The surge in popularity of ETFs is often credited with bringing buy-and-hold investors a cost-efficient alternative to traditional actively-managed mutual funds. But ETFs are also responsible for bringing several asset classes previously available only to the largest and most sophisticated individuals and institutions within reach of investors on all levels.
While this “democratization” of investing is generally a positive development, it does come with some potential pitfalls. The specifics of the exposure to some of these hard-to-access asset classes is available to investors willing to do the research, but it isn’t always quite what those who only do cursory research may imagine. [click to continue…]
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 Patrick Bateman’s affinity for business cards. But there’s some evidence to support the idea that picking a clever ticker can be worth quite a bit of money. [click to continue…]
Following the massive injections into capital markets in recent years, inflation has become a major concern of many investors, and the quest to uncover assets that offer portfolio protection against a potential uptick in the CPI has taken on many forms. While inflation-protected bonds are the instrument of choice for some, others have turned their [...]
For most investors, 2009 has been a very good year, with a surge in liquidity leading almost all asset classes to big gains. As many national economies emerged from recession, investors regained their appetite for risk, sending emerging markets funds through the rook (these funds dominated the list of the Top Ten Performing Equity ETFs). [...]
As U.S. equity markets have soared in recent months, the dollar has steadily declined against most of its major rivals, recently falling below the key $1.50 level against the euro for the first time since August of last year. This extended fall has investors wondering if the dollar’s decline reflects temporary volatility, or a long-term [...]
Over the last year, swine flu has been the news story that just won’t die. After an early initial scare, H1N1 faded into the background of the minds of many for several months, before returning in full force as flu season approached. Of course, the threat posed by the disease never really diminished, and health [...]
Sugar ETFs have continued their “almost vertical trajectory” in recent weeks, soaring higher on news that several major food producers sent a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture exclaiming that the U.S. could “virtually run out of sugar” if import restrictions on the sweetener aren’t lifted. Currently, quotas limit the amount of sugar U.S. companies [...]
With the WHO’s announcement that it has officially declared an H1N1 flu pandemic – the first global flu epidemic in 41 years – swine flu has Wall Street’s full attention once again. Disease fears had mostly faded from the mind of many investors, despite numerous warnings that we weren’t yet fully in the clear. While [...]
With the rapid declines in the equity markets over the past year and increasing worries about inflation, many investors have been looking for alternative ETF investments to reduce volatility in their portfolios and establish at least a partial hedge against deteriorating economic conditions. One of the most popular options for doing so has been commodity [...]
