Talk:Exchange-traded fund

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[edit] Major Users of ETFs

Is this area really needed? Where's the source? Seems like spam to me.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.217.199.80 (talk) 17:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] This entry should include ETF criticism for balance

some links with ETF criticism to consider :

DrFunn 22:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)



Is the comment about leveraged powershares correct? I checked out powershares.com and did some web searching, and I think maybe it should say "proshares" not "powershares"... right ?

Proshares vs. Powershares

[edit] Pointless postulating

Hypothesis: Mutual Funds are not as Tax-Efficient due to any realize capital gains that must be distribute to their shareholders within in a given year (not sure if it is quarterly or annually). Vice Versa ETF capital gains do not need to be realized till they are redeemed however they are sold on the active market. This is assuming that at the end of the day The ETF and Mutual Fund NAV are about / near equal in value.

This study can really only be compared for Passively Manage Mutual Funds i.e. (Index funds, Passive Asset-Class Funds, and Passive Sector Funds) to their ETF counterparts however the following comparison if they exist can be further defined into the following categories.

No-Load Mutual Fund to No-load ETF (doubt that the No-Load ETF exist) Load Mutual Fund to Load ETF (doubt that the Loaded Passive Mutual fund exist) No-Load Mutual Fund to load ETF (Realistic) Loaded Mutual Fund to No-Load ETF (extremely unlikely to occur)

As for Actively Manage Mutual Funds unless otherwise proven not to utilized market timing (highly unlikely) should not even be consider in this study.

Additional things that should be considered & analyze are:

  • Brokerage / Commission fees that is incurred for entry and exiting.
  • Expense Ratio if any
  • The amount being invested is a large amount in increments of

$10,000.00 (amount is open)

  • Automatic Dividend Reinvestment fee if required

Restrictions that are imposed on study:

  • No Limit Order
  • No Buying on Margin
  • No Short Selling
  • No Stop-Loss Order imposed
  • Tax-Loss Harvesting if incurred is a result of the Mutual fund’s & ETF’s Fund Manager not the Broker in question
Paul.Paquette (talk) 02:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have been talking to my finance professors via email correspondence here is a Transcript After reading the transcript, I would like to hear any suggestion and comment that you might have. Paul.Paquette

A few problems with your study:

  • Open-end mutual funds can only be bought and sold at NAV at the end of the day. ETFs can be bought and sold at any price at any time based on supply and demand. This price may be higher or lower than NAV.
  • ETFs are not immune from capital gains. Some ETFs have messed up their transactions and have realized capital gains which they have had to distribute to their shareholders.
  • Some of the open-end mutual funds have accumulated huge capital losses, and they're able to use these to reduce or elimiate any capital gains they realize. I'm in two open-end mutual funds and neither has distributed any capital gains for the past five years.
  • Why does it matter whether the share price of the ETF and open-end fund are similar? Don't you mean the dollar amount value of the shares?
  • A "load" is a sales charge paid to the broker as a percentage of your investment. At a discount broker, when you buy an ETF or any stock, you pay a fixed commission which is not based on how large your investment is.
  • There are plenty of index funds with loads out there.
correct me if i'm wrong, but all ETFs should be no-load.
- Jaysbro 16:02, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
This is an encylopedia! The aim of the article should be to present facts as established and held as consensus. The facts should be relevant to the subject at hand and appropriate to a global audience. Trying to answer this type of question is futile! The answer will at best be subjective, geographically limited and tempory; at worst it will be a gross simplification and misleading. If you wish to add facts then cite your sources. The answer to this type of question will almost always be someones POV. simonthebold 10:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Actively managed ETFs

I dont' beleive they exist. Please supply details if you know of one. simonthebold 10:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe this is one: [1] -- Tim Starling 22:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of ETF too narrow?

This article appears to define ETFs too narrowly. In its broadest definition an ETF is any financial instrument that is traded on a secondary market, that represents a basket of underlying securities. This includes certain actively managed investment companies (for example Closed-ended Funds and Investment Trusts).

The confusion lies, of course, in the fact that the term was invented for a certain type of open-ended passively managed fund and later broadened to encompass the older closed-ended variety. BaseTurnComplete 18:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closed-Ended

ETFs are not by definition closed-ended. This is just plain wrong. They are open-ended: shares are routinely created and cancelled to match supply and demand for the fund. However the mechanism by which they are created and cancelled is different to other open-ended funds. BaseTurnComplete 14:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trading Hours

The first sentence is not exactly correct, "Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are open ended mutual funds that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day." ETF's can't be traded "any time" they can only be traded during market hours, but the reason it is worth addressing is because the ETF's have different market hours than other stocks. Most (but not all) ETF's in the USA are traded from 9:30am to 4:15pm, 15 minutes longer than regular stocks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.124.36.198 (talk) 03:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improving the "ETFs Compared" section

February 18, 2008 18:53 (ETFguide) The current version of "ETFs Compared" section looks at ETFs from three key perspectives; costs, taxation, and trading. However, it omits two other important aspects of comparing ETFs; by indexing strategy and by active strategies.

Here's a pratical suggestion:

With regard to indexing strategies, there's traditional indexes which typically use a market capitalization weighting formula, fundamentally weighted indexes that use specific financial metrics like dividends or earnings as a weighting, and equally weighted indexes that assign the same weighting for all index components. In comparing ETFs, it's important that these distinctions be made. It's also important to underscore that not all index ETFs are necessarily passive.

The latter (active strategies) can be added later when full fledged active ETFs become available. They can be compared in the context of active ETFs vs. active mutual funds, closed end funds, etc. They can also be compared vs. index ETFs.

Another possible location for the discussion of "indexing strategies" and "active strategies" is in the "Investment Strategies" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Etfguide (talk • contribs) 00:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Relevant External Links

February 21, 2008 (ETFguide) Here's the ETF link that certain participants of Wikipedia have a prejudice against: http://www.etfguide.com/etfeducation.htm

If you carefully read the Education link above, you'll notice that its not propoganda or spam as has been asserted. Read the link for yourself. It contains a careful consideration of relevant topics like "ETFs vs. Stocks", "ETFs vs. Mutual Funds", "Understanding ETF Tables in the Newspaper", "History of ETFs", etc. This qualifies as "ETF Education" - as I've indicated to the deaf ears that peruse these quarters.

A "commercial" Website is any place that accepts money in exchange for advertising, which cleary, Yahoo Finance, About.com, MSN Money and theStreet.com are ALL doing.

If we use Montco's convoluted standard of "commercial" or "spam" that would pre-clude all of these Websites from being listed as external links on Wikipedia - because they are all "commercial" in nature. At one point, Montco wasn't even sure about his/her own Editorial policies, as he eliminated "TheStreet.com" link because it was "commerical", only to have someone else re-install it.

The Editorial standard for external links - isn't whether the Websites in question accept advertising or are "commercial", but whether they add value to Wikipedia's "Exchange-traded fund" page.

The issue of "Non-notable site" was raised by Ohnoitsjamie.

Further investigation reveals that the source I've recommended is indeed "notable". For example, both ETF Centers at Charles Schwab and Scottrade are using data from the ETFguide.com source. (see Scottrade link) http://research.scottrade.com/public/etf/news/news.asp

I deduce these "notable" brokers would not be using "non-notable" Websites or dubious sources for their ETF data, do you?

From the recommended changes I've suggested and the new edits I've already made - it should be clearly evident that I want the Wikipedia Exchange-traded fund to be the best and most definitive source on the topic. This is an idea which some Wiki Editors seem opposed to.

From viewing my Edits and suggestions I'm well-versed on the subject of exchange-traded funds and I remind you of this, not to flaunt, but to help you appreciate my perspective.

We understand that Wikipedia isn't a collection of external links. At the same time, this doesn't give it the right to be a junkyard of stale references.

There are other high level sources or external links that the Exchange-traded fund page is lacking. I would also argue the listing of About.com as a link of "ETF Basics" is laughable. Not only is it loaded with advertising and silly keyword advertisements, but it's not an authority on the subject of ETFs.

It seems to me that industry sources close to the ETF business, like the AMEX, the Securities and Exchange Commission and sources exclusively dedicated to the topic, are the best reference points. I would qualify my suggested external link as such.

Dismissing relevant external links and citing Wikipedia rules is bureaucratic and will assure this page almost certain oblivion and lack of usefulness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.215.209 (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

And what does the link add? Nothing. You yourself have added content to the article and that's great. We think it would be great if you would add content. But the link adds no content to the encyclopedia. Zero. All it does is add a link. The point of the encyclopedia is to provide content, not to drive traffic to your site so that they can read more and sign up for a 30-day free trial to your ETF news letter. Montco (talk) 05:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
FYI, Montco you don't determine what gets added or deleted from the Encyclopedia and neither do I. Your characterization of my contributions as seeking to "drive more traffic to a Website" are baseless. As I've indicated in the note above, you know, the one you didn't read - I've recommended the removal of the About.com link, the addition of ETFguide.com and I also think adding more industry related links versus having advertising hubs with keyword ads that happen to have casual ETF data as "lead ETF sources." The forward progress of this page will happen with or without you. You've been "protecting" this page to the detriment of Wikipedia users.[User:ETFguide ]] 22 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Etfguide (talk • contribs) 18:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I understand both sides of the arguement and I've looked at the link, which appears to have good and related ETF information. robot126 —Preceding comment was added at 12:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article Structure and Direction: Do we list EVERY etf?

This article is a great resource for showing the diverse world of ETFs. But we need to think about how we are going to organize all this material. Right now the bulk of the article consists of ETF listings. While these listings are important, this structure is going to make less and less sense. ETFs are diversifying at a stunning rate. Listing all the ETFs here will soon be scarely easier and about as sensible as listing hundreds of stocks on the stock article. So I'm just posing an open question to my fellow wikipedians: how should we structure this article to accommodate growth? --Greg Comlish (talk) 22:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your take, Greg. The number of U.S. listed ETFs will soon reach 1,000 - so listing each of these funds is NO LONGER a reasonable exercise. I would suggest listing only the top ETFs in terms of trading volume or assets. Perhaps, we could do the top 250 funds or some other arbitrary number. For the remaining funds, we can reference outside sources or Websites. --User:ETFguide 4 March 2008

[edit] More Problems

Guys I contribute to this article a lot, but we need to admit that it has a lot of problems still. The overall structure is disorganized, with a great deal of redundancy. The section on actively managed etfs is uninformative and POV. Our sections are ad-hoc with no sense of priorities or flow. The paragraphs "investment objectives" and "investment strategies" have lots of overlapping material and little about actual investment objectives or strategies. I'm also afriad that some information that was exported to the List of ETFs article needs to be repatriated back, such as information on leveraged funds. Anyway, please be bold and help me get this thing fixed up. Greg Comlish (talk) 03:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see, I've been actively taking you up on this request, as time allows. Still to be done: Edit "ETFs compared to mutual funds" and add sections on "Types of ETFs" and "Criticism." Please note that, while I know quite a bit about ETFs in the U.S., I am less knowledgeable about non-U.S. ETFs. The assistance of other editors in keeping the article from becoming too U.S.-centric is requested.
I see that you reverted the deletion of the "Lists of Popular ETFs" section. This is just deep links to the List of exchange-traded funds article. Can you explain your reasoning? I don't feel very strongly about it, not least because this article still has bigger problems, but the section doesn't seem to add much. John M Baker (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I did revert that change. The lists illustrate the expansive class of assets traded under ETFs. Just as Princeton links to a list of famous alumni, I think it's important to have at least one prominent link to the lists. The deep linking could go. Ultimately I'd like to see the text from the lists (excluding, of course, the lists themselves) moved back into the ETF article at which point the deep-linking should be removed. Greg Comlish (talk) 17:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I added a prominent link to the lists, at the top of the "Major Issuers of ETFs" section. If we get around to adding a "Types of ETFs" section, it should be possible to include the texts from the lists and to delete the "Lists of Popular ETFs" section. John M Baker (talk) 18:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Investment Strategies

This paragraph has nothing to do with "investment strategies. I'm going to move all its content into the proper paragraphs.

Investment Strategies The first U.S. ETFs were based on broad market indexes; for example, "Spiders" (AMEX: SPY) (Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts) is based on the S&P 500 index. Spiders is the largest ETF in the world. The index is determined by an independent company; for example, Spiders is run by State Street, while the S&P 500 is calculated by Standard & Poor's. Similarly, "Middies" (AMEX: MDY) is based on the S&P 400.

Next up were country funds (originally called "WEBS"). These allowed people to trade foreign markets as easily as U.S. stocks.

Fund companies also launched industry sector ETFs. In 1998, State Street Global Advisors introduced the "Sector Spiders" (website), which follow the nine sectors of the S&P 500.[1]

Since then, ETFs have moved in various directions. As of early 2008 there are nearly 700 of them in the U.S.

Regional funds are popular; most investors do not need a separate fund for every country (iShares MSCI series has 22 country funds, and this still misses most countries). iShares MSCI EAFE (NYSE: EFA) and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSE: EEM) are the second- and third-largest ETFs in the world.

StreetTRACKS Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) holds gold bullion. Its assets are about $19B (as of early 2008). Although it's registered as a grantor trust under the Securities Act of 1933 and not technically an ETF, the Gold Shares are still grouped together with ETFs. Most bond and equity ETFs are registred under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Fund companies also launched ETFs based upon styles, such as "value" or "growth"; for example, iShares Russell 1000 Growth (NYSE: IWF) and iShares Russell 1000 Value (NYSE: IWD) split up the Russell 1000 index. Similar to this are funds based on dividends; for example, "Divvies" (NYSE: DVY) is based on the Dow Jones Select Dividend Index.

Bonds are another area that ETFs offer market exposure. Relatively few in number, some funds have gained respectable assets.

Major companies, such as Barclays Global Investors, State Street Global, and the Vanguard Group all offer a variety of fixed income ETFs. For example, each of these companies offer their own version of the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index, which is a popular bond benchmark. Barclays offers the iShares Lehman Aggregate Bond ETF (AMEX: AGG), State Street offers the SPDR Lehman Aggregate Bond ETF(AMEX: LAG), and Vanguard has the Total Bond Market Index ETF (AMEX: BND).

There are now inverse, leveraged, and inverse leveraged funds. These aim for daily returns of minus one, two, and minus two times the daily returns the relevant index.

In all cases, the SEC requires the index to be computed by a separate company.

ETFs in other localities have followed a similar progression: some "home" index (for example, Nikkei 225); some "foreign" index (for example, S&P 500); then perhaps various sectors.

[edit] Unsourced sections

I have deleted the following sections, which are unsourced, as part of a general move toward upgrading this article. (To avoid confusion, I have changed the headings to bold.) Much of the information is inaccurate or of low quality, but certainly some of it should be put back in the article if it can be adequately sourced. John M Baker (talk) 00:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Managing ETFs

There is some confusion over terminology when referring to ETFs and other forms of pooled fund investments. For example, ETFs are highly flexible instruments for equalizing cash-flow. Money can be invested in an ETF that promises growth to achieve a higher rate of return than possible from other forms of investment available at the time. Since the ETFs shares are freely traded in an established market, you can sell when you require your money.

An actively managed ETF where the composition of the investments changes to achieve higher growth rates is entirely feasible and practised by a few funds. Observers draw analogies with mutual funds and seek to compare the two. Some have sought to bring the much older (and normally actively managed) investment trust class of fund under the ETF umbrella, pointing out that these are also funds that trade on exchanges. Real Estate Investment Trust units also commonly trade on exchanges and have properties similar to an ETF. The innovation of an ETFs does not exclude these other forms of investment vehicles in the market, nor restrict the potential application of ETFs to achieve different investor objectives in the market.

ETFs are mainly exchanged 'in-kind'; holdings of ETFs are made available daily. This is felt to be a strength since no one knows more than anyone else about what the fund holds. If holdings were secret, it would be difficult to buy an ETF, since one would not know what shares to transfer; similarly, if one sells and gets the component shares, the holdings would not be secret. This seems to cause problems for an actively managed fund. Similarly, arbitrageurs are less likely to bid aggressively if they don't know what they are buying and selling. All of this is in contrast to mutual funds, which are allowed to keep holdings unknown for many months. Lastly, some people think that owners of ETFs are more sophisticated[citation needed], therefore more likely to be proponents of indexing (a passive strategy). So it is not immediately obvious who would buy actively managed ETFs.

Application

ETFs present an alternative investment option to traditional open-ended mutual funds, especially open-ended index funds. There are many available ETFs that attempt to track all kind of indices (such as large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap, boutique led criteria), fixed income, style (such as value and growth), industries, countries, precious metals, other commodities with more ideas being developed.

ETFs also enable people living outside the United States to participate in US based mutual funds. Traditional open-ended US mutual funds are available only to US residents, whereas anyone in the world can purchase shares in an ETF that trades on the open market.

As private banking moves towards a fee based model, the focus is shifting to asset allocation rather than stock selection. ETFs are a cheap and accessible way to populate asset allocation in client portfolios. Private bankers can focus on asset gathering for their clients.

Self-directed investors are following the lead taken by private bankers. A number of stock brokers report ETFs as their 'top-buys' by client selection. Evidence that private investors are using ETFs to gain cost-effective exposure to specific investment strategies in volatile markets.

One reason for the slow uptake of ETFs in the UK has been the lack of a rebate commission, providing little incentive for advisors to promote them. However, 2006–2007 saw a sudden 'jump' in ETFs activity as 'private' wealth managers decided to participate in this market.

Statistics

Early adopters of US ETFs were pensions funds, hedge funds and mutual funds. Wealth managers and self-directed investors followed. Today, more than half of ETFs in the US are held by retail investors.

One-third of European ETFs stock is in retail investors hands. There is every indication that the markets are heading the US way. In the UK, ETFs can be put into an Individual Savings Account [ISA].

First introduced by the TORONTO Stock Exchange, there are over four hundred ETFs traded on the US Stock Exchange. In other countries, there is varying momentum as the instrument is better understood and more ETFs registered for the advantages they offer. The US debut with SPY (launched by State Street Global Advisors and tracking the S&P 500) in 1993 has so far been an amazing success story.

The original ETFs were set up as competitors to open-ended index funds, and subsequent ETFs have usually followed in their footsteps: they typically have very low expense ratios compared to actively managed mutual funds. They also have a lower turnover ratio, often allowing for mitigation of taxes.

ETF managers BGI and State Street Global Advisors are the current leaders by assets under management, totaling 70% of the market.

[edit] Current status

It isn't perfect, but I think it's good enough now to be an actual resource, and most of the bad information is gone. I'm going to slow down, but if people have questions about the article or its subject matter, I'll be available. John M Baker (talk) 01:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DIfference to Index Funds

EFTs are clearly similar to Index (tracker) funds. It would be great if someone explained the difference. --Timtak (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Does the discussion now in text help? The short answer is that they are the same thing: Some index funds are mutual funds, and some are ETFs. John M Baker (talk) 00:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

An Index fund could be FOF but an ETF can't be. Though in theory it also could but in fact maybe not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.37.15.58 (talk) 01:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I assume by "FOF" you mean a fund of funds. Conventional index funds and index ETFs generally are not thought of as funds of funds, although they technically could be if there were funds that were among the securities comprising the underlying index. Anyway, this is not a distinction between index ETFs and conventional index funds. John M Baker (talk) 02:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)