Our bearish suspicions proved incorrect last week as bullish euphoria on Wall Street was bolstered by a string of better-than-expected economic reports. On the home front, construction spending, motor vehicles sales, and jobless claims all beat analyst expectations. The big story was Friday’s employment report, which tipped stocks higher to close out the week after the unemployment rate dipped to 8.3% from 8.5%. Greek debt negotiations have also been moving along and investors appear to be regaining a bit of the confidence in the beat down currency bloc.
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As the lineup of exchange-traded products has expanded dramatically in recent years, financial advisors have found themselves with more tools at their disposal than ever before. The extreme granularity of many of the equity products out there allows for cheap, low maintenance targeting of specific corners of the investable universe, while the development of some [...]
After an up-down performance across equity markets last week, investors will look to revive bullish momentum on Wall Street as earnings season continues full speed ahead. The spotlight will also turn to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke as he is set to testify before Congress on Thursday, an event that usually comes away with a detailed [...]
iShares added to its already robust lineup of emerging markets this week with two new regional products designed to deliver targeted exposure to companies in the developing world. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Latin America Index Fund (EEML) will target an index consisting of stocks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, while the iShares [...]
ETF investing has surged in recent years as the industry has experienced exponential growth in nearly all aspects of the universe. Now, there are over 1,400 products with more than $1 trillion in combined assets to offer exposure to just about every corner of the market an investor could ever want. But while these products [...]
It is no secret that the ETF industry is dominated by just a handful of products. The majority of the $1 trillion plus assets are confined to roughly 100 funds, leaving the other 1,300 ETFs in the dust. But as growth in the industry continues to pick up, more and more funds are entering elite [...]
Vanguard, the Pennsylvania-based provider of ETFs and mutual funds known for its low management expenses, has further enhanced the cost efficiency on its lineup of sector-specific ETFs. The company announced that the expense ratios on a handful of its sector funds have been cut to 0.19%, making them slightly cheaper than the popular lineup of [...]
For most investors, 2011 was a frustrating year; after some strong early gains seemingly pointed to a continuation of the recovery that took root in 2010, the appearance of some major obstacles sent many major indexes back towards negative territory. The impressive late December rally closed the year on a high note, but there is [...]
As the calendars prepare to flip forward, it appears as if 2011 will go down as a record-breaking year for the ETF industry on the product development front. More than 300 new ETPs began trading this year, shattering the previous record set in 2010. But despite the record size of the ETF lineup, it appears [...]
This time last year, investors were generally thrilled with the performances of their portfolios, which had continued to bounce back nicely from the devastating recession that hit in 2008. Unfortunately, few are feeling the same sense of accomplishment as 2011 draws to a close; this year has been frustrating in that a few large, swift [...]
This past year was the most active ever for the exchange traded industry in terms of product development; the launch of more than 300 new products shattered the record set in 2010. And innovation continues to run high in the industry; the creativity of issuers is still impressive, as many of the ETFs that have [...]
