by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Currently, out of the 3,278 ETFs available, just over 800 are actively managed, while the rest are passively managed. However, the assets under management (AUM) for the latter make up only 6% of all ETF assets. The availability of actively managed ETFs didn't occur until a handful of them [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Last week’s Part 1 September 30 article provided background on Fidelity’s select sector mutual fund since its 1981 inception, as well as State Street Global Advisors’ (SSgA) ETF sector funds introduction in 1998. The listing of Fidelity and SSgA sectors with their tickers were provided. This article will cover [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Sector rotation is the practice of ascertaining and purchasing market sectors that hopefully will produce market-beating returns. The problem is sectors fall in and out of favor, similar to the changing cycles in small-caps, mid-caps, and large-caps where their dominance ebbs and flows, for months or years at a [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA The powerful VectorVest UniSearch tool provides subscribers with over 200 pre-set (default) searches (e.g., strategies) to identify stocks/ETFs that meet specific screening criteria. The four variables in the UniSearch screen have the following descriptions: Date/Time, Parameter, Operator, and Value. Each criterion in the search requires that each of these [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA My September 9th blog article on ETF investment strategies covered the basics for investors. This article focuses on ETF trading strategies, which is much more challenging than simple investing, as they may involve entering and exiting positions over minutes, hours, days or weeks, depending on the type of trading [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Investing in the markets scares many individuals because of the emotional and financial devastation and frequency of corrections and bear markets. For example, since 2000 there have been two instances of bear markets: 49% and 56% decline during March 2000 to October 2002, and from October 2007 to March [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Buy-and-hold investing is recommended by most financial advisors, mutual fund sponsors, and many professional money managers. Their reasoning is that the markets have a long-term upward bias, so stay fully invested at all times. They say, “Time in the market is more important market timing.” Warren Buffett says he [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Investors and traders may not give much thought to the weighting of the ETF that they purchase. However, the price performance of the ETF is heavily dependent on how the stocks are weighted in the portfolio. I will provide a tutorial on the two weighting methods that everyone should [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA If it wasn’t for the concept and development of “indexing,” no-load mutual funds and index-based ETFs would not exist in their current format or popularity. Today, there are currently 1901 passive indexed ETFs in existence in the United States. ETF indexing is based on a sponsoring firm’s selection of [...]
by Leslie N. Masonson, MBA Purchasing ETFs is more complex than purchasing mutual funds and individual stocks when you take into account their key attributes and the dizzying number of choices available. With a universe of 3,159 ETFs, investors and traders struggling to select a few ETFs for their regular and retirement portfolios may [...]
