For many investors, 2011 was an up-and-down year; risky assets came racing out of the gates, but a string of negative developments erased all of the early gains during a chaotic summer. Heading in to 2012, the outlook is mixed; there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future, as well as some considerable hurdles that could make coming months challenging. Against this uncertain backdrop, we outline 12 ETF ideas that seem to be positioned for success in 2012 [for more ETF ideas, sign up for the free ETFdb newsletter]: [click to continue…]
Now the debt ceiling has been raised, investors can get back to focusing on corporate earnings in order to drive market performance. Although the economy is still sluggish, these quarterly updates have been keeping many sectors afloat, especially in the consumer focused industries where spending is down but profits are still relatively well at many [...]
The first week of November was poised to be an interesting one for the financial world, and when all was said and done it did not disappoint. The benchmark S&P 500 index soared by 3.6% last week as traders cheered the return of a Republican dominated House of Representatives and strong gains for the GOP [...]
When companies began tightening their belts as the most recent recession hit, advertising budgets were slashed in an effort to minimize losses in the short term and weather the storm. This behavior had a significant impact on companies that generate significant revenues from advertising, and broadcast television networks endured one of their leanest years in [...]
One recurring investment theme in 2010 has been the recovery of industries that were slammed during the most recent downturn. Financials and homebuilders are among the top performers of 2010, continuing to claw back ground lost in recent years. Another sector experiencing a similar “bounceback” is the media industry. Many analysts predicted a slow and [...]
The ETF industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, with hundreds of new product launches covering various regions, sectors, and investment strategies. The surge in ETF product offerings–there are now nearly 1,000 exchange-traded products in our ETF screener–has sparked some speculation that the industry has reached a point of saturation–or perhaps has long since blown [...]
With interest rates still hovering just above zero and growing concerns over an unavoidable uptick in inflation, many investors are anticipating that the Federal Reserve will have no choice but to raise rates from their historically low levels in the near future. Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, recently unveiled a strategy to unwind [...]
Following a year that saw some of the worst performances in recent memory, many asset classes have bounced back in 2009. But some have performed better than others, and as the year draws to a close we take a look at some of the best-performing ETFs. The year’s top gainers include a few of the [...]
