The Curious Investor

So, are you interested in ETFs after the last post? Well, you’re in luck. Just about every major fund manager is as well and as a result there are tons of ETFs out there now. You can use them to invest in commodities, bonds, emerging markets, industries, or sectors. While you can short them yourself, there are even ETFs which are designed to return the inverse of the index they track so you can have access to downside gain even if you don’t have a margin account. Some also build in leverage to give you double the returns (or losses) of a given index again all without you having to take out margin. As more and more ETF products come out, it seems we’re running out of asset classes and stock sectors. Creative fund managers are creating their own indexes or finding obscure indexes to give all sorts of different exposure and to nearly simulate active management through ETFs which are rebalanced on a more regular basis or track indexes that select stocks based on fundamentals or technicals as opposed to any broad sector or asset class. If you’d like to find out more, here’s a list of companies which offer ETFs as well as a short description of their products:

More Standard ETFs
iShares - Offered by Barclay’s, these are probably some of the most popular ETFs out there. They are the bread and butter of ETF offerings with tons of funds tracking every imaginable industry, sector, country, commodity, and bond.

SPDRs/StreetTracks - Offered by State Street Bank, another leader in ETFs. If iShares doesn’t offer the exposure you’re looking for, these products probably do. Their specialty is Sector SPDR ETFs.

Vanguard ETFs - Formerly known as VIPERs, Vanguard, who essentially started the open-ended indexed mutual fund, has jump in hard on the ETF game. They too offer a plethora of options with some interesting style based funds and bond funds.

Rydex Funds - A big mutual fund manager, Rydex has released several equal weight ETFs for those interested in that style of investing. Rydex also  is the provider of CurrencyShares, the leading ETFs linked to the performance of certain currencies.

Slightly More Complex Funds
ProShares - ETFs offered by ProFunds, they specialize in leveraged and inverse ETFs for domestic indexes and industries.

PowerShares - The company which now manages the famed NASDAQ tracking ETF with symbol QQQQ. Now offering quasi-managed “Intellidex” ETFs which track proprietary indexes which feature rules based stock selection that allow the application of risk management and strategy targeting as opposed to simply covering a sector for example the Dorsey Wright Technical Leaders Portfolio (symbol: PDP). These are about the closest thing to “actively managed” that ETFs can be though most of the products are new and it’s hard to predict exactly how well they will perform longterm. Powershares is also the leading provider of commodity-linked ETFs for those that want exposure to certain commodities markets.

And, on a final note to tie back into our Emering Markets series. Here’s an interesting blog covering ETF investments in European emerging markets: StockWeb.blogspot.com

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