etf

INVESCO CHINA SMALL CAP PORTFOLIO ETF $24.01 (New York Exchange symbol HAO; buy or sell through brokers; www.invesco.com) aims to track the AlphaShares China Small Cap Index. It’s made up of the 305 Chinese stocks that foreign investors are allowed to hold and that have market caps of less than $1.5 billion....

Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies. In all, it administers over $5.3 trillion U.S., spread across 415 mutual funds and ETFs.


Generally speaking, Canadians are blocked from buying mutual funds that are registered in the U.S....

A: The iShares S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index ETF, $21.31, symbol XEI on Toronto (Units outstanding: 20.2 million; Market cap: $430.5 million; www.blackrock.com/ca), aims to track the S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index, which effectively holds the 75 highest-yielding Canadian stocks.

The index is market-capitalization weighted, with each stock capped at 5% (any stock may rise above 5% temporarily until rebalancing)....

Get a free Special Report on Canada’s hottest investment topic, The Highs and Lows of Marijuana Stocks, from The Successful Investor.

Commodities are the raw materials that production and manufacturing rely on. Investing in them can help investors diversify their portfolios and win greater protection from inflation.


However, commodities as a group have been out of favour for almost a decade and investors would rightly question the wisdom of either directly holding commodities or commodity producers in their portfolios.

A decade of underperformance

To consider the performance of physical commodities as a group, we selected the Dow Jones Commodity Index....

With the political debate in the U.S. heating up, politicians have taken a renewed interest in the cost and availability of healthcare products and services. This had a negative impact on the performance of healthcare stocks in April. The iShares US Medical Device ETF (New York symbol IHI) lost 3.9% during the month while the Vanguard Healthcare ETF (New York symbol VHT) lost 3.0%.


This happened against the backdrop of a very positive month for equities around the world....

The North American ETF universe has welcomed several new theme ETFs in recent weeks—each is meant to tap an investment trends. Those funds include a new U.S. marijuana ETF as well as a fund focused on companies at the forefront of the developing 5G network industry.


ADVISORSHARES PURE CANNABIS ETF $25.00 (New York symbol YOLO) launched in April 2019 and is a second U.S....

Hong Kong’s sound infrastructure—physical, administrative and financial—positions it as a gateway for foreign companies and investors seeking access to China. But those favourable factors also let Chinese companies gain easy access to international capital through Hong Kong’s highly developed financial markets.


Here is one ETF that provides exposure to top public companies domiciled in this autonomous Chinese territory.


ISHARES MSCI HONG KONG ETF $25.42 (New York symbol EWH; TSI Network ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $2.8 billion) tracks the performance of large and mid-cap Hong Kong-domiciled and listed companies.


Financial companies account for 67.4% of its assets, while Utilities (10.0%), Consumer Cyclicals (8.7%), and Industrials (7.9%) are other key segments.


The ETF holds a portfolio of 47 stocks; the top 10 stocks make up a sizeable 60.4% of the fund’s overall assets.


Those top holdings include AIA Group (financial services, 21.6%), Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (financial services, 7.2%), CK Hutchison Holdings (industrials, 5.0%), Sun Hung Kai Properties (real estate, 4.8%), Link Real Estate Investment Trust (4.3%), Hong Kong and China Gas Co....

Various plausible arguments can be made in favour of investing in physical commodities or their listed producers. However, the practical problems associated with directly holding commodities make the debate almost irrelevant. Holding a well-diversified basket of publicly-listed producers provides investors with a reasonable alternative.






It’s almost impossible to invest directly in commodities due to the costs involved with their storage....

Commodities can help diversify portfolios, but are cyclical and come with high levels of price volatility.


However, well-diversified ETFs that offer exposure to commodity producers can help investors overcome the problems associated with direct investments in physical commodities or funds that track a single commodity.


Below, we look at three ETFs that provide exposure to commodity producers or directly to the commodities themselves....