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ETFs

Found 14 Articles.
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Bob’s Journal for 3/21/19

March 21, 2019

Markets have been rallying, but investors don’t seem to be very bullish. Stock indexes, of course, have strong returns so far in 2019. The NASDAQ 100, as represented by the QQQ exchange-traded fund (ETF), is up about 14.5% for the year to date. The S&P 500 gained more than 12.5% and the Russell 2000 index […]

Ins and Outs Of Leveraged ETFs

September 13, 2018

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about ETFs that invest in indexes using leverage. Usually they obtain their leverage by using futures contracts. A lot of people don’t understand the math and other details about futures contracts. This article goes into some details about leveraged ETFs and explodes a couple of myths about leveraged ETFs. So […]

ETF Wars Heating Up

August 6, 2018

Major providers of ETFs spent the last few years competing by steadily lowering fees on select ETFs. It’s about the only way to compete, since most ETFs are index funds. As this article reports, Fidelity made the lowest move by offering ETFs with no fees. These are new funds, and only two are available initially. […]

Markets Without People – Passive, Index and ETF Investing

July 3, 2018

Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital in his latest shareholder memo addresses the consequences of index investing, quantitative investing, and artificial intelligence. In other words, he addresses the trend toward investing with minimal interference from people. He starts with a nice history of passive investing and exchange-traded funds, and then goes on to discuss his view […]

ETF Investing: Thoughts On An ETF Crash

May 14, 2018

Some analysts criticize ETFs that invest in certain kinds of assets. They point out that the ETFs have more daily trading volume than the underlying assets they buy, or at least trade a substantial percentage of that underlying volume. What happens, then, when a lot of investors want to sell the ETFs and few want […]

Understanding ETF Investing

January 25, 2018

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become very popular, but it’s likely that many investors in ETFs don’t really understand what they own. This article highlights some characteristics of ETFs that likely elude many investors and explains how to evaluate ETFs and decide on their place in a portfolio. A straightforward example of this comes from the […]

A Warning About Smart Beta ETFs

July 10, 2017

Maneesh Shanbhag used to work at Bridgewater Associates and now runs his own hedge fund. He’s a quantitative investor, which means he spends a lot of time looking the data in detail. Shanbhag says the benefits of most “smart beta” ETFs are oversold. He believes the factors used to sort stocks (size, momentum, value, and […]

Hidden Costs of ETFs

April 18, 2017

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are charging dirt cheap fees in many cases. But many ETF owners don’t buy and hold them. ETFs are used for trading by a lot of investors. This article points out that the trading leads to a lot of costs, both hidden and visible. Inefficiencies in the system result in mispriced ETFs, […]

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