ETF Database » FEX

AlphaDEX ETFdb Portfolio Now Available

Stoyan Bojinov — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:00:04 +0000

The AlphaDEX ETFdb Portfolio is now available to ETFdb Pro members, offering an option for those seeking to build a well-diversified portfolio comprised of ETFs from the AlphaDEX suite. This ETFdb portfolio is intended for those with a long-term investment horizon as it includes a heavier tilt towards equity holdings, although the fundamental screening process employed by AlphaDEX funds should help ease the inherent stock market volatility over time. Investors ought to consider this alternative weighting methodology since more often than not, traditional cap-weighted index funds fall victim to some serious drawbacks; one common pitfall being that the underlying portfolio employs a biased, “bigger means better”, investment approach. Historical performance shows that the AlphaDEX methodology most certainly offers the potential to generate alpha over time. For example, during the market rebound in 2009, FEX, which selects stocks from the S&P 500 index, outperformed its benchmark index by as much as [...]

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Large Cap ETF Showdown: SPY vs. FEX

Jared Cummans — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:00:42 +0000

Despite bleeding billions of dollars during the recent chaotic stretch on Wall Street, the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) is still the largest exchange-traded product in the world; with more than $75 billion in assets, the popular fund is larger than the GDP of many countries. A big chunk of the assets in SPY are held by traders with a relatively short time horizon; the high turnover of shares in SPY–about 35% of the shares outstanding change hands everyday–highlights the appeal of this vehicle to active traders who measure holding periods in minutes and hours [see also Gold SPDR Close To Overtaking SPY As Largest ETF In The World]. Beyond SPY But SPY also has appeal as a portfolio “building block” that is consistent with longer-term strategies. This ETF offers exposure to large cap U.S. stocks, an asset class that is at the core of many long-term, buy-and-hold portfolios. A large [...]

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Closer Look At Quant-Based ETFs

Michael Johnston — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:00:34 +0000

To this point, much of the tremendous growth in the ETF industry–we now have close to 1,200 U.S.-listed exchange-traded products with aggregate assets approaching $1.1 trillion–has been attributable to “passive” products; those that seek to replicate the benchmark of an index. Several actively-managed ETFs have debuted in recent years, but investor response to these products has been generally muted (there are, of course, some noteworthy exceptions, including PIMCO’s MINT and a number of WisdomTree’s active currency and bond funds). There are now signs that the active ETF space is finally beginning to gather momentum, and some suspect that this corner of the market will be a major driver of future growth. iShares and Eaton Vance recently received the green light from the SEC to launch active ETFs, sparking hopes that the regulatory “deep freeze” is beginning to thaw. While true actively-managed equity ETFs have been a bust so far, many [...]

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AlphaDEX ETFs Turn In Impressive Performance

Michael Johnston — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:02:01 +0000

The impressive rise of the ETF industry in recent years is often held out as evidence of an ongoing shift in investor preferences away from costly active management and towards low cost indexing. Investors frustrated with the inability of pricey mutual fund managers to consistently beat their benchmark have abandoned stock picking in favor of simply owning the entire benchmark. With the relatively recent introduction of actively-managed ETFs, the ETF universe is being split into two groups based on fundamentally different investment strategies (in fact the ETF Screener includes an active/passive filter). But within the ETF industry, the active/passive distinction isn’t a black-and-white issue. There are dozens of ETFs available to U.S. investors that blur the lines between active and passive management, replicating “enhanced” indexes that are designed and maintained with the objective of outperforming traditional cap-weighted benchmarks (see Alpha ETFs Come Of Age). As indexes have transitioned from hypothetical [...]

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Beyond SPY: Nine Alternatives To S&P 500 ETFs

Michael Johnston — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:29:17 +0000

When ETFs began to make their way into the investing mainstream, almost all products were “plain vanilla” funds linked to well known stock benchmarks, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. But as the popularity of ETFs has surged, so too has the number of product offerings, with approximately 30 issuers now competing for a slice of a still-growing pie. In addition to offering exposure to different asset classes (such as commodities, volatility, and hedge funds), many ETFs now present unique approaches to stock and bond investing by tweaking popular and widely-followed benchmarks. The very first ETF, the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY), remains by far the largest U.S.-listed ETF, reflecting investor familiarity with the underlying benchmark. Between SPY and the iShares S&P 500 Index Fund (IVV), assets in S&P 500 ETFs at the end of March exceeded $100 billion, or about 12% of total ETF assets. So [...]

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Beyond SPY: Five Outperforming Large Cap ETFs

Michael Johnston — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:08:19 +0000

At the core of many investor portfolios is an allocation to large cap, U.S.-listed equities. With market capitalizations usually exceeding $10 billion, large cap stocks generally have long operating histories, stable operations, and large amounts of cash on hand, making them less risky investments than small and mid cap firms. Moreover, although domestic large caps are headquartered in the U.S., they are often multinational companies that generate significant portions of revenue and earnings from overseas, providing some degree of geographic diversification with the efficiency and liquidity that comes with U.S. exchanges. One of the most widely-followed benchmarks in the world is the S&P 500, a collection of the 500 largest publicly-traded U.S. companies (with a few exceptions). And one of the most popular ways to gain exposure to the companies included in this index is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). SPY is one of the largest and most heavily-traded [...]

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Special Report: Alpha ETFs Come Of Age

Michael Johnston — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:00:55 +0000

In the summer of 1992, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French published “The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns” in The Journal of Finance, a groundbreaking analysis that prompted financial presses to run headlines declaring “beta is dead.” While the death sentence may have been a bit severe, it struck a significant blow to a widely-accepted and longstanding financial concept, causing academics and investors to reconsider tenets they once took for granted. In recent decades, a collection of academic studies, disillusioned investors, and financial innovations have contributed to a similar prognosis for beta’s Greek neighbor, alpha. The idea that was hatched by Brinson and Hood and supported by the likes of Ibbotson and Kaplan and Barras and Scaillet was fueled by years of investor frustration. Following the introduction and rapid rise in the popularity of indexing and ETFs, it seemed that what started out as a scholarly whisper had grown into a [...]

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ETF Database » FEX

AlphaDEX ETFdb Portfolio Now Available

Related Posts:

Large Cap ETF Showdown: SPY vs. FEX

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Closer Look At Quant-Based ETFs

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AlphaDEX ETFs Turn In Impressive Performance

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Beyond SPY: Nine Alternatives To S&P 500 ETFs

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Beyond SPY: Five Outperforming Large Cap ETFs

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Special Report: Alpha ETFs Come Of Age

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