As global economies grapple with the challenge of unwinding massive stimulus plans in an orderly manner, central bank meetings have taken on a new importance. Following a relatively uneventful meeting of the Federal Reserve, Brazil’s central bank took center stage this week, deciding to keep rates steady at a record low of 8.75%. Some investors were surprised by the move since inflation, recently recorded at 4.83%, has surged above the Bank’s target of 4.5%. The news had an interesting effect on Brazilian markets; the iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund (EWZ) lost close to 1.5% and the WisdomTree Dreyfus Brazilian Real Fund (BZF) dropped more than 0.9%. [click to continue…]
The SPDR S&P Russia ETF (RBL) began trading on Thursday, becoming just the second U.S.-listed ETF offering exposure to one of the world’s largest countries and most unique economies. RBL will seek to track the performance of the S&P Russia Capped BMI Index, a float adjusted market cap-weighted benchmark consisting of publicly-traded companies domiciled in Russia. [click to continue…]
On the one year anniversary of the market bottom, most major markets finished the day flat. Financial stocks were mostly higher after rumors surfaced out of D.C. that the government would ban short-sales on companies in which the government owned a stake. This rumor helped to send financial firms such as AIG and Fannie Mae [...]
ProShares, a leading provider of inverse and leveraged ETFs, has filed for approval on seven addition ETFs, including four “ultra” international ETFs and three products focusing on a popular regional bank index. The international ETFs complement four existing 200% inverse products, and include:
Markets trended upwards last week as investors were encouraged by lower than expected CPI numbers, which led some to believe that the Fed will hold off on raising rates for the time being. Although earnings season is winding down, there are several key companies that will be reporting this week including Target, FirstSolar, and Home [...]
Each month, our team of ETF experts publishes actionable investment ideas in ETF Edge, our all-ETF newsletter. To see the rest of this month’s recommendations, including an international fixed income ETF and a China sector fund, sign up for a free trial of ETFdb Pro. In addition to the monthly newsletter, Pro subscribers get access [...]
Thursday’s freefall intensified fears that a double-dip has already begun, as many major benchmarks endured their worst single-session slide since April. Despite a qualified endorsement of Greece’s budget plan from the European Commission, worries of a meltdown in European credit markets sparked a global sell-off. Elsewhere, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed charges against [...]
In late 2009, ETF Database introduced the ETFdb 60 Index, an all-ETF composed of the largest ETF from each of our proprietary ETFdb Categories. Excluding leveraged and inverse funds, the index consists of 60 components funds spread across several different asset classes. The index is an equal-weighted benchmark, assigning an equivalent allocation to each holding [...]
Thursday marked a second consecutive day of chaos on Wall Street, as an Obama proposal to curtail risks taken by banks weighed on the financial sector. Commodity producers saw shares plummet as well, as concerns that governments are beginning to pull back support plans impacted expectations for global growth. After the bell, Google reported that [...]
The tremendous increase in the number of ETFs launched in recent years has seemingly brought cheap, efficient access to nearly every corner of the globe within reach of U.S. investors. There are now funds devoted to Vietnam, Turkey, Israel, Colombia, among countless others. But while the breadth of international options has expanded significantly, the exposure [...]
The new year on Wall Street got off to perhaps the best start possible on Monday, as strong manufacturing data spurred hopes of a sustained recovery effort in 2010. Trading activity jumped from last week, but remained well below normal levels, indicating that the surge was perhaps attributable in part to a lack of full [...]
As the ETF industry has continued its rapid expansion, there has been much debate surrounding the sustainability of the current growth and the potential saturation of the market. The first ETFs were relatively simple products, offering exposure to the world’s most widely-followed equity benchmarks. But the last ten years have seen hundreds of new ETFs [...]
