ETF Database » ROB

August ETF Roundup: Launches, Filings, and Closures

Cathy Carlson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:26:58 +0000

As the summer winds down, apparently so too does the impressive pace of expansion in the ETF space. Although August launches were a big dropoff from the previous month, the industry still saw the introduction of more than a dozen new exchange-traded products. Whereas many of the products rolled out in previous months have been “first-to-market” concepts, the new ETFs that began trading in August will compete more closely with existing funds [see A Look Back At July's ETF Additions]. August has debuted products which are variations of a pre-existing fund. The new funds range from fixed-income to emerging market local debt to the first Indian Infrastructure ETF [see India ETFs: Five Ways To Play]. Not surprisingly, the ETF pipeline continued to fill with some interesting ideas, some of which could hit the market in the fourth quarter of the year. August also saw a handful of funds shut down; [...]

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How To Survive An ETF Liquidation

Michael Johnston — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:34:46 +0000

The last two weeks have seen two separate announcements of ETF closures, with Claymore and Grail both making plans to shutter funds that have failed to catch on with investors. Claymore will close four equity funds that maintained aggregate assets of about $35 million (IRO, CRO, EXB, and ROB) while Grail is closing the doors on two actively-managed funds that each maintained about $3 million in assets. So far in 2010, about 30 ETFs have been closed; WisdomTree gave 10 funds the ax in February and Rydex pulled the plug on most of its leveraged ETF lineup in April. Odds are that the next several years will see a wave of consolidations and closures in the ETF space. According to the most recent data from the National Stock Exchange, more than 350 ETFs maintain total assets of less than $25 million. Many of those funds are relatively new, and are [...]

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This Week In ETFs: August 20th Edition

Jared Cummans — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:05:33 +0000

Another eventful week has passed us by, leaving investors with plenty to chew on as they try and figure out hectic markets. The week started off with the closing of four ETFs, as Claymore‘s said goodbye to IRO, CRO, EXB, and ROB as the four failed to attract any meaningful amount of assets [see Four ETFs To Close Their Doors]. Intel announced the acquisition of software and spyware company McAffe, shooting its share price up nearly 60% in one trading day. While certain individual securities had strong performances, markets as a whole took a turn for the worse late in the week as first time unemployment claims surged past expectations to hit the half million mark, reigniting fears of an economic slowdown. The recurring fear of a double-dip sparked a major inflow to gold and Treasury funds as investor confidence was stunted in light of this weak data. For investors [...]

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Four ETFs To Close Their Doors

Michael Johnston — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:17:06 +0000

Claymore, the ETF issuer known for its suite of targeted sector funds and China ETFs, has announced that September 10 will be the last day of trading for four of its exchange-traded funds. The ETFs to be shuttered include: Claymore/Zacks Dividend Rotation ETF (IRO) Claymore/Zacks Country Rotation ETF (CRO) Claymore/Beacon Global Exchanges, Brokers & Asset Managers Index ETF (EXB) Claymore/Robb Report Global Luxury Index ETF (ROB) IRO and CRO were based on indexes maintained by Zacks that sought to rotate holdings based on proprietary methodologies. EXB was one of the more targeted options withing the Financials Equities ETFdb Category, seeking exposure to companies that operate a security exchange or brokerage/asset management firm as a primary business. ROB offered a “pure play” on the consumer discretionary sector, focusing on manufacturers of high end automobiles, apparel, and accessories [see Nine Twists On Sector ETF Investing]. According to the July ETF data from [...]

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Can Coach Purses And $4 Coffees Drive Consumer Discretionary ETFs?

Cathy Carlson — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:24:22 +0000

If the economic recovery effort can be thought of as a relay race, the governments of the world are nearing the end of their leg. After propping up the economy with massive stimulus programs and unprecedented injections of liquidity into global financial markets, cash-strapped government leaders are now looking to pass the baton to consumers, hoping that a surge in private spending will somehow materialize without a prior downswing in unemployment and lend staying power to the recovery. What remains to be seen is whether the hand-off will be a clean one, or if the baton will clank along the ground. By many indications, the outlook is dim. Consumer confidence recently fell for the first time in three months on fears of a jobless recovery. “Increasing uncertainty and apprehension about the future state of the economy and labor market, no doubt a result of the recent slowdown in job growth, [...]

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BMW Drives Germany ETF (EWG) Sharply Higher

Eric Dutram — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:43:27 +0000

So far in 2010, most European stock markets have plunged as traders grew increasingly wary over the health of the euro zone and the future of the common currency. In addition to declining stock market prospects, some countries such as Spain and Portugal have been hurt by the decline in the euro; because these nations are among the biggest importers in the world, a declining euro makes goods even more expensive to buy. While the crisis has tempered most investors’ expectations for European GDP growth, the declining euro could be great news for export-intensive economies such as Germany, and could help many European companies to quickly grow overseas operations despite weakness in their home market. That’s exactly the scenario playing out around iconic German carmaker BMW, one of the 15 largest car makers in the world and the third largest in Germany. The company gave a sharp boost to its [...]

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Nine Twists On Sector ETF Investing

Michael Johnston — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:00:37 +0000

ETFs were originally embraced by buy-and-hold investors as an optimal, low-cost vehicle for inclusion in a long-term retirement portfolio. But in recent years they have become popular among more active traders who value their liquidity and efficiency in providing exposure to various asset classes. Once used primarily by beta grazers, ETFs have become a favorite tool of alpha hunters looking to generate excess return (see Five ETFs With Surprising Turnover). Some of these active investors use ETFs to tilt portfolio weightings between different asset classes and national economies. Other investors have strong opinions about the relative prospects of certain sectors of the U.S. economy, and pursue alpha through by overweighting those industries with the brightest prospect and underweighting (or even shorting) those expected to struggle. A number of sector-specific ETFs have been introduced in recent years, including the recent launch of small-cap sector ETFs from PowerShares. But the most popular [...]

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Five ETFs For A Tumbling Euro

Eric Dutram — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:42:05 +0000

With continued worries over budget crises in the “PIIGS” (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) and their rapidly deteriorating fiscal conditions, the future of the euro zone’s common currency has been called into question. Most of attention has focused on Greece, where double digit budget deficits threaten to grind the government to a halt and spread throughout the region. While some are pushing for a Greek bailout, others worry about the signal this action might send to other troubled economies across the Mediterranean. Greece’s richer counterparts certainly aren’t happy about the idea of a bailout, especially in Germany where in a recent poll 53% demanded that Greece be thrown out of the euro zone if they can’t solve their problems without outside funding. Some are even calling for the end of the euro or are pushing for stronger members, such as France and Germany, leave the common currency before it [...]

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Beyond XLY: Three Pure Play Consumer Discretionary ETFs

Michael Johnston — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:23:57 +0000

Through the eyes of an investors, the consumer sector of the global economy is generally split into two segments: consumer staples and consumer discretionaries. Consumer staples stocks generally include those that manufacture and sell goods that are vital components of most household budgets, such as food and non-durable household goods. Companies producing goods that are deemed to be more of a luxury spend are classified as consumer discretionary stocks. XLY Top Ten Holdings McDonalds 7.3% Walt Disney 6.1% Home Depot 5.1% Comcast 4.9% Amazon.com 4.5% Target 4.2% Ford Motor Company 3.9% Time Warner 3.5% Lowe’s 3.4% DirecTV 3.1% Total Top 10 46.0% Historically, investors looking for low beta have gravitated towards consumer staples, while those looking to make a leveraged play on the health of the broad overall economy have embraced the consumer discretionary sector. The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLY) has a beta of 1.11 relative to [...]

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Seven More ETFs That Don’t Exist, But Should

Michael Johnston — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:02:03 +0000

ETFs have come along way in their relatively short existence, evolving from plain vanilla funds tracking major equity benchmarks to include more exotic products such as ETFs with triple leverage, and ETFs that employ long/short strategies, hedge fund tracking ETFs, and actively-managed funds. While some investors point to the several dozen funds that have struggled to attract capital as a sign that the ETF market has become over-saturated, the warm reception that many new funds have received is an indication to the contrary. This year promises to be an exciting one for the ETF industry, with dozens of highly-anticipated new products in the pipeline (see the Seven Most Anticipated New ETFs of 2010). The ETF industry has expanded greatly since the first installment of ETFs That Don’t Exist, But Should, with some of our ideas becoming reality. And while there’s now an ETF offering exposure to just about every corner [...]

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ETF Database » ROB

August ETF Roundup: Launches, Filings, and Closures

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How To Survive An ETF Liquidation

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This Week In ETFs: August 20th Edition

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BMW Drives Germany ETF (EWG) Sharply Higher

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Beyond XLY: Three Pure Play Consumer Discretionary ETFs

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