Though the recent tax agreement between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans was hailed as an historic compromise, there is no shortage of politicians and organizations–from both the left and the right–expressing frustrations with the accord. In addition to extending the Bush-era tax cuts for an additional two years, the deal signed into law last week introduces a 2% payroll tax cut for one year and prolongs the 99-week extended-unemployment benefits for another year. [click to continue…]
One of the biggest stories in the financial world over the past few weeks has been the development of “QE2,” the Federal Reserve’s decision to once again attempt to breathe life into the U.S. economy through injections of capital designed to drive down interest rates. The Fed plans to spend about $600 billion on the [...]
No matter where investors look in the developed world, the picture isn’t pretty. In the U.S. unemployment remains intolerably high, and uncertainty over the latest round of QE will continue to hang over stock markets. In Europe efforts to control surging deficits have been met with protests and public outrage, complicating the process of reeling [...]
WisdomTree rolled out the latest addition to its currency ETF lineup today, launching the Dreyfus Commodity Currency Fund ETF (CCX). The new fund will seek to match total returns reflective of money market rates in selected commodity-producing countries and changes to value of such countries’ currencies relative to the U.S. dollar. At launch the fund’s exposure [...]
With the housing market cratering, consumer confidence sagging, and catalysts for real economic growth nowhere to be found, many investors have quietly become pessimistic over the outlook for the U.S. economy. And then there’s the camp that has been much more vocal with forecasts of doom and gloom, a group that includes the always entertaining [...]
While the majority of the nearly $800 billion in ETF assets is found in equity funds, it is other corners of the market that have accounted for the significant cash inflows and asset growth exhibited in recent years. Fixed income and commodity funds have been particularly hot, taking in more than $25 billion in aggregate [...]
The number of firms gathering around the gates of the ETF industry continued to grow this week, as Dreyfus Corporation filed preliminary paperwork with the SEC to pave the way for the mutual fund company to offer ETFs to U.S. investors. The exemptive relief filing, one of the first steps towards launching a line of [...]
As ETFs have transitioned from a closet industry to a mainstream investment vehicle, a growing number of investors has become familiar with the exchange-traded structure and the nuances of of the industry. Most advisors now recognize the “super tickers”–SPY, GLD, EEM, etc.–and have a good feel for the size and scope of the industry. But [...]
Last Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.2% in January and climbed by 2.6% over the past 12 months. But after stripping out volatile food and energy prices, prices actually fell by 0.1% in January, marking the first time since 1982 that “core CPI” has declined. While the [...]
As interest in ETF investing has surged in recent years, issuers have rushed to expand their product lines into every corner of the investable universe. The first generation of ETF products consisted mostly of equity funds designed to track well-known benchmarks, and while the vast majority of ETF assets remains in these “plain vanilla” funds, [...]
Last year saw the continuation of the ETF industry’s impressive rise, with more than 100 new products hitting the market and a handful of new issuers entering into the arena. While many of the new exchange-traded products are “plain vanilla” funds that will compete directly with existing products, we also saw a number of truly [...]
