ETFs driving market gains - Goldman
ETFs are the major force behind market gains this year, says research from Goldman. Having raked in $98 billion of stocks in the first quarter alone, ETFs are on track to take $400 billion in 2017.
ETFs are getting weirder
ETFs keep getting stranger. Unable to compete on price in an increasingly concentrated market, smaller issuers are coming up with ever more unusual ideas. What are they? Well, there is the Quincy Jones music ETF, the marijuana ETF (WEED), the biblically responsible ETF (BLES), obesity ETF (SLIM), and for the rest, read here.
Passive investing in theory and practice
While passive investing is possible in theory, in practice it is not. It was exactly this - the active nature of passive investing - that came to the front with MSCI including Chinese A-shares. "recently the index giant FTSE Russell proposed to exclude the popular social media app, Snapchat, from its index. The knee jerk reaction might be, "Who cares about Snapchat?" Well, there is a "small" firm called Alphabet (e.g. "Google" as most know it), a stock representing over 1% of the S&P 500."
Equities still attractive - Bernstein
Investors are flooding into long bonds, suggesting they think the economy will tank. Yields on 30-year Treasuries have fallen to an annual low. But the retreat to long bonds is a mistake, says one investment analyst. Wages are up and interest rates are low, which is great for equity ETFs.
