Sunday, February 23, 2014

Select List - Week of 2/24/14

The ETFG Select List supports both Financial Professionals and Investors with their respective Exchange-Traded-Fund selection processes.  Developed by the Research Policy Committee at ETF Global, the ETFG ETF Select List features the 5 most highly-rated equity ETFs by Sector, Geographic Region and Strategy as ranked by the ETFG Quant model.  This handy reference guide enables you to quickly and easily identify ETFs which meet your chosen criteria.

Just to provide an overview of the favored groups within these three respective fields, below please find those groups and their Top 5 equity ETFs that comprise the highest group average by Sector, Geography and Strategy:

Sector: Basic Materials/Group Average: 62.36

Ticker
Focus
Region
TER
Risk*
Reward*
Quant*
1
GGGG
Basic Materials
Global
0.59%
8.28
9.63
66.40
2
SIL
Basic Materials
Global
0.65%
6.93
8.29
63.30
3
XME
Basic Materials
North America
0.35%
5.68
7.33
61.60
4
IYM
Basic Materials
North America
0.46%
5.08
7.61
61.20
5
GDX
Basic Materials
Global
0.52%
6.10
7.19
59.30
  
Geography: Asia-Pacific/Group Average: 67.44

Ticker
Region
Focus
TER
Risk*
Reward*
Quant*
1
EWY
Asia-Pacific
Broad Equity
0.61%
4.18
10.00
72.90
2
IDX
Asia-Pacific
Broad Equity
0.58%
6.15
9.84
69.40
3
EIDO
Asia-Pacific
Broad Equity
0.61%
4.95
9.64
68.50
4
FXI
Asia-Pacific
Large Cap
0.73%
5.37
8.35
64.10
5
ADRA
Asia-Pacific
Large Cap
0.30%
4.48
8.34
62.30
  
Strategy: Broad Equity/Group Average: 68.08

Ticker
Focus
Region
TER
Risk*
Reward*
Quant*
1
EWY
Broad Equity
Asia-Pacific
0.61%
4.18
10.00
72.90
2
IDX
Broad Equity
Asia-Pacific
0.58%
6.15
9.84
69.40
3
EIDO
Broad Equity
Asia-Pacific
0.61%
4.95
9.64
68.50
4
EWC
Broad Equity
North America
0.51%
3.43
8.23
64.90
5
EMDD
Broad Equity
Global Ex-U.S.
0.85%
4.94
8.98
64.70

This ETFG Select List is meant to be a quick reference guide and not to replace checking the daily ETFG Quant Rankings which are also available in detail on an etf's individual ETFG Tearsheet, Green Diamond Reward Ratings and Red Diamond Risk Ratings.  To best support the ETF selection process, ETF Global strongly encourages users to perform a more comprehensive review by utilizing the additional tools and resources available at www.etfg.com to further research and diligence exchange-traded-funds.

Thank you for reading ETFG Perspectives!

Monday, February 10, 2014

Feb Liquidation Watch Hits All Time High

As of the beginning of February, we have seen just 4 Exchange-Traded-Products (ETPs) with announced and/or actual closings for the year - a comparatively slow start and significantly below the annualized levels of the most recent years.  While the trend of these recent years certainly suggests that the rate of closures will increase in order to regress to the mean, an increase may be more directly supported by the simple fact that the month of February, with 91 products on the list, achieved another new high in the overall number of ETPs on the ETFG Liquidation Watch List

The breakdown of the February Liquidation Watch reveals that the list is dominated by Equity and Commodity ETPs with 39 and 28 respectively.  Additionally, there are 12 Fixed Income ETPs, 8 Currency ETPs and 4 Multi-Asset ETPs that round out the February report.  While equity products may dominate this month’s Liquidation Watch List in absolute numbers, the commodity ETPs certainly represent a far greater relative percentage of their respective asset class as there are multiple times the number of equity funds within the ETP universe than there are commodity products.

In looking more deeply at what has driven the behavior of the Liquidation Watch, a few interesting trends have emerged.  The number of eligible products who have been in existence for more than two years has increase slightly but remains in a fairly steady range in and around the 1,200 level.  With elevated asset levels and markets just off all-time highs in certain cases, the number of ETPs with less than $5 million in assets under management is actually one of the lowest levels that we have seen on the Liquidation Watch in several quarters.  Therefore, it is fairly clear to see that the growth in the number of products on the list is a direct result of the swelling of products with negative Trailing Twelve Month performance.  Interestingly, the number of ETPs with negative trailing twelve month performance has not only been elevated in recent months but also reached an all-time high this month with 621 ETPs.  To put this in perspective, this represents approximately 40% of the 1,539 ETP universe that we cover.

We will watch these trends closely as the year unfolds and see if these underlying trends in fact continue to come to fruition.  Thank you for reading ETFG Perspectives!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

2nd ETP Trading & Investing Forum

Congratulations to ETF Global who has been selected by co-producers The Expert Series & WealthManagement.com to facilitate the 2nd ETP Trading & Investing Symposium on April 8th  in New York City.  View Press Release

For those not in attendance at the inaugural event last September, this dynamic symposium brings together the most widely recognized experts in Exchange-Traded-Funds and features some of the brightest minds in Capital Management.  With its roots reaching back to research and academics, the ETP Trading & Investing Forum is a very different type of industry meeting.  These sessions provide for renowned speakers to address cutting edge topics within a vibrant and intimate learning atmosphere.  Sessions are capped for in-person attendance (200 on April 8th) while the Continuing Education qualified video content will be available both on Expert Series TV and WealthManagement.com.

The forum is comprised of two half day sessions with the morning session (8:00-12:00) addressing the Wealth Management audience and the afternoon session (1:00-5:00) addressing the Institutional audience.  Both sessions will be held on Tuesday, April 8th at the NYSSA conference center in Times Square (1540 Broadway).

For complete event details including the agenda, registrations and sponsorship, please visit www.expertseries.org  We look forward to seeing you there!

Congratulations to ETFG and have a great weekend! 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Recent Fund Flow Trends

Fund Flows can quickly cut to the chase by reflecting where the investment world is placing their bets on the future direction of the markets.  We always like to invoke that old saying “Just Follow the Money.”  Specifically, to and from where within the world of Exchange-Traded-Products has the capital been flowing recently?  Let’s start with the ETFG Fund Flows Summary for Equity ETPs over the last three months:

Geographic Region:
Region
November
December
January
Asia-Pacific
-11.10M
444.65M
-1.04B
Developed Markets
844.13M
384.95M
-562.62M
Emerging Markets
-237.59M
507.60M
-513.84M
Europe
409.97M
266.56M
-46.01M
Frontier Markets
924.59K
-2.81M
143.76K
Global
156.25M
-386.44M
-279.73M
Global Ex-U.S.
181.32M
252.94M
-23.17M
Latin America
56.92M
78.41M
45.44M
Middle East & Africa
1.16M
14.61M
-5.44M
North America
3.13B
-1.56B
5.03B

Probably the clearest trend here is the broad and massive outflows in the month of January from Asia-Pacific into North America.  This is echoed by the smaller but large relative sized outflows from Emerging Markets which has been well chronicled in recent publications.

Sector:
Sector
November
December
January
Basic Materials
58.16M
-136.09M
-110.41M
Consumer Discretionary
-45.23M
28.58M
-348.77M
Consumer Staples
1.90M
46.09M
-383.95M
Energy
-78.64M
-132.11M
39.72M
Financials
428.20M
-27.00M
307.00M
Health Care
-965.52M
94.88M
-636.81M
Industrials
134.11M
86.74M
158.40M
Natural Resources
4.93M
3.12M
-14.45M
Technology
212.84M
11.24M
525.47M
Telecommunications
4.01M
-15.79M
-27.37M
Utilities
926.57K
-334.69M
226.19M

Fund flows, while less pronounced within the Sectors, is most concentrated in coming out of Healthcare in November and January and consistently into Financials, Industrials and Technology.

Fund Flows for individual ETPs are available on the Fund Flows tab of each ETFG Tearsheet.  For a summary view of Fund Flows including the Top Inflows and Top Outflows for various time intervals, please see Fund Flows Summary

Thank you for reading ETFG Daily Perspectives.