Alternative ETFs

Gold Miner ETFs vs. Gold: Finding a Fair Ratio

September 23, 2012

Given the recent Fed action and immediate market rally in certain QE3 favored assets, it should come as no surprise that old is back en vogue.  The relationship between gold prices and gold miners should be quite clear – gold miners, which are levered to gold prices, should advance in excess of any move in […]

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Palladium ETF Shares Strong Link to Automakers, Worst of Metals in 2012

September 3, 2012

When ETFSecurities launched its ETFS Physical Palladium Fund (PALL), it set the ETF scene on fire. Even regulators worried that the ETF may corner the market for physical palladium, one of the most rare of the industrial metals. So far this year, Palladium has failed to keep pace with other well known metal funds. Here’s […]

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Water ETFs Hold Everything…Except Water

August 20, 2012

Like life insurance to a newly-wedded couple, water ETFs are supposedly the best investment in the world. Water is a scarce resource – some 780 million people go without clean water every day of the week.  Not a day goes by that we don’t read about water-borne illnesses in the developing world, drought conditions in […]

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Covered Call ETFs: Do the Returns Justify the Fees?

June 24, 2012

As volatility pushes higher and expected future returns decline, investors are turning to income strategies to generate better long-run returns. Covered calls are one such way to boost returns and reduce volatility. Covered Call ETFs There are only two American covered call ETFs: CBOE S&P 500 BuyWrite Index ETN (BWV) – The BuyWrite ETN tracks […]

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Is the Active Bear ETF A Perfect Hedging Fund?

June 17, 2012

John DelVecchio, manager of the Active Bear ETF, received a front page mention on the Wall Street Journal for his foresight to sell short Green Mountain Coffee Roasters just before the firm announced earnings that missed Wall Street estimates. The company lost nearly half its market cap in a single day. DelVecchio’s investors who own […]

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FRAK – An ETF for Fracking Stocks

June 3, 2012

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” may forever change the course of energy production in the United States. The energy boom is on – and it appears that there may be far more energy that can be brought to surface economically than anyone had ever thought. Thanks to technological improvement, natural gas can be recovered as far […]

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IndexIQ Multi-Strategy Tracker: A Hedge Fund for the Middle Class?

May 28, 2012

If you were to put a group of rocket scientists, academics, and researchers in a jail cell for 10 years with nothing but historical stock market data and a dry erase board, you’d come up with a fund company like IndexIQ. Its rather exotic funds are unique in the world of plain vanilla-indexing, and the […]

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Is the Permanent Portfolio ETF a Perfect Choice for the Long Term Investor?

May 6, 2012

Can you make a perfect, permanent portfolio out of four asset classes? One issuer, Global X, wants to do just that by turning Harry Brown’s 1980s permanent portfolio into the Permanent Portfolio ETF (PERM). Permanent Portfolio in Practice The permanent portfolio is made up of only four asset classes – gold, silver, equities, and US […]

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State Street Takes on Active ETFs with 3 New Funds

April 29, 2012

State Street Global Advisors, arguably the most influential player in the ETF space, announced the launch of three new actively-managed exchange-traded funds. Before the announcement, State Street sponsored only passive portfolio products. Actively-Managed SPDRs The actively-managed products rolled out this week are more than your average plain-vanilla ETF. The products are unique, touching on inflation […]

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