As hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed into exchange-traded products in recent years, international equity ETFs have been a particularly popular destination. As investors have shed their “home country bias” and recognized the importance of meaningful international equity allocations, the low costs and instant diversification offered by the exchange-traded structure have understandably served as major selling points. And given the often significant volatility in some international markets, the ability to execute trades intraday also stands out as an important quality for investors [see Five Free ETF Tools]. [click to continue…]
Investors have become familiar with the term “contagion” in recent years, but most are accustomed to hearing the phenomenon discussed in relation to sovereign debt defaults in Europe or across U.S. municipalities. But in recent days the Middle East has seen a wave of revolutionary protests and rallies spread across the region, as what began [...]
Egypt has become the center of the news world over the last week, as a series of violent protests and intensifying calls for a regime change have left the future of one of Africa’s most populous countries in doubt. Though violence has been limited to a relatively small number of incidents, protesters have continued to [...]
When domestic and international equity markets tumbled in the first three months of this year, bargain hunters were overwhelmed with possibilities. As price-to-earnings ratios plunged into the single digits, those who follow the Buffett mantra “be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” were presented with one of the best buying [...]
Index compiler MSCI Barra announced earlier this week that Israel will be reclassified from Emerging market status to Developed market status, forcing some of the largest ETFs on the market to do some rebalancing in the coming months. Israel will be removed from the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and the MSCI EMEMEA Index, which includes emerging [...]
