ETFS

We are pleased to report another strong quarter. The Mercator International Opportunity Fund (MOPPX) had another very strong quarter, outperforming the Morgan Stanley EAFE index by more than 15% and its peers in the Foreign Large Blend category by more 14%. YTD, the fund is once again ranked in the top 1% of Foreign Large

The following data is derived from trading activity on the Tradeweb Markets institutional European- and U.S.-listed ETF platforms. European-Listed ETFs Total traded volume Notional volume executed on the Tradeweb European-listed ETF marketplace reached EUR 30.7 billion in September. The proportion of transactions processed via Tradeweb’s Automated Intelligent Execution (AiEX) tool was 72%. Adriano Pace, head

Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund (PDI) is finally trading at similar valuations to the other popular MBS fund, the PIMCO Dynamic Credit and Mortgage Income Fund (PCI). This was after several years of PDI trading at larger premiums than PCI. At the CEF/ETF Income Laboratory, we took advantage

(Pexels) Financial markets have been very quiet over the past two months. The S&P 500 is up about 2% while gold and long-term bonds are down a few points. It is eerily quiet considering we are just two weeks away from one of the most contentious elections in U.S history. Not only that, but economic

This article series shows every month a dashboard with aggregate industry metrics in healthcare. Most of the companies used to calculate these metrics are holdings of the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV). Therefore, this is also a top-down survey of XLV. Shortcut If you are used to this dashboard series or if you

The market had lost some of its mojo in September but has regained ground since the start of this month. The S&P 500 is attempting to make new all-time highs once again. So, what’s leading this fresh momentum? It’s probably a combination of many positive factors, for example, the renewed hope of a fresh round

This article series shows every month a dashboard with aggregate industry metrics in materials. Most of the companies used to calculate these metrics are holdings of the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLB). Therefore, this is also a top-down survey of XLB. Shortcut If you are used to this dashboard series or if you are

The VanEck Vectors Muni Allocation ETF (MAAX) tactically allocates among VanEck municipal bond ETFs based on interest rate and credit opportunities to seek capital appreciation plus tax-exempt income. It uses a data-driven, rules-based process that leverages technical and macroeconomic indicators to guide credit and duration exposure, seeking to avoid market risks when appropriate. Overview The

(Source: Unsplash) Introduction I recently published an article encouraging investors to avoid long-term bonds because they currently offer extremely low incremental yield pickups per unit of duration (interest rate) risk – lower than ever before in history. I have encouraged selling not only long-term bond funds, but even core bond funds because they have so

iShares Short Treasury Bond ETF (SHV) holds over $21.2 billion in assets when we last looked at it. It is one of the larger ETFs around and assets have actually gone up over the last few years. We examine this one today as its numbers gave us a mild case of indigestion. Returns Are Nothing

This week, we highlight some substantial movement in the Financials portion of the Select List. With another U.S. stimulus package on the horizon, it would be wise to keep a finger on the pulse of Index and Financial based ETFs. Moving up two spots to claim the number one position this week is IAT, the

Author’s note: This article was previously released to CEF/ETF Income Laboratory members. Please check latest data before investing. 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

Steadily lower CEF yields and heightened volatility have underlined the attraction of alpha-generation strategies. In this article, we take a look at a number of relative value CEF opportunities in the preferreds sector. Within the Flaherty & Crumrine suite of preferred CEFs, we highlight the Flaherty & Crumrine/Claymore Total Return Fund (FLC) over the Flaherty

Quite a bit has been written about the ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (NYSEARCA:VIXY), and the coverage is hardly ever bullish. Seeking Alpha contributor QuandaryFX has been one of the most prolific analysts of the fund, having stated that: VIXY follows an index which drops at a pace of around 50% per year and using

We all know Warren Buffett owns a railroad, Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Therefore, it is always good to look into railroad stocks to see whether a railroad stock might fit your portfolio too. A way to get exposure to railroad stocks is the iShares Transportation Average ETF (IYT) as 36.7% of its weight consists of

The WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend ETF (NYSE:DLN) is meant to track the performance of the largest U.S. dividend-paying stocks. The allure here is that companies able to regularly distribute payouts to shareholders generally present stronger fundamentals with lower risk and potentially higher total returns. Indeed, the fund has a value-tilt while offering a 2.7% yield which

The Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund (NYSEMKT:FAX) is a closed-end fund that invests in Asia-Pacific region bonds and debt securities. While the COVID-19 pandemic has represented a challenging market environment, the fund has been able to overcome significant volatility to return 2% thus far this year. The actively-managed fund currently yields 8.3% distributed monthly, making it

My judgment is based on looking at publicly available supply and demand reports (EIA). Those reports indicated that COVID lockdowns crashed demand by ~4 million barrels per day (mb/d). Beginning in mid-April, gasoline demand has recovered to about 1 mb/d below pre-COVID. In response to the Russian-Saudi price war, COVID demand decreases, and financial issues,

The chase for yield has created a lot of distortions, and investors are reaching out to more and more unusual choices to satiate their yield cravings. As a general rule, this creates more risk, and one has to be aware that the crowd that canters in can also be a part of the stampede that

So far the SPY (NYSEARCA:SPY) has had a normal correction after an enormous move up from the bottom of a market crash to a rather surprising new high. This move was fueled by extreme fiscal and monetary stimulus. The latest stimulus package is stalled in Congress and the market move up is also stalled. Interest

Source: Goodfon Instrument The VanEck Vectors Russia ETF (BATS:RSX) is a fund that offers exposure to equities from Russia, which include publicly-traded companies that are incorporated in Russia or that are incorporated outside of Russia but have at least 50% of their revenues/related assets in Russia. Source: VanEck Note: The RTS Index is a free-float

Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Income Fund (NYSE:ETG) has been able to pull off some excellent returns for being a fund with a global focus, even while they have been overweight financials and increasing the exposure as well. Tech still appears in several positions in its top

Introduction The iShares U.S. Medical Devices ETF (NYSEARCA:IHI) is a market-cap-weighted ETF that tracks an index of medical device manufacturers and medical devices in the US. The ETF charges a fee of 0.42% and has a little under $8 billion in assets under management. The fund has about 50 total holdings and is heavily weighted

Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist The Eaton Vance Enhanced Equity Income Fund II (EOS) has been on fire this year. This is thanks to its heavy weighting in tech. Led by a significant position in Amazon (AMZN). Eaton Vance runs a solid line-up of option-based funds. In this case, EOS is not

As you can see in the following chart, it’s been a fairly strong year for the gold bulls with the ProShares Ultra Gold ETF (UGL) seeing year-to-date gains of nearly 40%. It is my belief that UGL is headed higher over the next year. I believe that gold is set to rally over the next

The Vanguard IT ETF (VGT) is up 23% YTD and 38% over the past year. It has been driven by a COVID-19 impacted market that has been rewarding the large-cap tech stocks for demonstrating excellent top- and bottom-line growth. This article will compare VGT with two leading technology ETFs and attempt to answer the most

As you can see in the following chart, the iPath S&P 500 Dynamic VIX ETN (XVZ) has somewhat surprisingly held its ground in the wake of the melt-up seen in the VIX earlier this year. In this article, I argue that while I believe XVZ has an above-average chance of rallying some over the next

As you can see in the following chart, it’s been a bit of a volatile year for the Credit Suisse Silver Shares Covered Call ETN (NASDAQ:SLVO) with shares seeing both substantial upside and downside throughout the course of this year’s market turbulence. I believe that buying SLVO at these levels makes for a good play,

The CEF market tends not to be the most efficient market due to the difficulty in obtaining quality data and the presence of low-information investors. This creates a number of opportunities for discerning investors to enter into attractive strategic positions or to make tactical allocations. In this article, we describe one such opportunity to rotate

Two months ago, I wrote a piece on Aris’ RPAR Risk Parity ETF (RPAR). In it, I argued that the fund was “a great gateway approach to improve a portfolio’s risk-adjusted return potential quickly and without frills”, and that RPAR “could not only complement, but even replace equity-only investments altogether”. Since then, and although the