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
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
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
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
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
Two months ago, I noted that ValuEngine models were predicting a down market for 2022 and wrote a column on redeployment of core assets for investors with short-to-medium equity time horizons. The question for investors concerned with a downturn is what to do and if reallocation from assets committed to core equity is required, how … Read more
The trend is your friend. That is, until it isn’t. The list of best performing non-leveraged ETFs for the past 90-days is led almost exclusively by ETFs that hold the stocks of fossil-fuel-based energy and closely related companies. At the same time, the prices of ESG and more climate-focused impact ETFs have plunged dramatically. With … Read more
There is no sugarcoating it. January was a lousy month for the market. Many pundits are certain that this is the beginning of a yearlong downturn. Other experts are calling this a dip and a buying opportunity. Our models at ValuEngine are mixed with a six-month forecast on S&P 500 ETFs of +2.6% but a … Read more
Lost in all the market volatility and concerns about interest rate hikes and inflation was a regulatory ruling with major implications for asset capture in the ETF industry. The New York State Department of Financial Services is the state’s insurance regulator. In December it published a new regulation that, until Jan. 1, 2027, allows shares … Read more
Happy New Year! My previous column focused on the ValuEngine forecast targets for 6 Benchmark Index ETFs. To varying degrees, our models expect all of them to post negative price returns. The question for investors concerned with a downturn is what to do and, if reallocation from assets committed to core equity is required, how … Read more