Emerging Global, the New York City-based ETF issuer best known for its funds that target consumers and infrastructure in developing nations, rolled out the latest addition to its product lineup Thursday with the debut of nine GEMS (Global Emerging Markets Sectors) funds. The lineup offers investors the chance to buy some of the largest companies in the world that are based in emerging markets in each of the ten market sectors, as well as a composite fund that represents all of the individual market segments. In total, the lineup consists of 11 ETFs; three are rebranded products and eight are brand new ETFs, nearly doubling the total number of funds that the company is offering. [click to continue…]
Economic growth in the U.S. in recent years has been virtually non-existent, prompting more and more investors to turn to emerging markets, whose economies–as well as overall populations–are growing at an exponential rate. With the majority of growth occurring overseas, ETF issuers were soon to follow, now offering a wealth of funds to track these [...]
Following Beijing’s surprise announcement of a shift in its currency policy, investors scrambled on Monday to snap up assets deemed to benefit from the change while attempting to interpret the ultimate impact on the global economy. The focus on the yuan’s new-found flexibility distracted investors from an important announcement out of Switzerland, where index provider [...]
In recent weeks, increased international scrutiny over Israel’s blockade of Gaza and conflicts with vessels carrying aid to the impoverished area have overshadowed a rather unique economic accomplishment. Israel was recently reclassified from “emerging” to “developed” market status by index provider MSCI Barra, the firm responsible for creating and maintaining the benchmarks behind many popular [...]
Before it attracted intense scrutiny from the international community for its ongoing blockade of Gaza, Israel had made headlines last month for a relatively rare economic achievement. The country was recently upgraded from an emerging market to a developed market by index provider MSCI Barra, meaning that Israeli equities were cast out of the MSCI [...]
All indications are that the global recession ended long ago and a recovery is now well underway. But storm clouds remain over much of the global economy, preventing green shoots from taking root. The economic hurdles in the developed world are both numerous and significant. The number of unemployed Americans continues to rise. Europe is [...]
When mutual funds broke on to the investing scene, they won praise for their ability to pool assets and efficiently deliver exposure to a large basket of underlying securities. ETFs, while different from mutual funds in many ways (see five of them here), generally share this appeal; they offer an even more cost efficient way [...]
Interest in emerging markets investing has been on the rise over the last year, as developing economies have become an increasingly important component of the global economy. The conventional wisdom that called for significant allocations to U.S. markets and no more than 5% or 10% to emerging markets is being challenged, both by individual investors [...]
A week highlighted by the relatively uneventful Federal Reserve meeting saw equity markets head generally higher, as investors cheered the prospect of several more months of low interest rates. After months of heated debate, a vote on health care reform looms over the weekend, and health care funds above-average volumes throughout the week. Below, we [...]
Over the last year, a tremendous increase in the amount of ETF education has significantly reduced the likelihood of misuse by professional or amateur investors. By now, hopefully everyone knows that the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) doesn’t actually buy and hold natural gas and that USO’s underlying assets don’t include barrels of crude [...]
Emerging markets ETFs represent the crossroads of two of the hottest investment trends of recent years. As the U.S., Japan, and developed European economies struggled to pull out of recessions and avoid a double dip, the world’s emerging economies raced ahead, led by the BRIC bloc of nations. According to the International Monetary Fund, the [...]
