As the U.S. market continues to recover, Ben Bernanke has announced his loose plan to ween the economy off the Federal money it has relied on heavily since 2008. While this is good news for the future of investing and will strengthen economic conditions in the long term, many investors have been overly flighty during transition discussions. In recent months, the dollar and bond rates have fallen a number of times before Bernanke has spoken, only to bounce back stronger than before once he finishes. While the dollar seems to finally be on the way up, this is not great news for all investors and has really affected the returns of a number of ETFs [for more ETF analysis, make sure to sign up for our free ETF newsletter].
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This month, legendary bond king Bill Gross published his investment outlook, aptly titled “Strawberry Fields – Forever?”, in which he warned investors to be prepared to face some “structural economic headwinds” in the next few years. In addition to the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis we still feel today, diminished productivity gains and the looming fiscal cliff, Gross […]
Emerging markets stocks are a core holding in the portfolios of many investors: developing economies such as China and India account for a growing portion of global GDP, and a significant percentage of all global GDP growth. ETFs have become popular tools for tapping into this asset class; the low cost structures, intraday liquidity, and […]
The curtain is about to drop on 2011, a year that will go down as a record-breaking period for the rapidly-expanding ETF industry. More than 300 exchange-traded products began trading this year, with dozens of issuers rolling out new products. While some of the new additions bear a striking resemblance to more established products on […]
2011 has been arguably one the busiest ever for the ETF industry, as we are on pace to break through 300 new launches for the year. As we rapidly approach 1,400 total funds in the space, it can be a daunting task to try and keep up with the tidal wave of new products that […]
A quick look at the headlines on any given day is generally enough to explain why investors have been shifting greater percentages of their long-term portfolios towards emerging markets in recent years. The U.S. is grappling with elevated unemployment, and faces a regulatory gridlock that is creating undesirable tax uncertainty. Europe has been unable to […]
June was another interesting month for markets around the world as a number of important events transpired over the past few weeks. The Federal Reserve meeting came and went without much of a hitch as Bernanke called for the end of QE at the end of the month but suggested that the economy was still […]
With another disappointing week in the books, anxiety is beginning to spike among investors. The past several days saw most major benchmarks decline sharply, as dismal economic indicators hammering equity markets and many commodities struggled to hold their ground as well. The sell-offs hammered some of our actionable ETF ideas for the week, though one […]
Deutsche Bank rolled out the latest additions to an ETP lineup that is rapidly approaching 1,300 on Thursday, debuting five ETFs that offer exposure to international equity markets while stripping out the impact of fluctuations in value of the U.S. dollar and non-U.S. currencies. Each of the new products are linked to MSCI indexes, offering […]