I’ve been speaking at several ETF conferences this year, and was a bit surprised to see at one event most of the audience raising their hand as users of ETFs, but then most putting their hands down when asked if they traded ETFs listed on any exchanges in Asia. For easy reference, I wanted to […]
About a month ago, Vanguard surprised clients and investment advisors (of which I am both) with the announcement that starting in August 2018 (today), Vanguard would offer free trading on almost 1,800 exchange traded funds (ETFs), all but a handful of which are those of Vanguard’s competitors. Although I have earlier argued that even paying […]
I first started using ETFs in the early 2000s, when iShares was aggressively launching several new ETFs, and marketing the line of single-country ETFs they had launched back in 1996. The Spyder ETF “SPY” has already been around for almost a decade at that point, and sector SPDRs had already been around since 1998, but […]
After several years of rising US stock prices, I am often asked when the next crash, or at least next big correction, is coming. I believe it is foolish to try and time the market, but I do believe it makes sense to sell out of expensive assets and buy into better value assets (buy […]
If you have worked as a professional in Hong Kong since the first MPF scheme was launched in December 2000, and contributed the minimum each month into a low-cost Hong Kong stock index fund, you should have over $1,000,000 in MPF by now. MPF stands for Mandatory Provident Fund, and is Hong Kong’s equivalent to […]
Hong Kong ETFs are, and are likely to remain, the best way to trade and broadly allocate to China, it is not hard to argue that Hong Kong has the best ETF market in Asia. As a reference, I am posting below a scan of the brochure the HKEX handed out at a recent ETF […]
For non-US ETF portfolios, I find it useful to keep handy short lists of ETFs listed on other top ETF exchanges in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo. Here is a short list of the top 55 London-listed ETFs I look at, mostly for my own reference when I need to look this up on […]
London listed ETFs and Frankfurt listed ETFs together form the world’s second largest and most diverse ETF market after the US. For non-US taxpayer investors, Frankfurt and London listed ETFs may provide tax advantages in accessing the US market, as well as access to asset classes even the US ETF market does not yet cover, […]
I find it important to look at exchange traded funds (“ETF”) as a benchmark for what investments in stocks, bonds, or real estate investment trusts (REITs) could be doing as a “fire and forget” trade to track a broad benchmark index with minimal transactional and ongoing costs. The US remains by far the largest, most […]
I have been working with “smart beta” strategies since 2006 (before they were even called “smart beta”), and continue to believe that investing through these rules-based factors provides better risk-adjusted returns than index funds at far lower cost than actively managed mutual funds. In GFM-managed client accounts, we continue to apply the well-researched factors, of […]