The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) has found itself at the top of a number of lists this year. The natural gas fund has been one of the most popular exchange-traded products, with cash inflows to date in 2009 of $5.4 billion, more then four times the assets UNG maintained only a year ago. From a performance perspective, it’s also been one of the most disappointing: despite a furious rally in recent weeks, UNG has been crushed by regulatory uncertainty, contango in futures markets, and perhaps even its own popularity in 2009, losing more than 50% of its value so far on the year (see the complete list of worst performing ETFs in 2009). [click to continue…]
Over the last year, leveraged ETFs have been the subject of intense scrutiny from a number of parties, including regulatory agencies, state governments, broker-dealers, individual investors, and even class action lawyers. While several aspects of leveraged ETFs have been thoroughly analyzed and debated, perhaps no issue has drawn more attention than the effects of compounding returns when held for multiple trading sessions. [click to continue…]
In a step apparently intended to calm some of the fury surrounding the sale and use of leveraged ETFs, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced Tuesday that it will raise margin requirements for leveraged ETFs beginning December 1. Regulatory Notice 09-53 states that “in view of the increased volatility of leveraged ETFs compared to [...]
The old saying “any publicity is good publicity” certainly seems to ring true in the ETF industry. Over the last several months, leveraged ETFs have been the subject of intense scrutiny, first from individual investors and analysts, and more recently from regulatory agencies such as FINRA. Despite allegations that these funds are dishonest products that [...]
Leveraged ETFs have quickly become the hot-button issue in the ETF industry, dividing investors and observers into two distinct camps. On the one side are sophisticated day traders who believe these funds, which use derivatives and other complex financial instruments to provide amplified daily returns on a target index, are the greatest thing since sliced bread. And on [...]
In the week during which the Obama administration will unveil details surrounding its plan to revamp the regulation of the U.S. financial sector, calls for increased oversight of the ETF industry are picking up steam as well. Scott Burns, director of ETF Analysis at Morningstar, recently laid out a case for increased regulatory requirements for ETFs [...]
After growing at a torrid pace in 2008, the ETF industry had showed signs of slowing down through the first four months of 2009. But May represented a return to old form, with more than $14 billion in new assets flowing into ETFs during the month according to Morningstar, the largest monthly inflow of the [...]
