].
ETFs won’t allow investors to skip out on their taxes, but this product structure can deliver more control and greater efficiency in this regard. It is important to note, however, that not all ETFs are created equal when it comes to tax efficiency. Certain asset classes are less efficient than others; bond ETFs, for example, should be expected to incur capital gains taxes with some regularity.
Below, we run through the capital gains results for several of the largest ETF issuers, beginning with the market leader: [click to continue…]
Over the course of the last few years, the ETF space has grown immensely. What started off as a handful of low-cost, broad-based funds has now turned into a space of nearly 1,400 products with investment methodologies ranging across the board. The innovation in the space has led to a number of unique products that [...]
With more than 1,100 ETPs now trading, investors and advisors have access to more asset classes and investment strategies than ever before. But it can also be challenging for advisors and investors to navigate through all the ETF options and identify those that meet their investment objectives–especially with new funds debuting on a regular basis. [...]
As a modest recovery has begun to take place in the United States and elsewhere around the world, investors have begun to cycle back into discretionary firms which are poised to surge should consumers continue to open up their pocketbooks and spend. Arguably, the most discretionary sector of all, the gaming industry, has seen its [...]
Last year was a good year for most asset classes, as investor portfolios continued to recover from the recent recession. The difference in performance between many comparable funds was significant, and many of the best performers of 2010 are relatively small funds that maintain considerably smaller asset bases than their more popular competitors. Below, we [...]
While the economic outlook remains uncertain going into the second half of 2010, many large corporations have posted solid earnings that have handily beaten expectations. These robust reports have helped to jump-start the sagging stock market but have failed to make a meaningful dent in the unemployment number which still stands at an uncomfortably high [...]
Taking a quick look around the investing landscape, one might not immediately suspect that we’ve entered the dog days of summer; there is no shortage of bears who have seemingly come out of hibernation. But not everyone is down on the economic outlook with bulls making a case for a strong second half of 2010. [...]
Over the last several years, crude oil prices have taken investors on a wild ride. When the global economy was humming along, prices skyrocketed to a historic high of more than $140 per barrel. But from that peak, the downfall was both swift and severe; prices plummeted to almost $30 a barrel as economies around [...]
Despite a sluggish economy, the Market Vectors Gaming ETF (BJK) has been on winning streak since the start of February, posting a gain of nearly 6% over the last week and a half. While some of the rebound is likely due to a slight increase in the confidence of an economic recovery, many gaming investors [...]
The ETF industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, with hundreds of new product launches covering various regions, sectors, and investment strategies. The surge in ETF product offerings–there are now nearly 1,000 exchange-traded products in our ETF screener–has sparked some speculation that the industry has reached a point of saturation–or perhaps has long since blown [...]
Whenever a company prepares for a public offering, executives have been known to spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the combination of letters that will serve as the company’s ticker and often nickname within the investment community. To many, the fixation on selecting the perfect ticker seems like an irrational obsession on par with [...]
