As the ETF industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, innovation has been a recurring theme in the space. Although some of the new exchange-traded products now hitting the market offer access to “plain vanilla” asset classes and indexes, the ETF expansion has been fueled primarily by first-to-market products that open up new asset classes and investment strategies. From leveraged platinum and palladium ETNs to Australian Bonds to soybeans, 2011 has been a year of firsts in the ETF industry [see Six Noteworthy ETF Innovations].
As a result of this trend, ETFs have become increasingly specialized, granular tools. The vast majority of exchange-traded products now available to U.S. investors are likely of little or no use to those with a buy-and-hold strategy; much of the ETP universe is simply too targeted for those with a long-term time horizon. But these products are powerful tactical tools to more active advisors and individuals looking to implement shorter-term tilts towards asset classes believed to be poised for short-term outperformance, and the wave of new launches in recent years has added a number of precise tools to the toolbox [see 25 Things Every Financial Advisor Should Know About ETFs] . [click to continue…]
UBS rolled out two new ETNs on Thursday, debuting products that offer exposure to Internet-related companies that have recently completed an initial public offering (IPO). The new ETRACS Internet IPO ETN (EIPO) is linked to the UBS Internet IPO Index, a benchmark that consists of companies that maintain operations focused on the Internet that have [...]
In the early days of the ETF industry most of the products were broad-based equity funds that offered exposure to domestic and international stock markets. But as ETFs have gained market share and become more popular with both buy-and-holders and more active traders, products have become increasingly specialized. Since the debut of the sector SPDRs [...]
Initial sales reports from Black Friday gave little hope for a blockbuster holiday season for retailers: although more people visited retail stores over the holiday weekend, almost 2 out of every 3 Americans, they spent almost 8% less on average. This led to sales that were basically flat from last year, widely proclaimed to be [...]
Microsoft reported solid earnings earlier today, sending shares more than 7% higher in early trading. Although sales were down more than 14% compared to last year and net profits fell more than 18%, investors were encouraged by strong early results for Windows 7 (which created $1.5 billion in deferred revenue from customers who bought a [...]
The sale of Skype that was rumored last week appears to be close to reality, as San Jose-based company eBay is poised to sell the company to a group of investors headed by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. Under the terms of the deal, eBay will receive about $1.9 billion in cash and a [...]
