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This Big ETF Keeps Getting Bigger
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 - 8:28am | 558Investors love their exchange-traded funds big, and they love them cheap. Predictably, those themes are benefiting Vanguard, the second-largest U.S. ETF issuer. Most of Vanguard's ETFs are large and nearly of those funds can be considered cheap. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSE: VTI)...
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Investors Keep Loving This ETF
Thursday, October 5, 2017 - 9:26am | 513Investors love exchange-traded funds. Critics can critique, but 2016's ETF inflows records were toppled with more than three months left in 2017. Underscoring the struggles faced by actively managed funds when it comes to retaining market share against ETFs, many of this year's most popular...
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Nibbling At A Semiconductor ETF
Monday, September 25, 2017 - 8:29am | 522Semiconductor stocks have been key contributors to the upside experienced by the broader technology sector this year, and some investors appear to be renewing their enthusiasm for chip-related exchange-traded funds. Confirming the strength of semiconductor stocks, the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor...
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Hurricane Investment Prep: Timber ETFs
Monday, September 11, 2017 - 8:47am | 541In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, some investors have been paying renewed attention to timber and forestry exchange-traded funds. The dominant names in that group are the Guggenheim MSCI Global Timber ETF (NYSE: CUT) and the iShares Global Timber & Forestry...
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Investors Are Losing Patience With This Regional Bank ETF
Wednesday, August 23, 2017 - 8:59am | 545Nearly eight months into 2017, investors that pay attention to sector-level trends know that financial services stocks are lagging. The Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLF) is up about 6 percent year-to-date, well off the 9.5 percent returned by the S&P 500. Things are worse for regional...
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Different Ways To Consider Mid-Cap Stocks
Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 10:20am | 470As is the case with smaller stocks, mid-caps are lagging their large-cap counterparts this year. The S&P MidCap 400 Index, one of the most widely followed gauges of mid-cap equities, is higher by just over 4 percent year to date while the S&P 500 is up more than 11 percent. However, data...
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Silver ETFs Slide As Dollar Bounces
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 8:30am | 524Though it is still in the doldrums relative to other currency exchange-traded funds, the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSE: UUP) has perked up in recent sessions. The dollar's awakening, albeit modest, is pressuring commodities and the related ETFs, including silver funds. The...
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Investors Sticking With Emerging Markets ETFs
Monday, August 14, 2017 - 9:01am | 535Emerging markets stocks hit a rough spot last week as markets roiled by an intensifying geopolitical rift between the U.S. and North Korea. However, the saber rattling did not prompt large-scale departures from some emerging markets exchange-traded funds, although the MSCI Emerging Markets Index...
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Time To Talk Thailand
Tuesday, August 8, 2017 - 10:33am | 449The iShares MSCI Thailand Capped ETF (NYSE: THD), the lone U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund dedicated to Thai stocks, is up about 12 percent year to date. While that performance lags the returns of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, that sentiment should diminish the potential offered by THD. THD is...
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Troublesome Signs For Small-Cap ETFs
Thursday, August 3, 2017 - 8:16am | 571U.S. small caps have been laggards for essentially all of this year, but the current state of affairs for smaller U.S. stocks is getting downright troubling. While large-cap indexes, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, regularly hit record highs, exchange-traded funds such as the iShares...
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Extend Market Exposure With This ETF
Friday, July 28, 2017 - 9:30am | 557Many of the largest exchange-traded funds focus on U.S. large-cap stocks. For example, the two largest ETFs, and three of the five biggest, track the S&P 500. While the S&P 500 is the benchmark U.S. equity gauge, it holds just over 500 stocks and because of its cap-weighted methodology,...
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Bears Target A Familiar Energy ETF
Monday, July 24, 2017 - 9:16am | 519Hopes of a legitimate rebound in oil prices and the related exchange-traded funds were dealt a blow last week when the United States Oil Fund (NYSE: USO), which tracks West Texas Intermediate futures, slid 2.6 percent. Slumping crude prices often pressure some equity-based ETFs, including the...
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Oil ETF Rally Not Too Believable
Monday, July 10, 2017 - 8:24am | 587Just when it looked like the downtrodden United States Oil Fund LP (ETF) (NYSE: USO) was ready for a legitimate relief rally, the widely followed oil exchange-traded product was taken to task last week, falling 1.2 percent. As one of this year's worst-performing commodities, oil already has...
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A Neutral View On A Big Financial ETF
Wednesday, July 5, 2017 - 11:31am | 579The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE: XLF), widely viewed as one of this year's most disappointing sector exchange-traded funds, has recently shown signs of momentum. Over the past week, XLF, the largest ETF dedicated to the financial services sector, is higher by 4.2 percent. That could...
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Dollar ETF Keeps Looking To The Fed
Friday, June 16, 2017 - 10:34am | 468The Federal Reserve raised interest rates earlier this week, marking the second time this year that the U.S. central bank has boosted borrowing costs. That move by the Fed has helped the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSE: UUP), widely viewed as a dud this year among developed market...