It’s been a fairly tame week on Wall Street thus far, with investors keeping quiet as no significant economic data has been released. Positive GDP data from Japan pushed markets higher at the start of the week, although equity indexes were quick to give up gains on both Tuesday and Wednesday around noon time. The technology sector was the only corner of the equity market dragged down into negative territory on Wednesday after Dell missed earnings estimates and revised its sales forecast lower. Gold has been climbing higher all week after the precious metal took a big tumble last Friday before the close. Futures prices for the yellow metal closed around $1,790 an ounce, just a few points below the all-time high set last week at $1,817 an ounce.
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Fear ran wild across every corner of the financial markets last week and nearly every asset class fell victim to brutally volatile trading. Friday was the only day during which the Dow Jones Industrial Average did not swing by more than 400 points, managing to regain some of the losses on Thursday and Friday and [...]
Commodity ETFs have seen a tremendous surge in popularity in recent years, as the marriage of futures contracts the exchange-traded structure has democratized an asset class that was once accessible only to large, sophisticated investors. Oil ETFs have become particularly popular, as investors have embraced the opportunity to bet on one of the world’s most [...]
The latest industry figures from the National Stock Exchange are out, and despite a challenging market environment, ETFs keep rolling along. Total ETF assets fell during May from $846.7 billion to $798.0 billion, a decline of almost 6%. But that plunge was attributable primarily to declining asset values, which were partially offset by continued inflows [...]
The saga now unfolding in Europe has dominated financial headlines in recent weeks, as equity markets around the world have taken their cues from the the latest developments in the streets of Athens and the German Bundestag. Europe’s debt crisis has overshadowed a perhaps even more unlikely development; crude oil prices slipped below $70 per [...]
The rise of the ETF industry has changed the way many approach investing. The rock-bottom expense ratios charged by many ETFs have sparked a closer look at the merits of active management and a more critical look at the fees charged by traditional actively-managed mutual funds (see The True Cost Of Active Management). The ability [...]
Earlier this month, InvestmentNews released a list of the ten ETFs financial advisors researched the most in 2009. The list, which was based on information provided by Morningstar, included several traditional inflation hedges, such as the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU), as well as the broad-based PowerShares DB Commodity Fund [...]
Last week, Deutsche Bank announced that it will increase the fees of seven PowerShares exchange-traded funds, citing “increased costs of managing the Funds due to changing regulatory requirements.” The changes will be effective beginning January 4, and will affect five commodity funds and two currency products.
Direct investment in crude oil products used to be limited to major financial institutions and oil companies themselves, but the development of the ETF industry in the U.S. has democratized the investment process in many ways, including making investments in various oil products accessible to average investors. There are a number of exchange-traded products that [...]
With a roller coaster six months behind us that saw no shortage of interesting twists and turns and unsuspected headlines, we’ve finally reached the midway point of 2009. Ahead of us is the highly anticipated “second half of 2009,” which for months we’ve heard will hold returns to growth, a recovering economy, and enough green [...]
