Perhaps one of the most overlooked differences between a single bond and a bond fund is the fact that most bond funds never mature. The individual bonds in a fund of course all have maturity dates, but as time goes on the portfolio manager usually replaces older bonds (with less time to maturity) with newer…
We just added 32 equity ETFs to our database, all of them newly listed in the past few months (Table 1). Twenty six of them are classified as “Smart Beta” funds, always fertile ground for new products despite the fact that smart beta’s growth in market share seems to have stalled in recent quarters. Among…
The ETF Analyzer, Sector SPDR Edition for August 2017 is ready for download. This monthly publication has succinct one-page reports on each of the 10 Select Sector SPDR ETFs in three easy-to-read sections: Investment Summary, Fundamentals, and Composition. It helps investors: Evaluate the funds based on investment merit using fundamental data and analysis Compare the Sector SPDRs with ease on…
One of the frustrating aspects of ETF investing is seeing a fund you own liquidated. The biggest disadvantage when this happens is the forced sale may result in an unexpected tax bill for any capital gains. But a second problem is that once you’ve got the cash from the sale or liquidation, you now have…
Second quarter reports are shaping up surprisingly strong, and are at least partly to thank for the recent string of new market highs. With nearly half of S&P 500 constituents having reported second quarter 2017 results (and using consensus estimates for the remainder) it looks as if overall index earnings grew more than 10% year-on-year,…
The ETF Analyzer, Sector SPDR Edition for July 2017 is ready for download. This monthly publication has succinct one-page reports on each of the 10 Select Sector SPDR ETFs in three easy-to-read sections: Investment Summary, Fundamentals, and Composition. It helps investors: Evaluate the funds based on investment merit using fundamental data and analysis Compare the Sector SPDRs with ease…
We’ve initiated coverage of twelve new equity ETFs, including five actively managed ETFs, four “ESG” funds (short for Environmental, Social and Governance criteria), and one fund-of-funds (Table 1). However, none of those caught our eye as especially noteworthy or attractive. The one that did was the Brand Value ETF (BVAL). As the name suggests, the…
The market’s “Fab Five” technology stocks—Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX) and Google (GOOGL and/or GOOG)—often called by their acronym FAANG, had a bad day on Friday after research notes from Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Asset Management and others warned that these stocks were too expensive. Owning these five stocks, which together accounted for…
The headline number for new money flowing into Exchange Traded Funds moderated in May to about $28 billion, down from about $36 billion in April. However, stripping out the effect of short sales, net long money flows actually increased slightly, to almost $37 billion in May from $34 billion in April. (The unwinding of short…
The ETF Analyzer, Sector SPDR Edition for June 2017 is ready for download. This monthly publication has succinct one-page reports on each of the 10 Select Sector SPDR ETFs in three easy-to-read sections: Investment Summary, Fundamentals, and Composition. It helps investors: Evaluate the funds based on investment merit using fundamental data and analysis Compare the Sector SPDRs with ease on…