The introduction and rapid expansion of the ETF industry has no doubt been a very positive development for investors big and small. The low fees characteristic of the exchange-traded structure have allowed cost-conscious investors to minimize expenses without sacrificing returns, while the enhanced tax efficiency and intraday trading capabilities have contributed increased flexibility to the investing public. [click to continue…]
In general, 2010 has been a pretty solid year for most portfolios. Despite lingering concerns about unemployment and mounting debt burdens, most global equity markets have moved higher on the year. Commodity markets have been red hot, with prices of many natural resources climbing to new highs thanks to strong demand from emerging markets and [...]
As a long-time subscriber to BusinessWeek, I generally enjoy their content and find their stories both informative and interesting. However, last week’s cover story entitled “Amber Waves of Pain” was unlike anything I had ever read by the company before. On the cover, the weekly magazine stated three times “Do Not Buy Commodity ETFs” and [...]
As seasoned investors know, any potential investment must be evaluated not on a stand-alone basis but on its contribution to an overall portfolio. In addition to considering the risk and return profile of a particular asset, the relationship between that asset and the other holdings of the investor is of vital importance in the construction [...]
Commodities are the new black in the world of investing, thanks in no small part to the rise of ETFs as the tool of choice in more and more portfolios. Commodity ETFs saw cash inflows of more than $30 billion in 2009, as total assets more than doubled on the year. According to the ETF [...]
Last year saw the continuation of the ETF industry’s impressive rise, with more than 100 new products hitting the market and a handful of new issuers entering into the arena. While many of the new exchange-traded products are “plain vanilla” funds that will compete directly with existing products, we also saw a number of truly [...]
It’s been an interesting week the world of ETFs: Gold finished the week around $1045/oz and President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web:
The majority of ETFs on the market follow the traditional ETF model – tracking an underlying equity or bond index. But as the benefits of the ETF structure become more widely accepted, inflows from increasingly sophisticated have created a demand for increasingly complex funds. Here are five of the more complex ETFs available to investors today, along [...]
