ETFs

In an environment of transparency and volatile capital markets, you would think exchange-traded fund vehicles would hold more of a percentage in the $3.6 trillion retirement plan marketplace.

Advisors are expected to up the exchange traded fund allocations in their clients’ portfolios in 2013, according to Cerulli's Exchange Traded Fund Markets 2013 report.

Vanguard today reports that expense ratios have dropped for several of its mutual funds and the Dividend Appreciation ETF.

Assets held in exchange-traded funds rose in April by $22.39 billion to $1.469 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Direxion Funds' CEO Dan O'Neill examines new products and strategies that will be the next phase in the evolution of ETFs.

VTL Associates, an independent investment advisory and consulting firm based in Philadelphia, has received an infusion of capital from Chinese venture capital firm, Suzhou Industrial Park Kaida Venture Capital.

ETF flows in the second quarter continued at almost the same torrid pace as they did in the first quarter and seem well on their way to adding $200 billion in new investor funds in 2013.

China’s first cross-border exchange-traded fund, based on the NASDAQ-100 Index, has begun trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Stock and bond funds, including exchange traded funds, maintained a strong pace of net inflows in April, according to fund industry researcher Strategic Insight (SI).

MidAtlantic Trust Company said it had resolved record-keeping problems that have kept exchange-traded funds from being part of holdings in 401(k) and other retirement plans.

Two or three years ago, institutional investors primarily used ETFs for tactical purposes, holding them for less than one year. But now they are using them strategically as well, according to the 2013 Greenwich Associates study of trends in institutional usage of ETFs, which was sponsored by iShares.

Globally, exchange traded products are scooping up assets on a faster pace than in 2012, according to BlackRock’s April 2013 ETP Landscape Report.

Fixed-income exchange-traded funds have made big strides in asset gathering over the past five years, rising from $53.7 billion in 2008 to $229.1 billion by March of 2013, according to Lipper.

WisdomTree Investments, an ETF sponsor and asset manager, reported net income of $7.9 million for the first quarter of 2013, up seven times from the year ago quarter and 50% from the fourth quarter of 2012.

For ETF investors, a focus on the broad, diversified asset classes has been paying off.

Even when the long-term market trend is defined by falling inflation-adjusted prices, despite short-term ups and downs, there may be opportunities to root out profits.

Assets of all exchange-traded funds rose in March by $37.54 billion, or 2.7%, to $1.446 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

A boom in active exchange traded funds is coming, according to a study from SEI.

BlackRock said first-quarter earnings rose 10% as its exchange-traded stock funds drew client cash and assets increased.

Exchange-traded funds have gone from a "gem of an idea" in 1993 to "couch potato investing" in 2013. What's next for these products?