As the number of exchange-traded funds continues to multiply, investors have the ability to achieve increasingly granular exposure to narrow segments of the global economy. This development has worked out quite nicely for investors who utilize a “core and explore” strategy that calls for the bulk of exposure to be held in broad, plain vanilla stock and bond funds with smaller weights assigned to more targeted asset sub-classes that are deemed to be potential sources of alpha. The innovation in the ETF industry has given investors tools for tapping into incredibly targeted corners of the market, ranging from producers of solid state drive technology to smartphone manufacturers to platinum miners.
It’s also created an opportunity to tap into the “transportation sector,” a term that can loosely be used to cover companies whose operations focus around moving people and things between places. Below, we profile a few ETFs covering everything from planes to trains to automobiles [for more ETF insights, sign up for the free ETFdb newsletter]: [click to continue…]
American equity markets experienced another choppy session on Thursday as France and Germany announced that a second summit would take place next week, suggesting that a resolution to the crisis would not come this weekend. Nevertheless, both the Dow and the S&P 500 managed to rise modestly on the day as the indexes gained, respectively, [...]
Investor worries eased up a bit this past week as concerns over Europe were quelled by the ECB following its most recent decision to keep interest rates unchanged. Wall Street posted an impressive three-day winning streak starting with an impressive, high-volume rally in the final hours of trading on Tuesday. However, stocks couldn’t hold onto [...]
Wall Street started the week on a fairly weak note as investor worries regarding the health of the Euro zone resurfaced over the weekend. Equity indexes plunged further on Tuesday, although the bulls came charging to the rescue in the last hour of trading, sparking a strong, heavy-volume rally to end the trading session. Volatility [...]
Wall Street posted yet another up-down week of performance as domestic equity indexes fluctuated and ultimately fell victim to serious profit taking as the final trading session drew to a close. Worse-than-expected U.S. consumer confidence coupled with a decline in personal income were concerning data releases that only added to the piling uncertainty weighting down [...]
As the economy continues to weaken, highly cyclical stocks have been getting hammered more than most, leading the market lower over the past month. One of the most troubled in this time period has undoubtedly been the transport sector as that particular corner of the market has lost close to 1,000 basis points more than the overall [...]
Despite the choppy trading and continued uncertainty in Europe, American stock managed to finish the day higher pretty much across the board. The Dow rose by 0.4% while the broader indexes more than doubled the 30 stock index, as the S&P 500 rose by 0.9% and the Nasdaq gained 1.5% for the day. In commodity [...]
Stocks plunged on Friday as investors found little reassurance in President Obama’s most recent proposal to Congress to stimulate the U.S. economy. Similar to the approaches used in 2009, President Obama’s new plan is more of the same old, including tax cut proposals, aid to state and local governments, and more infrastructure spending. European debt-woes [...]
Domestic equities opened significantly lower on Tuesday as investors came back from the extended Labor Day weekend. Stocks, however, managed to work their way higher during the trading session, extending gains into Wednesday in anticipation of President Obama’s address to Congress on Thursday regarding his plan to stimulate employment over the next year. Overseas in [...]
Equity indexes crept up higher since the opening bell at the start of last week, although a grim jobs report on Friday quickly sparked a sell-off, with domestic equities broadly finishing in red territory for the week. The S&P 500 is now back below our outlined support at 1,200 and we advise stepping to the [...]
Global X, one of the fastest growing ETF issuers in the world, announced further proposals to expand its lineup last week with an SEC filing for five new ETFs. The proposed products look to give investors access to highly specialized corners of the market, following in the footsteps of funds such as the company’s Lithium ETF (LIT), [...]
