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 the market to bring investors the best brokerage offering in the industry today,” said Kathleen A. Murphy, president of Personal Investing at Fidelity Investments. “Simply put, we’re offering the broadest selection of commission-free ETFs from the undisputed ETF leader, and it’s only available through Fidelity.” [click to continue…]
Grail Advisors, known in the ETF world as the issuer responsible for the first actively-managed ETF that allowed managers total discretion, announced today the launch of two actively-managed fixed income ETFs. The Grail McDonnell Intermediate Municipal Bond ETF (GMMB) and the Grail McDonnell Core Taxable Bond ETF (GMTB) began trading on the NYSE Arca Exchange on Friday, bringing the total number of ETFs in Grail’s product line to seven. [click to continue…]
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 [...]
PIMCO, the Newport Beach, California-based bond fund giant, launched its latest exchange-traded fund on Wednesday, the Intermediate Municipal Bond Strategy Fund. The new ETF, which comes with an expense ratio of 35 basis points, will trade under the ticker MUNI, which was somehow still available. The ETF will be managed by John Cummings, the company’s [...]
Allstate Corp., the largest publicly-traded insurer of homes and automobiles in the U.S., announced this week that it is making some major shifts in its investment portfolio that now exceeds $100 billion. The Northbrook, Illinois-based company announced that it is reducing its exposure to commercial real estate and municipal bonds in favor of corporate debt.
Invesco PowerShares is scheduled to launch its Build America Bond Portfolio (BAB) on Tuesday, the first exchange-traded product to offer exposure to a new class of fixed income securities. Build America Bonds are different from traditional fixed income securities in several ways, with the potential to deliver attractive real returns with minimal risk of default [...]
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 [...]
