SLCG Economic Consulting's Logo

Resources

Blog

Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

Filter by:

Clear All

Displaying 11-20 out of 49 results for "ETF".

The Effects of ETF Turnover

(Oct 2012)

Lately there has been a lot of turnover in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as we noted back in August. InvestmentNews has a great summary of what has happened this year, with 86 funds having closed so far in 2012. They note the important consequences of an ETF closing for investors and advisers:

Even though they are more routine, ETF closings still can create ripple effects that reach financial advisers and their clients. "For an adviser, the worst thing that can happen is, you recommend an ETF...

Do ETF Flows Move the Market?

(Oct 2012)

As exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows have grown over the past few years, the question of whether those fund flows influence the prices of ETF holdings has become a perennial issue. Matt Jarzemsky and Chris Dieterich of the Wall Street Journal recently posted what is perhaps the highest profile discussion of this issue to date, in which they provide interesting evidence that the ETF 'tail' might be wagging the market 'dog.'

They note that in early October, mid-cap indexes saw...

Vanguard Abandons MSCI and MSCI's Share Price Crashes

(Oct 2012)

A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Vanguard is replacing the benchmarks on nearly two dozen of its index funds currently provided by MSCI and replacing them with benchmarks provided by either FTSE or the Center For Research In Security Prices (CRSP) at the University of Chicago. See the press release dated October 2, 2012.

This is clearly great news for FTSE since this index change by Vanguard makes them the "third-largest equity exchange traded product index benchmark...

Mutual Funds Holding Leveraged and Inverse Leveraged ETFs

(Oct 2012)

While looking through recent SEC filings, an updated prospectus happened to catch our eye. The prospectus offers updated information concerning the investment strategy and details of two mutual funds: USFS Funds Limited Duration Government Fund (USLDX) and USFS Funds Tactical Asset Allocation Fund (USFSX).

The fund management company -- Pennant Management, Inc. -- states in this prospectus that "[USFSX] may invest up to 33% of its assets in leveraged ETFs and inverse ETFs, up to 10% of its...

Two New Exotic Products from the CBOE

(Oct 2012)

The CBOE has begun the offering process on two new and highly innovative volatility-related products that could have broad implications for the exchange traded products market and index investing in general.

The new S&P 500 Variance Futures are futures contracts on the realized variance of the S&P 500 index. This is in contrast with VIX futures, which trade on the impliedvolatility of the S&P 500; however, according to a CBOE press release, the ability to combine the two may have motivated...

Holding an ETF During the Day vs. Holding Overnight

(Oct 2012)

Lately we've been reading the interesting new book by Eric Falkenstein on risk premia and low volatility investing. We are long time followers of Eric's blog, which has a variety of interesting analyses of equity markets.

Following one of the figures in his book, we decided to look at two different strategies of investing in a given ETF where the holding period is on average one trading day. In particular, we looked at the pricing data of SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) since inception and constructed two...

As New ETFs Come and Go, Big Ones Remain Big

(Sep 2012)

A recent Seeking Alpha article argues that with six new ETFs coming into the market and 18 being closed or redeemed, the past August signaled the beginning of a consolidation process in the ETF industry. There are good reasons to believe the author is right: with ETF issuers rolling out more and more ETFs each month, those having failed to catch investors' eyes quick enough are bound to disappear with the ever-intensifying competition. On the other hand, it also got us curious: what about...

ETFs: Easy Come, Easy Go

(Sep 2012)

Last month we pointed out a growing number of ETF closures across a variety of issuers. Hot on their heels, several issuers announced new ETF issuances offering a wide variety of strategies, including many actively managed ETFs, which seem to be all the rage these days.

UBS recently announced that it would redeem 12 of its 13 volatility-linked ETNs on September 12. These twelve funds are actually six pairs of 1x long and 1x inverse notes linked to the performance of VIX futures portfolios...

ETFs in Mutual Funds: a Raw Deal?

(Aug 2012)

Ian Salisbury at SmartMoney raises an interesting point:

The whole point of actively run funds, their proponents say, is that a living, breathing fund manager has a better chance of sussing out great investment opportunities than an exchange-traded fund, which just blindly tracks an index. Indeed, that's one of the reasons actively managed funds have higher fees than ETFs -- to pay for all that expert guidance.
So it might come as a shock to some investors that the top holdings of several...

SEC Investor Bulletin on ETFs

(Aug 2012)

The SEC recently released an Investor Bulletin on ETFs which provides background information about ETFs in general and defines several terms which may be confusing to investors. ETFs can be complex and risky investments, as they allow nearly anyone to purchase portfolios which would typically only be suitable for sophisticated investors or traders.

Some commentators were not satisfied with the Bulletin, particularly its lack of new guidelines related to leveraged and inverse products. Paul...

49 Results

Display: