FocusShares, the company acquired last year by Scottrade, has debuted 15 U.S. equity ETFs that are among the cheapest exchange-traded products available. The new products, which include both market cap-specific and sector-specific funds, are all linked to indexes developed and maintained by Morningstar. The new FocusShares ETFs include: [click to continue…]
Despite UN-led strikes in Libya and lingering concerns over Japanese nuclear issues, U.S. equity markets managed to finish the day broadly higher, boosted in large part by a bid from AT&T to buy rival T-Mobile for $39 billion. The Dow surged by 178 points while the broader indexes posted strong gains as well; the S&P [...]
Global X continued an aggressive expansion of its ETF lineup on Tuesday, announcing the launch of two funds offering exposure to companies engaged in the extraction and production of widely-traded commodities. The Pure Gold Miners ETF (GGGG) will seek to replicate the Solactive Global Pure Gold Miners Index, while the Oil Equities ETF (XOIL) is [...]
Last week domestic equities were confined to a volatile trading range. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones both slid lower by over a percentage point each, while the NASDAQ took a much larger hit and lost over two percentage points for the week. Ongoing tension in the Middle East, especially recent protests in Saudi Arabia, [...]
American equity markets fell off a cliff in Thursday trading as a number of factors–ranging from worries over Spain to unrest in the Arabian peninsula–sent stocks reeling. The Dow was down by over 228 points while similarly brutal losses were had in the more broad indexes. The S&P 500 declined by 1.9% while the Nasdaq [...]
Stock markets in the U.S. finished the day mixed as a strong performance from the oil sector helped to buoy the broader indexes ahead of the more concentrated DJIA. Still, both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 finished the day up by less than 10 points each while the Dow slid by just five, in [...]
Despite ongoing worries across much of the Middle East and a surging price for crude oil , American equity markets trended higher in Monday trading. The broad S&P 500 led the way on the upside, posting gains of 0.8% compared to a 0.6% jump in the Dow and a 0.5% rise in the tech-heavy Nasdaq. [...]
Markets tumbled in the early part of Friday’s session before recouping much of their losses to close out the first week of January. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 slid by 0.2% while the Nasdaq fell by 0.3% on the day thanks to a lower than expected increase in jobs for December 2010. Commodity [...]
Although equity markets started the day sharply lower, stocks managed to rally in midday trading to post solid gains by the end of Wednesday’s session. The Dow finished up by 0.1% while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted more robust gains of 0.4% and 0.7%, respectively. Currency markets stayed relatively flat as the U.S. [...]
Geary Advisors, the firm that last year pioneered state-specific ETFs, has announced that it will close down the Oklahoma Exchange-Traded Fund (OOK) and Texas Exchange-Traded Fund (TXF) by the end of the month. Both funds launched in late 2009, but despite impressive performances struggled to build up assets and trading volumes. OOK seeks to replicate [...]
In many instances, ETFs have allowed more active investors to change their strategy for allocating assets and alter the manner in which they seek to generate alpha. Instead of seeking to identify undervalued companies through detailed analysis of financial statements, many now implement a more high level approach that includes identifying sectors, regions, or even [...]
