The summer months generally bring a slowdown in trading activity on Wall Street, so it isn’t surprising that product development activity has seemingly slowed a bit in the ETF industry as of late. After dozens of new product launches in previous months, just ten new ETFs debuted in July according to the ETF Launch Center. And as we near the midway point in August, only four new ETFs have started trading this month: the India Consumer ETF (INCO), Emerging Markets High Beta Low Income ETF (HILO), SmallCap 600 Equal Weight ETF (EWSM), and MidCap 400 Equal Weight ETF (EWMD). [click to continue…]
This past week was filled with more of the same for investors; abundant volatility across equities coupled with feelings of uncertainty regarding the financial well-being of the United States. Lawmakers in Washington are keeping investors on the edge of their seat (putting the pressure on equities) as the debt-ceiling deadline approaches, and several rating agencies [...]
Wall Street started the week once again in red territory as investors remain reluctant to jump back into the equity markets given the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the debt-ceiling controversy at home. Gold continues to charge higher as the precious metal opened above $1,600 an ounce on Monday morning. Earnings season is well underway and so [...]
Wall Street regained some lost ground last week as investors appeared less fearful to jump back into the equity markets. Corporate earnings were mostly upbeat, although several big financial institutions missed estimates while Apple and Google both blew past analyst predictions. Emerging market equity indexes also ended the week in green territory. Gold took a [...]
Last year was a good year for most asset classes, as investor portfolios continued to recover from the recent recession. The difference in performance between many comparable funds was significant, and many of the best performers of 2010 are relatively small funds that maintain considerably smaller asset bases than their more popular competitors. Below, we [...]
PowerShares seems ready to continue the expansion of its product lineup, recently filing for approval on four new funds. Each of the proposed ETFs would seek to replicate indexes maintained by KBW, which is already behind several ETFs offered by State Street. The funds detailed in the recent SEC filing include:
Barack Obama’s first year in office has, by most accounts, been a mixed bag. The massive $787 billion stimulus plan helped to avoid an even deeper recession, but failed to impact joblessness in any meaningful way. Instead of seeing a downturn in the unemployment rate as promised, Americans have seen the rate grow to double [...]
When the Obama administration unveiled last week its proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility tax, it appeared that the primary targets would be large banking institutions that had accepted billions of dollars in federal bailout funds last year. But a closer look at the proposal indicates that a handful of large insurance companies, many of whom did [...]
