Topic: How To Invest

Pat: The Guggenheim Spin-off ETF consists of a variety of stocks that have been spun off from other stocks. Can you give me your opinion? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

The Guggenheim Spin-off ETF, $44.67, symbol CSD on New York (Units outstanding: 17.0 million; Market cap: $759.4 million; www.guggenheiminvestments.com), aims to track the Beacon Spin-off Index. The ETF’s MER is 0.78%. The Beacon Spin-off Index consists of 24 stocks. Companies can be included if they have been spun off in the past 30 months. There are no limitations on market capitalization (or the total value of a company’s outstanding shares), but companies in the index are mainly small- and mid-caps with capitalizations under $10 billion. Beacon defines a spinoff as any firm resulting from either of the following events: a parent company’s distribution of shares in a subsidiary to its own shareholders or “partial initial public offerings,” in which a parent company sells a percentage of a subsidiary’s shares to the general public. The ETF’s top holdings include WhiteWave Foods (spun off from Dean Foods), AMC Networks (Cablevision), Exelis (ITT Corp.), Tripadvisor (Expedia), Xylem (ITT Corp.), Starz (Liberty Media), Fortune Brands Home &..