One of the major stories of 2010 has been turmoil in the euro zone, as crumbling public finances in Greece have stoked fears of a “contagion effect” sweeping throughout the region. The prolonged economic downturn has left Greece with a massive budget deficit, and with $28 billion in debt due in April and May, fears of a default have soared in recent weeks. The government’s plans to rein in the deficit–including pay cuts, bonus freezes, and some hefty tax hikes–have met stiff resistance, as evidenced by the recent strikes from civil servants. [click to continue…]
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, innovation in the industry has brought countless asset classes and investment strategies within the reach of all levels of investors. After initially using ETFs alongside stocks and mutual funds, many investors have now embraced all-ETF portfolios, utilizing a range products to accomplish investment objectives. ETFdb Pro members can access our line of all-ETF model portfolios, including both long-term buy-and-hold allocations and shorter-term themed strategies (if you’re not an ETFdb Pro member yet, sign up for a free trial or read more here). [click to continue…]
The reasons for the rise of the ETF industry are numerous: intraday liquidity, (potentially) superior tax efficiency, and enhanced transparency relative to traditional actively-managed mutual funds have all contributed to the billions of dollars of inflows that these funds have seen in recent years. But the real attraction for most ETF investors is the reduced [...]
As the U.S. dollar slid in recent months, one of the primary beneficiaries has been the euro, which had surged to the key $1.50 level relative to the dollar as worries about prolonged periods of low interest rates in the U.S. and the greenback’s future as the default reserve currency created a perfect storm around [...]
The steady decline of the U.S. dollar has been one of the major stories of the second half of 2009, with a “perfect storm” of economic conditions sending the greenback to new lows against many of its major rivals. While a declining dollar isn’t nearly the problem that some make it out to be – [...]
