After months of talk, one of the most exciting launches yet in the exchange traded fund (ETF) business is set to happen today: Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) is now an ETF provider.

PIMCO is the leader in fixed-income management, so it’s fitting that their first offering  is the PIMCO 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index Fund (TUZ), which focuses on low-yielding short-term Treasuries. The launch is especially exciting, because it’s going to go head-to-head with the grandfather of Treasury ETFs, iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond (SHY).

PIMCO recognizes that competition is fierce, but they are also sensitive to the fact that current yields are close to historic lows. To lure those looking for a strong fixed-income brand name at a reasonable price, the fund will have a 0.09% expense ratio after waiving a portion of the fees for at least a

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I've gotten a few questions from readers and colleagues about what sources I turn to for information about the markets, exchange-traded funds and related topics.

The list is long and varied, and ebbs and flows over time. But here are some of the sources (public, private and otherwise) that I turn to in my day-to-day reading. I'm sure I'm leaving out quite a few sites, but this at least is a partial list.

NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

IndexUniverse.com and IndexUniverse.eu: It goes without saying that IndexUniverse.com and IndexUniverse.eu are the best sites on the Web for information about ETFs and how they are used in portfolios.

IndexUniverse.com

IndexUniverse.eu

Slate/The Big Money: Those two Web sites aside, I start my day at Slate.com, and its sister finance site The Big Money. I find the daily news summary (and weekly magazine summaries) the best meta-journalism on the Web. They offer

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Bonds Rally In Anticipation Of Friday's Jobs Report

Treasuries rallied on Thursday ahead of today's government report that a poll of economists predicts will show nearly 650,000 jobs lost in February. That would be the worst such Labor Department report in 60 years, according to the Reuters story. 

You can read it here. 

 

USO Now Controls Fifth Of Most Traded Oil Futures Contracts

In this Wall Street Journal piece, the growth of the U.S. Oil Fund (NYSE: USO) and its impact on trading in volatile energy markets is reviewed.

You can read the story here.

 

Sector Bets Can Be Risky

That's the theme of Ian Salisbury's latest column for Dow Jones Newswires. You can read the story here.

 

Indexing Wins In 2008

Sam Mamudi of MarketWatch notes that index funds beat their active rivals last year.

Tapping into Morningstar's database, he reports that the average actively managed mutual fund lost 40.5% and

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The Nitty Gritty Of ETFs

In his Getting Personal column, Dow Jones Newswires' Ian Salisbury points out that while exchange-traded funds tout a high level of transparency, getting key data on their underlying portfolios can be difficult.

"Fund companies have gotten a lot of marketing mileage out of this benefit. But while ETF portfolio details are easy to come by, critical information regarding the values of those stocks and bonds can be maddeningly scarce, particularly for small investors who may unwittingly accept disadvantageous prices," writes Salisbury.

You can read the full column here.

 

Volume Drops In Leveraged ETFs

With optimism building that more government bailout money is coming for the ailing economy, based on average daily volume figures for January, according to this report by TheStreet.com's Richard Widows. 

You can read it here.

 

ETNs Riskier Than They Look?

At the  Money And Markets blog, Ron Rowland explores exchange-traded notes and their underlying credit worthiness, among other things. 

You

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PowerShares boosts its leadership in active bond ETFs with two more to go with last April's entry.

PowerShares says it has filed to launch a pair of new actively managed exchange-traded funds focusing on non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities.

The two proposed funds are the Prime Non-Agency RMBS Opportunity Fund and the Alt-A Non-Agency RMBS Opportunity Fund.

The types of fixed-income both funds will hold come from non-subprime areas of the RMBS market. Credit requirements for prime loans are the most difficult to qualify for and Alt-A somewhat less.  

As non-agency loans, the ETFs will be investing in securities that won't qualify as collateral for securities that are issued by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. "We believe that various economic factors have converged to push the prices of many Prime and Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities well below their fundamental values,” said Bruce Bond, chief executive at PowerShares, in a statement on Wednesday. The new ETFs will no doubt benefit ...

 

 

'Trouble Brewing' At State Street?

Anyone expecting State Street Corp. to remain relatively unscathed by the ongoing global credit crisis might want to pay attention to the money manager's fourth-quarter earnings, notes the Wall Street Journal.

The parent of exchange-traded funds provider State Street Global Advisors is expected to report an earnings gain when it releases quarterly earnings on Tuesday. But the paper points to an early filing last week by State Street that signals multi-billion dollar losses in some of its most conservative money like investment funds, stable value funds and conduits of asset-backed commerical paper. 

You can read the story here.

 

Direxion White Hot

While introduction of new exchange-traded funds is hardly a hot topic these days, Direxion's entrance on the scene has drawn lots of attention.

Ian Salisbury takes a look at the fund family in a piece running in the Wall Street Journal . You can see

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Socially Responsible Investing's Growth

The latest word of so-called SRI funds moving into the exchange-traded funds market from Pax World leads Dow Jones Newswires' Ian Salisbury to recap the growth of such ETF products. 

You can read the story here.

 

Review of 2008 & Beyond

At Investor's Business Daily, reporter Trang Ho takes a look at the bigget winners and losers of 2008. But she also talks to advisors and strategists about which ETFs they're favoring in 2009.

You can read the story here.

 

Review Of December Returns

With a wide variety of ETFs producing strong returns in December, particularly real estate and gold, TheStreet.com's Sam Patel is warning of a mirage. 

He writes: "Such an eclectic group of funds signifies volatility across the board and suggests a lack of a sustainable trend. Investors unwilling and unable to take substantial risk should not play this market. They would be better served to wait until mid-2009 before making an assessment of

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Most ETFs Tax Efficient In 2008

Despite the huge distributions expected in some leveraged exchange-traded funds, most ETFs should wind up proving to be highly tax-efficient this year, concludes Ian Salisbury in the Wall Street Journal.

You can read the story here.

 

Arnott Talks Fundamental Indexing, Emerging Markets

Research Affiliates' Rob Arnott is the Q&A subject in Barron's this week. He discusses the importance of not chasing returns, sticking to your discipline and taking advantage of short-term dips in long-term favorite holdings.

Among those, Arnott is particularly high on prospects for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and emerging markets - both stocks and bonds. He also believes convertibles have been overly punished and might benefit over time by hedge funds selling off convertibles.

You can read the story here.

 

Losers: Die-Hard ETF Supporters

In his Lumps of Coal awards for the funds industry in

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The Basics Of Buying ETFs

With market volatility a clear-and-present danger heading into a new year, Ian Salisbury at Dow Jones Newswires offers some tips on how to buy exchange-traded funds.

He discusses looking at trading volume, indicative intraday values and ETF prices trading at discounts as well as premiums to their net asset values. You can read the article as it appears in the Wall Street Journal  here.

 

More Bad News For Mutual Funds

If you want to feast on more bad news for active fund investors, the WSJ offers a rehash of projections for mutual fund tax bills this year.

As most anyone who owned such an animal in 2000-2002 will recall, down markets present a double-whammy of sorts for investors in actively managed funds. That same scenario seems likely to play out this year with many large active funds projecting big distributions at year’s end. Such unwelcome

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Editor's Note: The following is a roundup of articles about ETFs, index funds and indexes by sources other than IndexUniverse.com. Comments and suggestions are welcome through email at: <!-- var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy31849 = 'mcoleman' + '@'; addy31849 = addy31849 + 'indexuniverse' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text31849 = 'mcoleman' + '@' + 'indexuniverse' + '.' + 'com'; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text31849 ); document.write( '' ); //-->mcoleman@indexuniverse.com <!-- document.write( '' ); //-->or <!-- var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy27500 = 'mhougan' + '@'; addy27500 = addy27500 + 'indexuniverse' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text27500 = 'mhougan' + '@' + 'indexuniverse' + '.' + 'com'; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text27500 ); document.write( '' ); //-->mhougan@indexuniverse.com.

 

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Bad Bets: Illiquid ETFs

Ian Salisbury of Dow Jones Newswires is one of the best fund reporters in the business. In his latest piece appearing

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