Geary Advisors, the firm that last year pioneered state-specific ETFs, has announced that it will close down the Oklahoma Exchange-Traded Fund (OOK) and Texas Exchange-Traded Fund (TXF) by the end of the month. Both funds launched in late 2009, but despite impressive performances struggled to build up assets and trading volumes. OOK seeks to replicate the SPADE Oklahoma Index, a benchmark consisting of publicly-traded companies whose corporate headquarters are located in Oklahoma or who maintain significant operations within Oklahoma. Though OOK’s assets are spread across a number of sectors, the fund maintains a heavy tilt towards firms engaged in the transport of natural gas. That made it an intriguing option for playing that corner of the energy market, but assets were slow to accumulate [see How To Survive An ETF Liquidation]. [click to continue…]
As more issuers have rushed into the ETF game and waves of cash inflows have contributed to surging asset levels within the industry, investors find themselves with more options than ever before. Once upon a time, exposure to a specific country or sector through ETFs was a binary decision; investors either had it, or they [...]
Charles Schwab may be a relative newcomer to the exchange-traded fund game, but the San Francisco-based firm has made quite a splash since wading into the ETF waters late last year. On Monday, Schwab shook up the industry again, announcing that it was reducing the expense ratios on six ETFs, or three quarters of its [...]
From a certain perspective, the ETF space shows the signs not of a still-nascent industry, but of a mature corner of the investing world. For the better part of a decade, the industry totem pole has remained unchanged, with four big firms accounting for nearly 90% of all ETF assets. But a closer look reveals [...]
One of the hottest segments of the ETF industry is the commodity space, which has exploded in recent years as investors have embraced exchange-traded products as a means of reaching an asset class that offers potentially valuable diversification benefits. While most commodity products are physically-backed or futures-based funds, an alternative means of gaining commodity exposure [...]
Last year saw more than 100 new ETF launches, ranging from the relatively “plain vanilla” to funds offering more targeted and unique exposure. One of the more interesting product launches came late in the year, when Geary Advisors introduced the first state-specific ETF, the Oklahoma Exchange-Traded Fund (OOK).
Last year saw more than 100 new product launches, ranging from plain vanilla equity and bond funds to ETFs offering exposure to exotic new investment strategies and asset classes previously available only to a limited slice of the investing community. The innovation that has made ETFs a popular alternative to mutual funds seems ready to [...]
The rapid rise of the ETF industry has caused the expanded the investment arsenal of millions significantly, bringing asset classes previously reserved for only the largest and most sophisticated investors within reach. This development is perhaps best demonstrated by the surge in popularity of exchange-traded commodity products. According to data from the National Stock Exchange, [...]
Keith Geary is the chairman, president, and CEO of The Geary Companies, an Oklahoma-based financial services firm. Geary Advisors recently launched the Texas Large Companies Exchange-Traded Fund (TXF) and Oklahoma ETF (OOK), the first state-specific equity ETFs available to U.S. investors. He recently took time out of his busy schedule to talk about his firm’s [...]
About two months ago, Geary Advisors made headlines by launching the Oklahoma ETF (OOK), the first state-specific exchange-traded product available to U.S. investors. OOK is linked to the SPADE Oklahoma Index, a modified market capitalization-weighted benchmark that seeks to measure the performance of publicly-traded companies whose corporate headquarters are located in the state of Oklahoma.
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 [...]
