strategic beta

PIMCO, one of the world's largest managers of fixed income assets, added to its lineup of exchange-traded funds Wednesday with the debuts of three equity-based smart beta funds, marking the first equity funds to join PIMCO's ETF stable. Each of three new PIMCO ETFs follow indexes from...

Sick of hearing about U.S. small caps and the relevant exchange-traded funds lagging their large-cap counterparts? It is understandable if investors feel that way, but it is concerning that the Russell 2000 Index fell 1.2 percent last week while the S&P 500 nudged modestly higher. As has been...

There may not be a cure for the summertime blues, but the exchange-traded funds industry is making things interesting with a spate of new product launches. Dispelling the notion that July is a slow, uneventful time on Wall Street, new ETF launches topped double digits last week. Many of these new...

First Trust, one of the largest issuers of smart beta exchange-traded funds, last week introduced six ETFs based on the Nasdaq Riskalyze indexes. Those benchmarks “are designed to provide diversified, value-added exposure to broad equity market categories. The indexes seek to outperform their...

Within the smart beta exchange-traded funds arena, multi-factor funds are one of the important growth frontiers. Competitors in the multi-factor ETF fray include not only traditional ETF providers, but some big Wall Street names, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) and JPMorgan Chase &...

It is often said that the smart beta phenomenon has not earnestly made its way to the world of fixed-income exchange-traded funds. While that is true to an extent, there are some smart beta bond ETFs that have lengthy track records. Consider the PowerShares Fundamental High Yield Corporate Bond...

It is often said that new exchange-traded funds struggle to attract an audience. Likewise, many industry observers are wondering the smart beta phenomenon will truly penetrate the fixed income space. The IQ Enhanced Core Plus Bond U.S. ETF (NYSE: AGGP) addresses both of those concerns. Now a year...

The universe of smart beta exchange-traded funds is getting bigger thanks to the addition of three new ETFs from Franklin Templeton. Franklin Templeton introduced four smart or strategic beta ETFs last year and the issuer also offers four actively managed ETFs, giving it an ETF lineup of 11. FLQL...

Value stocks often tempt investors because of, well, perceived value, but by the time many investors awaken to the advantages of the value factor, some of these stocks become expensive. Perhaps worse yet, some are legitimate value traps. A new exchange-traded fund takes a unique, smart beta...

Small-cap stocks and exchange-traded funds have been in the news quite a bit recently and for all the wrong reasons. With the widely followed Russell 2000 Index and the S&P SmallCap 600 Index up an average of 2.2 percent year-to-date, or about a third of the gain posted by the S&P 500, some...

The proliferation of and assets flowing to smart beta exchange-traded funds are themes ETF industry observers widely expect to continue and data support those notions. At the end of January, there were 600 smart beta ETFs with a combined assets under management tally of nearly $480 billion....

It has been a good year for the technology sector, the largest sector allocation in the S&P 500. The tech-heavy NASDAQ-100 Index is up 8.7 percent while the Technology SPDR (ETF) (NYSE: XLK), the largest technology exchange-traded fund, is higher by 16.5 percent. PSI, Ahead Of The Rest...

BlackRock,Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the world's largest asset manager, delivered an early holiday present to investors by unveiling another round of fee reductions on some of its exchange-traded funds. The most recent batch of fee cuts pertain to some iShares smart beta ETFs. iShares Smart Beta ETF...

Count 2016 as another year of impressive growth and expectations of more of the same for smart beta exchange-traded funds. BlackRock data indicate 2016 is proving to be a banner year for smart beta funds. As of November 20, smart beta ETFs around the world attracted $45 billion in new assets...

The Consumer Staples Select Sect. SPDR (ETF) (NYSE: XLP) is up about 1.8 percent this week. Perhaps that is the beginning of a comeback for a once hot sector exchange-traded fund that now resides about 7.5 percent below its July highs. Low Beta Sectors' Recent Performance Earlier this year, low...