Today, ETFs dominate conversations between financial advisors and their clients to a much greater extent than traditional mutual funds or individual stocks and bonds. That certainly was not true at the end of the 20th century. At its core an ETF (exchange-traded fund) is merely a mutual fund or trust that issues shares that trade … Read more
Weekly Market Recap – Week Ending August 14, 2026 U.S. equity markets advanced this week, with gains spread across most major ETFs and sector benchmarks. Energy (XLE) led the group with a strong 7.67% gain, while Dividend Equity (SCHD), Utilities (XLU), Communication Services (XLC), Consumer Staples (XLP), Technology (XLK), Small Caps (VB), and Health Care … Read more
Weekly Market Recap – Week Ending Jul 02, 2026 U.S. equity markets were mixed over the shortened trading week, with broad index performance modestly positive but sector leadership remaining uneven. The S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) gained 0.56%, while the NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) declined 1.55%, weighed down by continued weakness in Technology (XLK), which fell … Read more
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
The last Edition of this column focused on Dividend ETFs, each of which had the word Dividend in its name. The analysis focused on identifying the best overall ETF for conservative dividend-oriented investors as an alternative core holding that had more than twice the dividend yield of the S&P 500 while collecting comparable, if somewhat … Read more