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This past week was a surprisingly solid one for markets as a choppy session on Monday gave way to broad strength in Tuesday and Wednesday trading. Markets performed poorly in Thursday and then closed out the week in a volatile session thanks to a release of the GDP report and Ben Bernanke’s annual speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The period was especially good for financials, although it didn’t look that way at the beginning of the week. Warren Buffet stepped in with a five billion dollar investment in embattled banking giant Bank of America, helping to push the stock up by double digits on the week. This also soothed investors’ fears over another systemic crisis in the sector, helping to boost shares of banks large and small on the week. In commodity markets, gold finally saw an end to its record run, at least for the time being, as the precious metal hit about $1,900/oz. in the middle part of the week only to sell-off significantly, losing as much as $100/oz. in a single trading day. The metal did add a little bit to close out the week, but given the uncertainty still in the markets, there is no telling which way gold will go as we head into September.

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ETF Update: Pipeline Continues To Fill

by Michael Johnston on August 16, 2011

The summer months generally bring a slowdown in trading activity on Wall Street, so it isn’t surprising that product development activity has seemingly slowed a bit in the ETF industry as of late. After dozens of new product launches in previous months, just ten new ETFs debuted in July according to the ETF Launch Center. And as we near the midway point in August, only four new ETFs have started trading this month: the India Consumer ETF (INCO), Emerging Markets High Beta Low Income ETF (HILO), SmallCap 600 Equal Weight ETF (EWSM), and MidCap 400 Equal Weight ETF (EWMD). [click to continue…]

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PowerShares Plans Financial ETF Expansion

by Michael Johnston on September 8, 2010

PowerShares seems ready to continue the expansion of its product lineup, recently filing for approval on four new funds. Each of the proposed ETFs would seek to replicate indexes maintained by KBW, which is already behind several ETFs offered by State Street. The funds detailed in the recent SEC filing include:

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Financials Tax Puts Insurance ETFs In Focus

by Michael Johnston on January 19, 2010

When the Obama administration unveiled last week its proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility tax, it appeared that the primary targets would be large banking institutions that had accepted billions of dollars in federal bailout funds last year. But a closer look at the proposal indicates that a handful of large insurance companies, many of whom did [...]

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Three ETF Plays On Hurricane Bill

by Michael Johnston on August 19, 2009

According to its August Atlantic Hurricane Outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expects a “near- to below-normal Atlantic hurricane season as the calming effects of El Niño continue to develop.” After getting off to a very mild start (there has been little activity since the official June 1 start of the season), it [...]

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