Exchange traded funds trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Investors can buy them on margin, or sell them short. The best exchange-traded funds offer well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios with exceptionally low management ETF fees. They are also very liquid.
Investors use ETFs in a variety of ways, and some investors work only with ETFs and no other type of investment in portfolio creation.
An amazing aspect of ETFs is their diversity. Some investors may create an entire portfolio solely from a few well-diversified ETFs.
ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading.
Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds.
As well, shares are only added or removed when the underlying index changes. As a result of this low turnover, you won’t incur the regular capital gains taxes generated by the yearly distributions most conventional mutual funds pay out to unitholders.
ETFs have a place in every investor’s portfolio, at TSI Network we also recommend using our three-part Successful Investor strategy:
- Invest mainly in well-established companies;
- Spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors (Manufacturing & Industry; Resources & Commodities; the Consumer sector; Finance; Utilities);
- Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight.
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The best of those ETFs continue to offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of high-quality stocks.
Here’s a look at four international ETFs we see as suitable for new buying and two others we feel you should continue to hold.
ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS ETF $43.60 (New York symbol EEM; buy or sell through brokers) is designed to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.
The fund’s geographic breakdown is as follows: China, 33.0%; South Korea, 12.9%; Taiwan, 11.5%; India, 9.0%; Brazil, 7.0%; South Africa, 6.2%; Russia, 3.8%; Mexico, 2.7%; Thailand, 2.3%; Indonesia, 2.1%; Malaysia, 2.1%; and Poland, 1.1%.
Its top stocks are Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), 5.2%; Alibaba Group (China: e-commerce), 4.5%; Taiwan Semiconductor (computer chips), 3.8%; Samsung Electronics (South Korea), 3.5%; Naspers (South Africa: media and Internet), 2.1%; China Construction Bank, 1.6%; Ping An Insurance Group (China), 1.1%; China Mobile, 1.1%; Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, 1.0%; and Reliance Industries (India: conglomerate), 1.0%.
iShares launched the ETF on April 7, 2003....
The fund started up in January 2011....
The real estate consulting firm Cushman and Wakefield recently identified the Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong as the most expensive retail shopping location in the world....
The U.S....
Here is one ETF that provides exposure to the top Turkish public companies.
ISHARES MSCI TURKEY ETF $24.64 (Nasdaq symbol TUR; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $403.4 million) tracks the performance of the largest publicly listed Turkish companies.
Financial companies account for 29.5% of its assets, while Industrials (16.7%), Consumer Defensive (12.7%), Basic Materials (15.4%), Energy (8.5%) and Telecommunications (6.4%) are other key segments.
The ETF holds a portfolio of 53 stocks; the top 10 holdings make up a sizeable 63.0% of its assets....
Measured by the stocks held in the iShares Turkey ETF, the forward distribution yield on the portfolio is a high 4.1%, with a p/e ratio of 7.0. This makes the ETF one of the cheapest among emerging markets.
If investors consider the profitability of some of the largest Turkish companies, just how potentially attractive those low p/e’s are becomes even more apparent....
Here’s a look at all four of these ETFs:
VANGUARD CONSERVATIVE INCOME ETF PORTFOLIO $25.81 (Toronto symbol VCIP), holds roughly 20% of its assets in Vanguard stock ETFs and 80% in bond ETFs....
The dramatic downward movement in U.S. government bond yields in March reverberated through the markets, with interest rate-sensitive groups, such as real estate and utilities, benefitting strongly from renewed expectations for lower, or at least steady, interest rates.
The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT.O) tracks long-term U.S....