While reports of jobless rates in the U.S. or the pace of inflation in China occasionally pop to the top of the headlines, the last several months have seen the spotlight focused on European markets as the continent continues to battle a debt crisis that has threatened to derail a fragile economic recovery. While the fiscal woes have been felt throughout Europe, the impact has not been felt evenly. Some of the more financially stable markets, such as Germany, have held up quite well; the euro’s weakness has actually given a boost to export-driven markets whose goods have become more attractively priced to foreign buyers. [click to continue…]
The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan earlier this month have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, as the fallout from the natural disaster continues and efforts to rebuild the country figure to take years to complete. The humanitarian crisis in Japan has been one of the most devastating in recent history; several thousand [...]
With more than 1,100 ETPs now trading, investors and advisors have access to more asset classes and investment strategies than ever before. But it can also be challenging for advisors and investors to navigate through all the ETF options and identify those that meet their investment objectives–especially with new funds debuting on a regular basis. [...]
In general, 2010 has been a pretty solid year for most portfolios. Despite lingering concerns about unemployment and mounting debt burdens, most global equity markets have moved higher on the year. Commodity markets have been red hot, with prices of many natural resources climbing to new highs thanks to strong demand from emerging markets and [...]
Alternative energy has been a hot topic in recent years, as some have argued for aggressive adoption while others deem the policies and practices too expensive and feel that the world should let the market sort through the various ideas until a more cost-efficient way to implement the various clean energy methods presents itself. Earlier [...]
With oil prices held in check below the $80 mark until very recently, sluggish global growth has combined with decreasing alternative energy subsidies from cash-strapped governments to batter the alternative energy ETF market for much of 2010. While some broad based energy ETFs tracking the oil and gas sector have managed to pull themselves back [...]
Through nearly eight months, 2010 has been an extremely rough year for energy ETFs, including both traditional oil and gas-focused funds as well as “greener” alternative energy products. Traditional energy ETFs have plummeted thanks in large part to the fallout from the Gulf oil spill, which has limited demand for many oil service firms and [...]
Around the world, stock markets have been very rocky as of late with investors fearing a return to a recession in many developed countries. This fear has compounded with weak earnings out of many large banks and tempered growth predictions for mainland China to reduce expectations for one of the main drivers of growth in [...]
Alternative energy remains a fast growing market segment not only in the world of ETFs, but in terms of total investment as well. Since 2005, investment in clean energy increased by 230% to $162 billion in 2009. Echoing similar trends occurring throughout the global economy, emerging markets have stepped up their push to become leaders [...]
After soaring from all time lows in March 2009 through the end of the year, many alternative-energy ETFs have fallen sharply in 2010, as crumbling government finances have forced certain countries to scale back or eliminate altogether subsidies to this still-nascent industry. Many alternative energy sectors have tumbled by 10% or more in the first [...]
Although equity markets generally headed higher in the first quarter of 2010, there were a few funds that were not so lucky and became the early leaders in the Laggard of The Year race. The S&P 500 finished the quarter up close to 6%, but European markets stumbled in the wake of an on-and-off crisis [...]
