Finding the best sector ETFs is an increasingly difficult task in a world with so many to choose from. How can you pick with so many choices available?
Why are there so many ETFs? ETF providers tend to make lots of money on each ETF so they create more products to sell. The large number of ETFs has little to do with serving your best interests. Below are three red flags you can use to avoid the worst ETFs:
The Information Technology sector ranks second out of the ten sectors as detailed in my Sector Rankings for ETFs and Mutual Funds report. It gets my Neutral rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 27 ETFs and 155 mutual funds in the Information Technology sector as of April 16, 2013.
VMW’s valuation has its head in the clouds.
This stock is a great short in most any scenario and is especially attractive in the event of a global economic slowdown led by a recession in Europe.
Having too many choices can be intimidating. And there are definitely lots of choices when it comes to ETFs. For example, in the equity market alone, there 30+ technology sector ETFs, or 35 ‘large cap value’ and 20 financial ETFs. A very healthy selection abounds for every category of ETF.
The problem is that these ETFs are not made the same even though they may be in the same category. There are major differences in methodologies between funds, which results in drastically different holdings even within a given sector. See Figure 1.