When constructing a portfolio, most investors focus on the decisions that seem to have the most significant impact on the risk/return profile delivered. How much should be allocated to stocks vs. bonds? What breakdown between developed and emerging markets is desired? What sectors should be overweight, and which should be avoided?
These decisions obviously go a long way towards determining the bottom line returns delivered by a portfolio. But for investors who have embraced ETFs as a means of achieving exposure, there are a number of seemingly minor factors that can have a surprisingly large impact on their financial health. Below, we highlight five of these easy-to-overlook considerations that can add up to big differences in return [for more ETF insights, sign up for our free ETF newsletter]: [click to continue…]
An already tumultuous day took a terrifying turn in afternoon trading on Thursday, as several major U.S. indexes lost multiple percentage points in a matter of minutes before reclaiming big chunks of the ground lost. At 2:40 on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 415 points, putting it on pace for one [...]
Fidelity Investments announced today that it will offer its retail customers commission-free online trades for a suite of 25 iShares ETFs. The funds included in the commission-free platform include ETFs in all nine domestic equity style/size categories, as well as international equity and fixed income options. “Fidelity has partnered with the leading ETF provider in [...]
Charles Schwab has expanded its line of low cost ETFs from four to six, adding the Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG) and Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF (SCHV) to its lineup on Friday. Similar to the four funds launched in November, these large cap ETFs can be bought and sold commission free online in [...]
Charles Schwab, one of the world’s best known and largest asset management firms, recently took another step towards finally breaking into the rapidly-expanding ETF industry. Earlier this month, Schwab filed paperwork with the SEC to launch nine ETFs. The proposed funds will have the benefit of the Schwab name (and the tremendous resources that come [...]
Conventional wisdom says that while growth stocks outperform their value counterparts during recessions, value stocks gain the upper hand once the economy hits bottom, leading the way during the early recovery stage of most economic cycles. That’s according to a report by Russell Investments of Tacoma, Washington, which indicates that growth outperformance tends to reverse [...]
With the WHO’s announcement that it has officially declared an H1N1 flu pandemic – the first global flu epidemic in 41 years – swine flu has Wall Street’s full attention once again. Disease fears had mostly faded from the mind of many investors, despite numerous warnings that we weren’t yet fully in the clear. While [...]
ETFs have enjoyed a tremendous surge in popularity in part because they allow investors to gain exposure to a broad (or narrow) market index in a timely and cost efficient manner. When implementing their investment strategy through construction of an ETF portfolio (or when using ETFs to round out a portfolio), investors have the option [...]
