European ETF market is still well behind US. By the end of 2007 assets in European ETF bln vs US $581 bln. Nevertheless European assets grew by 43% last year. In terms of issues 423 vs 601. Even thought ETF is the fastest growing retail investment product ETF market makes up only 5% of mutual funds assets in US. In Europe the number is even smaller, around 2%.Equity based ETF are the most popular. In Europe it's about 80% of the market and in US 90%. Bonds are glamour ETF in Europe.Worldwide leading issuer is Barclays Global Investors (BSC), iShares. In US followed by State Street Global Advisors, Vanguard, Power Shares, ProShares and others. In Europe first position again for Barclays, then Lyxor and Deutsche Bank (DB) with rapidly growing db x-trackers.Ten top ETF...

Only 6% remains of S&P500 companies to post Q1 earnings. Actually earnings fell by -17,5% against estimated growth +5,7% (data provided by Thomson on 1st Jan 08). Huge "contribution" had financials sector. Compared to Q1 2007 financials posted $142 bln less and finished quarter in loss of $28 bln.Q1 started badly by General Electric (GE) which didn't provide bright outlook for other earnings. Nevertheless it wasn't so bad quarter. If two sectors (the best - energy; the worst - financials) are taken out earnings actually grew by 2,9%. That's not so far from optimistic January estimates.Estimation for Q2 2008 are currently set negative -5,4%.http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Credit market turmoils spread all over. I list major 4 major banking cases occurred in Europe due to subprime meltdown.The largest Swiss bank UBS (UBS) writedowns almost 33 bln CHF in last 2 quarters. Shareholders approved capital increase by 15 bln CHF. Already second capital hike after 13 bln CHF from two foreign sovereign wealth funds. Shares price YTD down by 33%.Credit Suisse (CS) faced first quarter losses in last 5 years (1Q 2008 with loss 2,15 bln CHF). For the same quarter in 2007 company made profit 2,7 bln CHF. From the beginning of year shares price fell down by 11% and market capitalization is now 62,6 bln CHF.Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) lost 5,9 bln GBP. In addition to subprime losses bank admits another bad investment decisions. Mainly acquisition of ABN Ambro ...

ETF and ETN are becoming more and more popular products for many investors. Sometimes it is used for investing before "real" stock trading. Both offer many advantages compare to mutual funds. Exchange traded funds or notes you can traded directly on exchange. It means you can buy or sell anytime for market price.ETF are still dominant with assets value $602 bln. ETN now accounts $6 bln but increasing rapidly during last year. We could see almost 200% growth in assets value from $2,1 bln to current $6 bln. ETF market grew by 26%.ETN market is not only Barclays' as it was still one year ago. Swedish Export Credit, Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and others now take around 20% of its value.Category allocation for ETF and ETNRelated tickers: (BCS), (EEH), (DB), ...