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Re-Allocations of ETFs Under the Specter of Recession

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With the S&P 500 now officially in bear market territory, a major specter hanging over the market right now is the prospect of recession.  Many experts say it is now inevitable.  Morningstar’s research legend John Rekenthaler explained in a column Thursday that this bear market does not necessarily portend a recession and I agree.  An underlying … Read more

Traditional Values-Driven ETFs

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I have written a lot in my blog analyzing and differentiating ESG, sustainable and impact ETFs.  In 2020 and 2021 on a percentage basis, this segment was among the fastest growing in the ETF marketplace. Moreover, during most of that time, the market performance of these funds validated the concept that investing in ESG ETFs … Read more

The Many Faces of QQQ

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The history of QQQ, Invesco QQQ Trust, is that it was a game-changer from the very start. Beginning in 1999 with the development of the Nasdaq-100 index by John Jacobs, then a Nasdaq executive and now a professor at Georgetown and Steven Bloom, the product was an overnight success.   It was Jacobs’ vision to take … Read more

Navigating the Volatility Vortex – How Well Have Safe Harbor ETFs Performed?

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In the past January Year-End review, I noted that ValuEngine models were predicting a down market for 2022.  In March, as fears of interest rate hikes, continued runaway inflation and global implications of the Russian invasion played on investors’ minds, I wrote a column specifically on potential safe harbors in the wake of the perfect … Read more

Why Pay More for Your Investments?

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Consumers have never been happy about paying more for the same (or less) from one place than from another.  It has only been within the past twenty years or so that investors have gotten wiser to this practice. Financial advisors, planners and the media have increasingly made investors more aware of how much less expensive … Read more

Rotating Industry and Strategy ETFs YTD 2022

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Between inflation skyrocketing beyond expectations, the drumbeats of war and increasing global sanctions on Russian Oil, macroeconomic themes have dominated the 2022 stock market 15 weeks into the year.  Throwing out derivatives-based ETFs, the top 11 US ETFs ranked by price performance this year are primarily focused on energy companies.   All of the approximately 5,000 … Read more

2nd Quarter US Benchmark ETF Update

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The first quarter was rather turbulent. But given the unexpected burst of inflation and the savage Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the final price reading of the S&P 500 of -5.2% comes almost as a relief.  A late rally in March mitigated the overall damage The ETF reports on ValuEngine that follow market benchmarks provide … Read more

How Did the Stores of Value Hold Up during the Turbulent First Quarter?

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When ProShares launched BITO, the Bitcoin Futures Strategy ETF last autumn, the ETF along with Bitcoin were promoted as “stores of value.”  The rationale was that Bitcoin was independent of stock markets and would provide diversification away from equities and tend to rise when equity markets fell. Unconvinced, I wrote a column at that time … Read more

ETFs for Gender-Lens Investing

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Last Tuesday was International Women’s Day.  For the eighth straight year Women in ETFs, the standard bearer for promoting gender bias reform in the ETF industry, held bell-ringings and special programs around the world to commemorate the occasion.  There have been a number of research studies demonstrating examples that having female representation in the C-Suite, … Read more