etf

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $91.06 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares- .com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index, which consists of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap.

The Nasdaq 100 Index contains shares of companies in a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets.

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SPDR DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE ETF $163.35 (New York symbol DIA; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The SPDR Dow Jones ETF’s top holdings are Visa, IBM, Goldman Sachs Group, ExxonMobil, Chevron, 3M, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, United Technologies and Boeing. The fund’s expenses are about 0.17% of its assets.

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SPDR S&P 500 ETF $187.75 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Google, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, IBM, Chevron, General Electric, Pfizer, Berkshire Hathaway, Verizon and Wells Fargo. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.

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ISHARES DOW JONES CANADA SELECT DIVIDEND INDEX FUND $24.40 (Toronto symbol XDV; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds 30 of the highest-yielding Canadian stocks. Its selections are based on dividend growth, yield and payout ratio. The weight of any one stock is limited to 10% of its assets. The fund’s MER is 0.55%. It yields 3.8%.

The fund’s top holdings are CIBC, 7.0%; TD Bank, 6.3%; National Bank, 6.2%; Bonterra Energy, 6.0%; Bank of Montreal, 5.6%; Royal Bank, 5.1%; BCE, 4.3%; AG Growth International, 4.3%; and IGM Financial, 3.9%.

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iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Corporate Bond Index ETF, $19.82, symbol CBO on Toronto (Units outstanding: 93.1 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; ca.ishares.com), invests in a portfolio of short-term bonds drawn from the DEX (formerly Scotia Capital) Bond Index. The ETF first sold units to the public at $20 each and began trading on Toronto on February 25, 2009. Its MER is 0.28%, and it currently yields 4.2%....

iShares MSCI World Index Fund ETF, $34.01, symbol XWD on Toronto (Units outstanding: 5.8 million; Market cap: $197.3 million; ca.ishares.com), holds large- and mid-cap stocks across 23 developed countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S. The ETF holds 1,507 stocks covering about 85% of the market in each nation. It does this by holding units of the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (54.3% of assets), the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (41.6%) and the iShares MSCI Canada ETF (4.0%). iShares MSCI World Index Fund ETF has an MER of 0.47% and yields 1.6%....

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index.

ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks....

SPDR S&P CHINA ETF $74.08 (New York Exchange symbol GXC; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) aims to track the S&P China BMI Index, which is made up of all publicly traded Chinese stocks available to foreign investors. Right now, this ETF holds 251 stocks.

The $778.9-million fund’s top holdings are Tencent Holdings, 8.8%; China Construction Bank, 6.0%; China Mobile, 5.3%; Baidu, 5.2%; Industrial & Commercial Bank, 5.1%; Bank of China, 3.2%; CNOOC Ltd., 2.9%; China Petroleum & Chemical, 2.4%; PetroChina, 2.4%; and China Life.

The ETF was launched on March 19, 2007....

Here’s a good general rule to follow when choosing investments: Simple is better. The easier an investment is to explain and understand, the less likely it is to harbour hidden risks and costs that can only work against you. As the old investor saying goes, “Stick with plain vanilla.” For the investment industry, the rule works in reverse: The more complicated, the better. Each new feature provides a profit opportunity for the institution that sponsors the investment. It’s particularly important to keep this in mind with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These investments are highly efficient mutual funds. Fees are low because investors don’t pay for management. Instead, ETFs aim to mimic the performance of a market index, by holding the same securities in the same proportions used to calculate the market index. As a liquidity feature, ETFs generally sell newly created units whenever their unit prices develop a premium over the value of the stocks they hold. They buy back units (in large blocks only, to keep costs low) when the unit price gets too far below the value of their holdings....

iShares Silver Bullion ETF, $12.27, symbol SVR on Toronto (Units outstanding: 5.0 million; Market cap: $61.4 million; ca.ishares.com), is an example of an ETF with the kinds of “bells & whistles” mentioned above. iShares Silver Bullion ETF aims to replicate the performance of the price of silver bullion, less the fund’s fees and expenses. Unlike stocks, commodity investments like silver bullion do not generate income. Instead, they come with a continuing cash drain for management, insurance and so on....