ETF Trends, a five-year-old site that provides research and analysis of the exchange-traded fund market, has launched a premium site that will give investors expanded services.
The new site adds three levels to its original, free version—Premium, Ultra and Pro. The first two levels give individual investors the same data available on the free site, plus expanded features like access to model portfolios and the ability to create customized portfolios. They also provide active portfolio alerts and a complete list of holdings in each ETF. The Pro version is available to financial professionals and provides everything the other levels offer, but with the addition of advisor-specific content. The Premium site starts at $14.99 a month, while the Pro version has a $99 monthly fee.
Tom Lydon, president of Global Trends Investments and publisher of ETF Trends, says he wanted to go beyond the analysis and data investors can find on other sites, like Morningstar or Yahoo! Finance. The new version of ETF Trends was in development for about a year before its soft launch last week.
“There’s not one main place to go to get info on ETFs and we wanted to have that one place,” Lydon says. “Investors are taking control of their portfolios and aren’t as trusting to money managers so they’re looking for more information. This is a more dynamic site.”
Lydon says there are more than $1 trillion in ETF assets worldwide, but ETFs still only comprise about 7% of overall mutual fund assets. However, he expects to see continued growth in the space as investors seek increased transparency, increased tax efficiency and continued focus on underlying fees.
“[ETFs] have huge momentum right now,” Lydon says. “This momentum won’t slow down any time soon. As individual investors and clients become more and more concerned with things like liquidity and expenses, advisors will shift assets from mutual funds to ETFs.”
