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 fund’s top holdings include Toyota, 5.3%; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, 3.2%; Sony Corp., 2.8%; Hitachi (conglomerate), 2.5%; Tokyo Electron (computer chips), 2.3%; Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, 2.3%; Keyence (sensors), 2.1%; and Shin Etsu Chemical, 2.1%....
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, $44.79, is a buy for aggressive investors. The fund (New York symbol EEM; buy or sell through brokers) is designed to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index; it gives you access to some of the world’s fastest growing markets.
The ETF’s geographic breakdown is as follows: China, 27.3%; Taiwan, 19.0%; India, 18.8%; South Korea, 10.0%; Brazil, 4.8%; Saudi Arabia, 3.9%; South Africa, 3.2%; Mexico, 1.9%; Indonesia, 1.6%; Thailand, 1.5%; and Malaysia, 1.4%.
Your biggest stock exposure through the fund is Taiwan Semiconductor (computer chips) at 9.9% of assets; Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), 4.4%; Samsung Electronics (South Korea), 2.5%; Alibaba (China: e-commerce), 2.3%; Meituan Dianping (China: group buying/food delivery), 1.5%; Reliance Industries (India: conglomerate), 1.2%; HDFC Bank (India), 1.1%; and PDD Holdings (China: retail), 1.1%.
iShares launched the ETF on April 7, 2003....
You Can See Our Exchange-Traded Funds Portfolio For November 2024 Here.
ETFs in brief
Exchange-traded funds are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or sub-index....
Stock analysis that examines a company’s free cash flow can cut through the unpredictability of how the business chooses to report its earnings....
This month we focus on high-income, leveraged single-stock ETFs; one was launched by Harvest and another, focused on physical gold bullion, was launched by BMO.
HARVEST ELI LILLY ENHANCED HIGH-INCOME SHARES $12.04 (Toronto symbol LLHE) invests in the shares of Eli Lilly & Co....
Large, global companies such as Samsung, Posco, LG Electronics, Hynix, and Hyundai performed well, but the speculators’ favourites such as Kakao and Seegene rose between 450% and 1,200%.
But all speculative bubbles eventually burst.
When we last wrote about this in September 2022 we commented on the sharp declines in the prices of not only the speculative stocks but also stocks that represent highly rated Korean companies.
For example, Samsung Electronics, one of the top global consumer electronics and semiconductor manufacturers, saw a share price decline of 40%, while the price of semiconductor producer SK Hynix declined 49%....