Equity markets have taken a wild ride this past year as everything from an unimaginable earthquake in Japan to a looming debt crisis in Europe has taken its toll on investors’ confidence. As 2011 draws to a close, many are left scratching their heads in confusion and uncertainty, given the predominantly gloomy economic outlook that many are expecting for the new year. Financial behemoth UBS has issued its economic outlook for 2012 along with a set of conservative investment principles that are sure to please the defensive-minded crowd worrisome of continuing economic turmoil.
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Interest in achieving fixed income exposure through exchange-traded funds has been a hot topic in recent years, with some advisors expressing serious concerns over the potential shortcomings in bond ETFs while others have fully embraced the efficiencies of the exchange-traded structure [see Are Bond ETFs Broken?].
PowerShares, one of the leading providers of alternative weighted ETFs, announced today the latest addition to its fixed income lineup. The new Fundamental Investment Grade Corporate Bond Portfolio (PFIG) will offer an alternative means of accessing high quality corporate bonds, distinguishing itself from other products in the Corporate Bonds ETFdb Category by the weighting methodology [...]
The month of May was a generally disappointing stretch for investors, as both international and domestic equity markets struggled to overcome obstacles new and old. Commodities, which had been a nice source of absolute returns for much of the last year, fell on hard times as well; precious metals went into a brief freefall, and [...]
Actively managed ETFs have been slow to gain traction so far among most investors for a variety of reasons. Higher than average fees, a boatload of academic evidence suggesting inability of active management to consistently generate alpha, and concerns about disclosure requirements leading to front-running opportunities have all contributed to the relatively slow adoption rate [...]
Innovation continues to be a defining characteristic of the quickly growing fixed income ETF space, as evidenced by the launch of the SPDR Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond ETF (CBND) on Thursday by State Street. The new ETF will seek to replicate the performance of the Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Index, a benchmark [...]
Rob Arnott is the founder of Research Affiliates, a global leader in innovative investing and asset allocation strategies. The firm is perhaps best known for its role in developing fundamentally-weighted indexes that utilize the RAFI methodology. This strategy involves selecting and weighting securities by fundamental measures of company size, as opposed to market capitalization. The [...]
The last few years have seen tremendous growth in ETF assets, as investors have gradually embraced the exchange-traded structure as a tool for establishing exposure to everything from emerging markets to micro cap stocks to commodities. Interest in bond ETFs has been particularly strong; according to year-end data from the National Stock Exchange, bond ETFs [...]
Creativity on the product development front has become a defining characteristic of the ETF industry, as the surge in the number of ETF offerings in recent years has been driven not by duplication but by innovation. Many of the new fund launches are first-to-market concepts, offering exposure to asset classes or strategies not previously available [...]
Russell Investments and Research Affiliates announced this week the creation of a new suite of indexes based on the Fundamental index methodology developed by Research Affiliates founder Rob Arnott. The two companies formed a partnership last year, and are now introducing 24 fundamental-weighted benchmarks measuring the performance of domestic and international equity markets.
With 2011 just around the corner, the curtain is closing on yet another year of tremendous expansion in the ETF industry. With inflows for the year at close to $100 billion, total ETF assets will recently eclipsed the $1 trillion mark for the first time. From a product development standpoint, 2010 was a record year; [...]
