Fund holdings affect fund performance more than fees or past performance. Why are there so many ETFs? The answer is: because ETF providers are making lots of money selling them.
Picking from the multitude of sector ETFs is a daunting task. In any given sector there may be as many as 43 different ETFs, and there are at least 171 ETFs across all sectors.
Why are there so many ETFs? The answer is: because ETF providers are making lots of money selling them. The number of ETFs has little to do with serving investors’ best interests. Here are three red flags investors can use to avoid the worst ETFs...
In an increasingly challenging market, Intel [s: INTC] is one of the safest investments with compelling upside potential. That’s right, investors get to have their cake and eat it too – at least for now.
Not everyone has the luxury of or stomach for being net short as I recommended in my last article.
So, I offer some of my top picks for those that must be long.
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.
Most of my research and publishing tends to focus on companies manipulating accounting rules to make their reported earnings look better than the real economic cash flows of their business.
It is unfortunately rare that I find a company whose economic earnings are outpacing the reported accounting results and whose stock is cheap.
One such company is Lam Research (LRCX – very attractive rating). One of September’s most attractive stocks, LRCX offers investors hidden value.