ETFS

Photo Source: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid. The Charging Bull statue, also known as the Wall St. Bull, is seen in the financial district of New York City, U.S. In 2019, U.S. fund investors continued to prefer passively managed funds over actively managed funds. Long-term actively managed funds (excluding money market funds) witnessed net outflows of $83.7 billion

One thing the ETF industry is known for is its product innovation. Investors can deploy their capital in just about any sector, region, niche or investment strategy they can think of. Yes, some of these are too niche and poorly thought through, but there are enough good quality choices out there that you can now

Punctuated by the strongest housing starts number since 2006, the U.S. housing market continues to be one of the brightest spots in the economy, thanks to lower mortgage rates and robust jobs market. Similarly, mortgage applications according to the MBA jumped more than 30% week over week, the biggest increase since 2015: Source: Census Bureau,

In this article, we examine the significant weekly order flow and market structure developments driving GDX price action. As noted in last week’s GDX Weekly, the highest probability path for this week was for price discovery higher. The primary expectation did play out as buy excess formed early week before price discovery higher developed and

Billionaire and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates said during a CNBC interview on Tuesday in Davos, Switzerland, that investors should be buying this market rather than seeking safety in cash. Cash is trash, said the billionaire hedge-fund legend, who founded Bridgewater in 1975. This simple yet powerful statement sums up the current

Main Thesis The purpose of this article is to evaluate the RiverNorth Managed Duration Municipal Income Fund (RMM) as an investment option at its current market price. As my readers are aware, I have been pushing muni bond exposure for some time. However, my outlook turned a bit more cautious towards the end of last

I keep seeing bullish articles on the short volatility trade. This strategy outperformed the markets in 2019, but I felt the need to bring some balance to the discussion. Specifically, we will look at the ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SVXY), which is the most well-known of the surviving short volatility ETPs following the

One of the best asset classes for conservative investors is real estate. This is due to the fact that, much like precious metals, real estate can serve as a store of wealth and can often hold its value in the face of inflation. It has a few advantages over precious metals, however, as it can

The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond has weekly and semiannual value levels at 2.347% and 2.431% with monthly and annual risky levels at 1.904% and 1.756%. The dividend yield for the utilities stock ETF is just 3.11% which is not cheap enough as Treasury yields rise. Continue to avoid junk bonds as their yield

Please note that the following article was published to members of Yield Hunting on November 18th. Executive Summary: The drop in the coverage ratios was primarily due to the depreciation of the USD against the euro and the pound. Longer term, these currency movements tend to cancel out and have a more neutral impact on

iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) has been moving in the right direction lately, mostly because the risk of an aggressive healthcare reform that could dramatically affect pricing power for biotech stocks has significantly declined in recent months. Moving forward, the ETF still has a lot of room to recover in the years ahead, the fundamentals

The closed-end fund (“CEF”) marketplace is a niche area of the public securities market that has been garnering more attention in recent years. A decade ago, investors could invest in bank CDs and generate income of 5% or more. Those days are long gone and unlikely to be coming back anytime soon. In the last

ETF Overview Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIGI) focuses on large and giant-cap international stocks with dividend growth. The fund seeks to track the Nasdaq International Dividend Achievers Select Index. The fund includes stocks that have consistently increased their dividends for 7 consecutive years. This approach reduces the exposure to lower quality companies and focuses

In this article, we examine the significant weekly order flow and market structure developments driving XLE price action. The primary expectation for this week’s auction was for price discovery lower, barring failure of 60.40s as resistance. This week’s primary expectation did play out as buyers trapped early week within key supply, driving price lower to

Energy, for which the The Energy Select Sector (XLE) is possibly the best listed proxy, has been underperforming long and hard. For instance, below we can see the comparative behavior between XLE and (SPY): Source: Yahoo Finance The delta in performance has been gigantic. This has led many to look at the energy sector, typically

Recent action in iShares Silver Trust (SLV) has proven once again that traders need to be so careful when using options to put long deltas to work. The intermediate decline in silver is now almost 3 months old. You can bet that many traders have been early to this trade as plenty of false bottoms

Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast we published last week. We hope you find it useful. Jonathan Liss [JL]: For reference purposes, this podcast is being recorded on the morning of Wednesday, October 30, 2019. My guest today is Rick Redding. Rick spent most of his carrier in senior leadership roles

The Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund (NYSEMKT:FAX) is a closed-end fund that invests in Asia Pacific debt securities with an added mandate of holding at least 20% of total assets in Australian. The fund with an inception date back in 1986 currently has $1.2 billion in total assets. The objective is to generate a high level

The number one complaint I hear from fixed-income investors is that today’s low-interest-rate environment has made it nearly impossible to find safe sources of income. The dividend yield of most equities has fallen drastically since 2008, and the flattened yield curve has made long-term bonds extremely unattractive be it in Treasuries or in corporate bonds.

The Real Estate sector ranks 10th out of the 11 sectors as detailed in our Q4’19 Sector Ratings for ETFs and Mutual Funds report. Last quarter, the Real Estate sector ranked 11th. It gets our Unattractive rating, which is based on an aggregation of ratings of the 187 stocks in the Real Estate sector. See

Vanguard Value ETF (NYSE:VTV) with $87 billion in total assets is one of the largest exchange traded funds offering investors diversified exposure to a basket of large-cap U.S. ‘value’ stocks with an industry low 0.04% expense ratio. Value stocks are typically defined as shares in companies that trade with lower valuation multiples relative to the

Investment thesis Welcome to Orchid’s Palladium Weekly report, in which we discuss palladium prices through the lenses of the Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium Shares ETF (PALL). PALL has experienced a violent sell-off since November 8, driven by long liquidation in the palladium futures market on hefty trading volumes. While this defies our Q4-19 bullish view,

Main Thesis The purpose of this article is to evaluate the iShares Cohen & Steers REIT ETF (ICF) as an investment option at its current market price. Over the past few months, real estate has taken a bit of a breather, after helping drive market gains over the last year and a half. While funds

Investment thesis Since our last take on the S&P GSCI Unleaded Gasoline Index Excess Return (SPGSHUP), our bearish recommendation has not materialized, following the moderate advance of the ETF that gained 3.77% to $1,011. Going forward, our view is unchanged and we maintain our bearish recommendation on the ETF, given a confluence of factors. First,

Here are the weekly charts for gold, commodities and dollar ETFs. The gold ETF tracks the spot price of gold and is said to be backed by gold bars in vaults in London. SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:GLD) Courtesy of Refinitiv XENITH The gold ETF ($137.39 on Nov. 8) is up 13.3% year to date

Despite the U.S. broad-based indices hitting new closing highs last week and the average equity mutual fund returning 19.03% year to date, equity mutual funds (including ETFs) continue to suffer from net redemptions. Year to date (YTD) through the week ended November 6, 2019, investors have redeemed a net $149.9 billion from equity funds. And

Source: Stanford Earth Investment thesis Since our last publication on the United States Oil Fund LP (USO), our bearish recommendation on the ETF has not materialized, with the underlying advancing 7.22% to $11.8 per share. Going forward and in spite of this advance triggered by the optimism of a nearing agreement between the U.S. and

Note: This article was released to members Oct. 18 The Weekly Closed-End Fund Roundup will be put out at the start of each week to summarize recent price movements in closed-end fund [CEF] sectors in the last week as well as to highlight recently concluded or upcoming corporate actions on CEFs, such as tender offers.

Introduction The closed-end funds from the high-yield sector significantly increased their prices over the past months. Currently, most of them are traded at positive Z-scores, which is an indication that they have lost most of their statistical edge. Still, they are traded at high discounts, but we are cautious when we select our positions due

Investment case Despite the hawkish forward guidance delivered by the Fed at its latest FOMC meeting (October 30) after the central bank cut rates for a third consecutive time, the SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust (GLDM) has proven resilient, especially considering the surge in risk-on mood, which pushed US equities to an all-time high. While we