U.S. markets finished the day flat as the Dow extended its winning streak to eight sessions and the S&P 500 finished down slightly. The Dow was boosted by strength out of Boeing and DuPont, both of which saw gains after the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said that manufacturing and business activity rose in the mid-Atlantic region. Also in focus were firms in the health care sector which trended higher in anticipation of a vote on a $940 billion health care package overall this weekend. [click to continue…]
The reasons for the rise of the ETF industry are numerous: intraday liquidity, (potentially) superior tax efficiency, and enhanced transparency relative to traditional actively-managed mutual funds have all contributed to the billions of dollars of inflows that these funds have seen in recent years. But the real attraction for most ETF investors is the reduced expenses these products offer, often only a fraction of the fees charged by mutual funds. [click to continue…]
Despite the fact that shares of Berkshire Hathaway have lagged far behind broad market benchmarks this year, the events of the last month have shown that the investment community still hangs on Warren Buffett’s every word and tries to draft his every move. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced in early November that it would purchase the [...]
It’s been an interesting week in the world of ETFs: major indexes finished the week on a down note after trending upwards earlier in the week while gold finished around $1140/oz. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web:
Veterans Day on Wall Street featured an abundance of takeover news, with Motorola putting one of its major units up for sale and H-P announcing that it is planning to acquire 3Com for $2.7 billion. The Dow extended its winning streak to six days, reaching a new 2009 high. The ETFdb 60 Index gained 4.34 [...]
Stocks treaded water on an election Tuesday, finishing about level on a day when GM decided it will keep its Opel unit and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced the acquisition of Burlington Northern. News of the deal sent shares of BNI up more than 25%, giving a boost in the process to the iShares Dow [...]
Over the last few years, ETFs have seen a tremendous surge in use and popularity among all breeds of investors for a number of reasons. Some are attracted to the low costs. Others value the tax efficiency and liquidity. I love ETFs (in part) because they facilitate a “top-down” approach to investing. Picking individual stocks [...]
Friday was an action-packed day on Wall Street and around the world, with a disappointing GDP release in London, reports of a divided Federal Reserve, and a continued climb in commodity prices. The Dow fell more than 100 points to finish the week below the 10,000 mark, a level it has now crossed several times [...]
Obama administration officials have today announced that students at a New York City high school were sickened by the same strain of swine flu that has killed people in Mexico, adding to fears in the U.S. after cases in Texas, California, and Kansas. There are now 20 confirmed cases of the deadly flu in five [...]
