The showdown over the future of the financial industry continued in Washington on Tuesday, as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker continued to push for restrictions on commercial banks engaging in proprietary trading and private investing activity. Earnings reports continued to give domestic equity markets a boost, as did favorable news for the U.S. auto industry out of Detroit: Ford and GM posted sales increases of 25% and 14%, respectively, in January. Toyota results were hammered by the carmaker’s biggest-ever recall. [click to continue…]
Historically, no portfolio was complete without a material allocation to real estate. Consistently high real returns and low correlations to stocks and bonds made it easy to overlook the out-of-whack fundamentals that ultimately led to an unprecedented collapse. But when real estate markets got a reality check in late 2008, many investors swore off the asset class for good. Or so they thought. [click to continue…]
Once considered a vital “return enhancer” in almost every portfolio, real estate as an asset class has fallen out of favor with investors following its spectacular collapse during (and role in causing) the recent global economic downturn. Real estate was historically embraced because of its potential for delivering excess returns in bull property markets and [...]
It’s been an interesting week the world of ETFs: ETFs trended upwards at the beginning of the week but fell back in trading late Thursday and Friday. Here are the ETF Database staff picks of the week’s most important and interesting stories from around the Web:
Equity markets continued a strong week on Wednesday, as most major benchmarks posted small gains. Volatility in natural gas prices continued Wednesday, as the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) shot up almost 1.4% on expectations for higher prices next year. At the World Business Forum in New York City, legendary investor T. Boone Pickens [...]
The ETF industry has expanded by leaps and bounds in recent years, with new issuers entering the arena and countless new product launches that offer investors the ability to gain exposure to various geographic regions and investment styles. The first ETFs were essentially “plain vanilla” products that mirrored widely-followed equity benchmarks. Today, the vast majority [...]
Dow Jones & Co. has begun searching for potential buyers of its stock-market indexing unit, which includes the widely-reported Dow Jones Industrial Average. The unit of Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal and was purchased by News Corporation in late 2007, creates and licenses indexes for use by ETFs, mutual funds, and other [...]
As a result of the seemingly endless decline in the U.S. housing market (we’re nearing the three year mark for the current downturn), most real estate ETFs on the market have been posted huge losses since 2007, with many still down more than 50% from their record highs despite recent rallies. But as any shrewd investor [...]
