Active ETF Gurus vs. GURU Index ETF

This week’s featured ETF is GURU, Global X Guru Index based on a specific “smart money” hedge fund strategy. Guru’s site claims that the index engineered by Global X and provided by German customized index specialist Solactive AG allows everyday investors to access the high conviction investments among the largest, most sophisticated hedge funds in … Read more

Time to Flip the Switch from Energy to Utilities

This week’s blog focuses on a trade recommendation based upon many data elements found in ValuEngine reports combined with industry experience and knowledge. At the end-of-June blog, “Drill. Baby, Drill”, I focused on the 5 (Strong Buy) recommendation that the ValuEngine models had on the iShares US Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (ticker … Read more

Market Forecasts for 4th Quarter 2021 and Beyond

The ETF reports on ValuEngine for funds that follow market benchmarks provide a side benefit in writing market analyses.  They are a window to the implicit forecasts for 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month forecasts VE models are making for each benchmark’s ETF portfolio.  This is because the ratings and projections combine bottom-up constituent analysis with … Read more

How Have Major Declines Affected S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 Investors?

In the wake of the Chinese Evergrande collapse, the S&P 500 shed more than 2% last Monday.  Analysts speculated that Chinese real estate contagion might be especially detrimental to Apple, Google and Netflix, all purported to have huge exposures to China. In fact, two major investment banks issued predictions last week that the market would … Read more

Seven Simple Rules for Owning ETFs and Exchange-Traded Products

Since the beginning of this month traditionally marks back-to-school time for many, I thought the timing was appropriate for this article on basic investor education with a focus on ETFs and similarly traded instruments.  The following seven actions reflect practices, many quite common, I’ve seen executed often that I consider major mistakes.  In fact, I strongly … Read more

Time to Rev Up the JETS?

Airline stocks have been a favorite of many analysts as the economy resumed reopening and restrictions eased.  Is it too late to join the party? If not, which ETFs should be considered? When this blog analyzed opportunities in specific industries such as banks or sectors such as consumer staples, I compared representative ETFs before identifying … Read more

Cap-Weighted vs. Equally Weighted S&P 500 ETFs – Which is Better?

By Herb Blank Research Affiliates and Dimensional Fund Advisors have been among the esteemed research and investment firms proclaiming that equally weighted portfolios will deliver superior performance to portfolios weighted by market capitalization also known as cap-weighted. This article explores to what extent that has been true in recent years. IVV is the iShares S&P … Read more

Inside Bank and Financial ETFs: How Do They Compare?

Two other analysts whose blogs I monitor wrote in their midyear reports that they were bullish on bank and financial ETFs. My analysis using ValuEngine data below differs significantly. One analyst singled out KRE and the other’s favorite was FTXO.  They cited that the P/B and P/E ratios were considerably lower than the market averages.  … Read more

Actively Managed vs. Indexed ETFs – DBLV: A Case Study Inside AdvisorShares DoubleLine Value Equity ETF

The biggest surge in new ETFs during the past 12 months has switched from ESG/Other thematic to actively managed ETFs. The preponderance of these new offerings and filings have come from major mutual fund houses and investment banks. Three ETFs are compared below regarding this topic. I’ve recently written an article that explains the many … Read more

How does DEF stack up against Consumer Staples ETFs?

About a month ago, this blog profiled the defensive qualities of the three largest ETFs representing the US Consumer Staples Sector.  One of our readers asked a logical question.  How did DEF, the Invesco Defensive Equity ETF, stack up against the sector ETFs?  After all, its objective of its rules-based methodology is to select companies … Read more