Mid-Year Market Forecasts

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

Drill, Baby, Drill? Oil ETFs

For each blog article, I scan through relevant groups of ETFs that relate to possible investment strategies.  Three ETFs from iShares by BlackRock stood out to me this week: IEO, IEZ, IYE.  All have ValuEngine’s strongest rating of 5 checks and all have fared very well in price performance during the past 6 months since … Read more

Defensive Sector ETFs for Turbulent Times

This week’s featured US equity ETFs, all focused on the US Consumer Staples Sector, are projected to outperform the market going forward. The similarities with last week’s blog end there.  These all get a more modest 4 (buy) recommendation.  Risk versus safety differentiate the last blog from this one. My last blog entry profiled ETF … Read more

Medical Miracles: Inside Biotech ETFs

The events of the past twelve months focused a lot of attention on amazing and life-altering developments made possible by the global biotech industry.  Although the major names we heard were Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, only the last was where the original research and patents that produced the CoVid-19 vaccines were developed.  … Read more

Inside Value ETFs

The market has been in a value phase the past 6 months which has been well documented by others.  The regime change was heartily welcomed by almost all managers of value funds, both active and passive. This is because the previous 13 years have been relentlessly difficult for value managers in terms of relative performance … Read more

Evaluating a Hot Hedge Fund Strategy ETF

Lately, ValuEngine has seen ticker GVIP (Goldman Sachs Hedge Industry VIP ETF) on several ETF strategists’ buy lists.  The fund’s strategy is intended to take advantage of the highest conviction holdings of “VIP Hedge Fund Managers.” Specifically, GVIP seeks to track the GS Hedge Fund VIP Index, which is constructed in accordance with a rules-based … Read more

03/08/2021 What’s in Your Core?

By Herb Blank If you are an investor with less than $1 billion to invest and a holding horizon of more than 3 months, do NOT buy SPY to access exposure to the S&P 500.  This is true even though SPY has the most assets under management and the highest average trading volume by far. The simple … Read more

02/19/2021 ValuEngine Market Update, stock pick

ValuEngine is asked many times every day what our outlook for the market is for the next few months.  We always answer with uncertainty, as that is the nature of the markets these days. We are “generally positive” about the markets and recovery once we put Covid in the rear view mirror. But we are … Read more

Inside Actively Managed Equity ETFs

By Herbert Blank Actively managed ETFs have evolved very differently from index-driven ETFs.  Most of the assets have been accumulated in actively managed fixed income ETFs while the vast preponderance of Assets Under Management in Equity ETFs are index driven. Although there are many legacy reasons for this, the fact is that the efficiencies of … Read more

Dividend ETFs, How to Decide Which is Best for You.

By Herbert Blank Dividend ETFs have seen major inflows in recent years.  At a time when most fixed income ETFs have historically low yields, that interest is easy to understand.  There are more than 100 US-listed ETFs categorized by Morningstar, ETF.com, ETF Stream and others as Dividend ETFs.  Many of these use very different methodologies to satisfy … Read more