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101 ETF Lessons Every Financial Advisor Should Learn

Michael Johnston — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00:06 +0000

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have burst on to the scene in the last few years, raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and prompting a major shift towards indexing strategies in the process. ETFs have empowered financial advisors (FAs), registered investment advisors (RIAs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), money managers, and retail investors to take greater control over their portfolios, pushing down fees and maxing out tax efficiency in the process. While ETFs appear quite simple on the surface, these securities can be quite complex. In order to get the most out of ETFs, there’s a lot that investors need to know about the structure, opportunities, and limitations of these securities. Below we outline just about everything you need to know about ETFs, from the basics to the more sophisticated aspects of these products. 1. ETFs Are Tax Efficient One of the biggest advantages of ETFs is their tax-efficient structure; [...]

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Hitchhiker’s Guide To The ETF Galaxy

Michael Johnston — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:23 +0000

At times, it seems as if the number of ETFs available to U.S. investors will soon exceed the number of stars in the sky. That might be overstating things a bit, but the pace of expansion in the ETF industry has truly been impressive over the last several years. With multiple products seemingly debuting every week and very few shutting down (despite countless predictions to the contrary), the size of the ETF lineup has effectively doubled in a relatively short period of time. And there’s no indication that the product development front is going to be slowing down any time soon; issuers continue to file for both innovative and duplicative products, producing a pipeline full of hundreds of funds that could debut at some point in the next several months [see also 3 ETFs For A Euro Zone Double-Dip]. The proliferation of ETFs, ETNs, and other exchange-traded cousins of these [...]

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ETFs: The $10 Billion Club

Jared Cummans — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:00:03 +0000

It is no secret that the ETF industry is dominated by just a handful of products. The majority of the $1 trillion plus assets are confined to roughly 100 funds, leaving the other 1,300 ETFs in the dust. But as growth in the industry continues to pick up, more and more funds are entering elite status with hefty assets and trading volumes to go with it [see also Top 5 Commodity ETFs Of 2011]. Investors who are still a bit squeamish about buying into some of the smaller and more hypertargeted products, have a wealth of options available to them. A number of advisors and institutions have minimum requirements for assets under management for the products that they can buy. Along with assets restrictions there are often regulations on age and average daily volume. But for those looking for a fund that meets such strict demands, combing through the entire ETF universe [...]

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10 Most Useful New ETFs Of 2011 (For Buy-And-Hold Investors)

Jared Cummans — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:00:45 +0000

This past year was the most active ever for the exchange traded industry in terms of product development; the launch of more than 300 new products shattered the record set in 2010. And innovation continues to run high in the industry; the creativity of issuers is still impressive, as many of the ETFs that have debuted over the last year have offered access to new asset classes and strategies. There are no doubt still stones to be overturned, and many new opportunities in the ETF space. Yesterday, we profiled a number of the new additions to the ETF lineup in 2011 that had been a big hit with investors; nearly 20 of the exchange-traded products launched in 2011 have already accumulated more than $1 billion in assets. Today, we’ll take a look at ten ETFs that debuted in 2011 that haven’t been quite as successful pulling in assets, but that [...]

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The Top 10 Cheapest And Most Expensive ETFs

Jared Cummans — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:00:03 +0000

One of the founding principles of the ETF industry was cost competitiveness; after being charged upwards of 150 basis points for their favorite mutual funds, investors had grown tired of surrendering a substantial portion of their gains to the managers of big name funds. Now, there are ETFs that charge as low as 5 basis points; on a $1 million dollar investment, that means just $500 annually. Investors can now build an effective portfolio while minimizing their expenses using some of these ultra-efficient funds. But for all of cheap options that the ETF industry offers, it certainly has a fair amount of products on the other side of the equation. Below, we outline the top ten cheapest and most expensive funds for investors looking to better manage their costs [for more, see our ETFdb Cheapskate Portfolio]. The Most Expensive Given the low costs that many funds offer, some of the fees on this list [...]

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New At ETFdb: ETF Scorecards Offer In-Depth Analysis And Ranking Of Every ETF

Michael Johnston — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:30:31 +0000

ETF Database has introduced another new resource to its lineup of analytical tools designed to help financial advisors and individual investors navigate through the rapidly-increasing universe of exchange-traded products: ETF Scorecards that provide relevant, timely, and unbiased analysis of more than 1,300 ETPs. The ETF Scorecards are in-depth, customized analyst reports that highlight the noteworthy features of each ETF in plain English, alongside rankings of the fund on 20+ metrics including expenses, performance, volatility, and distributions [see links to sample ETF Scorecards below]. Each ETF Scorecard includes: Analyst Take: An objective analysis from the team of ETFdb analysts that highlights any unique aspects that make an ETF unique. We highlight how an ETF might fit in to a portfolio, note any subtle attributes that may impact the risk / return profile, and offer our take on the composition of the underlying portfolio–both good and bad. The Analyst Take is our [...]

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Alternatives To The 20 Most Popular ETFs

Michael Johnston — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:45:07 +0000

The impressive pace of expansion in the ETF industry over the last several years has been well documented; continuous product development has resulted in the launch of more than 250 so far in 2011, and there are now more than 1,300 names in the ETF lineup. But while the depth of the ETF space has increased, the industry remains quite top-heavy; a relatively small number of products accounts for the lion’s share of total assets. Most of the largest ETFs are also among the oldest; their impressive asset bases are perhaps more attributable to their seniority than the appeal of the underlying methodologies. In fact, impressive innovation in the industry has given investors plenty of alternatives to the “super tickers” that dominate the space. The largest ETFs have become so popular for a reason; they generally offer cheap, liquid exposure to core asset classes. But for investors willing to dig [...]

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SICK vs. CURE: Direxion Rolls Out Leveraged Health Care ETFs

Michael Johnston — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:53:13 +0000

Direxion continued the expansion of its already robust lineup of leveraged and inverse ETFs on Wednesday, debuting two pairs of 3x daily products along with an inverse fund offering short exposure to an index replicated by one of the most popular U.S. equity ETFs. The latest additions to the ETF lineup include: Daily Basic Materials Bull 3x Shares (MATL): This fund offers 3x daily exposure to the Materials Select Sector Index, a large cap benchmark that includes chemical manufacturers, paper companies, and firms engaged in the production of packaging products (among many other types of stocks). Daily Basic Materials Bear 3x Shares (MATS): This bear counterpart to MATL seeks to deliver daily results that correspond to -300% of the daily changes in the same index [see MATS fact sheet]. Daily Healthcare Bull 3x Shares (CURE): This ETF will deliver daily results that correspond to 3x the daily change in the [...]

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ETF Insider: Debuting Our All-ETF Portfolio

Michael Johnston — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:13:09 +0000

The last few days have seen a number of interesting developments in financial markets, as commodities have seemingly resumed their skyward trajectory and Europe once again seems headed for a complete meltdown. Against this backdrop, we introduce the ETF Insider all-ETF portfolio, a hands-on portfolio that seeks to establish a small handful of tactical positions around a core of ETF holdings covering the major asset classes. First, however, we check in on the technical ETF trading ideas from Monday, updating performance through the first few days of the week. Week To Date Investors have been taken on a wild ride in the early part of this week, as disappointing economic data put stocks in an early hole on Monday morning. That early sell-off was triggered by a spike in Europe-related anxiety, as investors fled towards safe havens over worries that election results in Spain would make austerity campaigns more difficult [...]

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All-ETF Portfolio For Cheapskate Investors: How Low Can We Go?

Michael Johnston — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:00:20 +0000

Any investor who hasn’t been living under a rock probably has some idea as to why the ETF industry has been expanding so quickly over the last several years. Intra-day liquidity, enhanced tax efficiencies, and a degree of transparency not available in many other structures are all common causes of the explosive growth in both number of products and ETF assets over the past decade. But the big driver of the ETF expansion relates to expenses–or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof. ETFs were originally designed (at least in part) to combat what Vanguard founder John Bogle has called the “tyranny of compounded costs.” For investors who believe that security selection fails to consistently add value–and there is a boatload of academic evidence that supports that theory–paying for pricey active management does little more than erode returns over the long run. Most ETFs are passive in nature, meaning that they [...]

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ETF Database » VTI

101 ETF Lessons Every Financial Advisor Should Learn

Related Posts:

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The ETF Galaxy

Related Posts:

ETFs: The $10 Billion Club

Related Posts:

10 Most Useful New ETFs Of 2011 (For Buy-And-Hold Investors)

Related Posts:

The Top 10 Cheapest And Most Expensive ETFs

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New At ETFdb: ETF Scorecards Offer In-Depth Analysis And Ranking Of Every ETF

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Alternatives To The 20 Most Popular ETFs

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SICK vs. CURE: Direxion Rolls Out Leveraged Health Care ETFs

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ETF Insider: Debuting Our All-ETF Portfolio

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All-ETF Portfolio For Cheapskate Investors: How Low Can We Go?

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