Key ways investors seek to lower volatility

Article Excerpt

Investors aiming to beat inflation over time—without taking undue risk—have a variety of options presented by exchange-traded funds. While, looking back is of limited use going forward, here are some of the results from academic studies of the volatility, downside risk, and total return of a select group of ETFs over the past 5 years: Balanced ETFs that are diversified across asset classes, succeeded in lowering portfolio volatility and downside risk but delivered a much lower return than the broader market. Equity ETFs designed to lower portfolio volatility by focusing on less volatile stocks delivered lower volatility but their returns lagged the market—although, on average, by a small margin. Downside risk, as measured by the maximum loss, was about the same as the overall market. ETFs holding exclusively dividend-paying stocks delivered market comparable returns and volatility Equity ETFs that also employed a covered call strategy performed poorly in all respects. Balanced portfolio ETF: The iShares Core Balanced ETF (Toronto symbol XBAL) is a true balanced,…