The competitive landscape of the ETF industry has evolved rapidly over the last several years, with several new players–both big and small–making a push into the space. From financial giants such as RBS and Citi to relative unknowns such as Javelin and Precidian, the roster of active ETF issuers has grown to nearly four dozen. Now, mirroring a trend playing out in the lineup of exchange-traded products, it appears that some contraction is in order. Coming months could see a few ETP issuers wiped off the map, as a series of fund closures and mergers should reduce the number of companies that market exchange-traded products [see also ETF Update: Pipeline Continues To Fill]. [click to continue…]
UBS rolled out two new ETNs on Thursday, debuting products that offer exposure to Internet-related companies that have recently completed an initial public offering (IPO). The new ETRACS Internet IPO ETN (EIPO) is linked to the UBS Internet IPO Index, a benchmark that consists of companies that maintain operations focused on the Internet that have [...]
The month of May was a generally disappointing stretch for investors, as both international and domestic equity markets struggled to overcome obstacles new and old. Commodities, which had been a nice source of absolute returns for much of the last year, fell on hard times as well; precious metals went into a brief freefall, and [...]
Although the stock market has improved in 2011 despite all the turmoil, some sectors of the economy still remain well off of their highs. One corner of the market where this has happened is the internet infrastructure space where most are still fighting to hit the levels they saw in late December. One of the [...]
With the new year just around the corner, it seems as if 2010 will go down as a generally positive year for investors. Despite numerous and somewhat serious lingering concerns over the health of the global economy, most asset classes have posted impressive gains on the year as the odds of a “double dip” have [...]
In the early days of the ETF industry most of the products were broad-based equity funds that offered exposure to domestic and international stock markets. But as ETFs have gained market share and become more popular with both buy-and-holders and more active traders, products have become increasingly specialized. Since the debut of the sector SPDRs [...]
Tech firm VeriSign (VRSN) has had a pretty good deal with the U.S. Commerce Department over the past few years in regards to its control of domain names. The company controls all “.com” and “.net” domain name registers thanks to a contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an agency that [...]
Most investors were happy to see the calendars turn to June and put a dismal month of May in the rear view mirror. Global equity markets took their cues from Europe for most of the month, as anxiety over the impact of sovereign debt woes on global growth dominated financial headlines and caused a wave [...]
For the most part, ETFs are pretty similar regardless of which issuer is behind the fund. But as many investors know, there’s one notable exception to this rule. The HOLDRS products from Merrill Lynch are similar to traditional ETFs in many ways, but also feature some nuances that make them very different in others. HOLDRS [...]
