As an updated reference list, here are the 100 Top UCITS ETFs, listed in London, domiciled in Ireland, and denominated in US dollars, with over US$100mio in assets as of this writing. Before I have mostly focused on posting lists of top UCITS ETFs by Blackrock’s iShares (which still has the best website IMHO), State […]
By assets, ETF investors largely seem to prefer to buy very broad market exposure at very low cost. When Vanguard launched their first China-only ETF earlier this year, I noted that US ETF investors have about 10x more allocated to Chinese stocks through the portion of broad emerging market ETFs allocated to China than through […]
I probably like the term “smart beta” even better than most other professional investment advisors, not to mention more than most average investors, but all “smart beta” really means is owning the profits of stocks in proportion to something other than the overall size / market value of those stocks. In other words, a smart […]
One of the most common misconceptions I hear about exchange traded funds (ETFs) is that they are all passively managed, market cap weighted index trackers. While that would describe many of the largest and most popular ETFs, especially the original low-cost trackers of the S&P 500 index, there are an increasing number of actively managed […]
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 […]
MSCI’s China A-share inclusion is one of the many themes I’ve been hearing over and over again this year. As one of the world’s largest and most respected brands in benchmarking investment portfolios, this move means that trillions of dollars of American and European retirement funds will now be required to buy more Chinese stocks, […]
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 […]