Direct from Schwab's New York ETF launch event, Matt Hougan and Dave Nadig discuss the "free-to-trade" ETF concept.

Matt Hougan and Dave Nadig debate the pros and cons of exchange-traded notes, examining their tax treatment, issuer credit risk and the dearth of new products.

 

A new ETF giving access to Chinese A shares is to be launched in Singapore next month.

The United FTSE Xinhua China A50 ETF, to be offered by the asset management subsidiary of United Overseas Bank (UOB), will be the first China A-shares fund to be denominated and traded in Singapore dollars.

Chinese A shares are denominated and traded in Chinese yuan and listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Historically, access to the A-shares market in China has been limited to Chinese nationals and qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The FTSE Xinhua China A50 Index is designed to measure the performance of the 50 largest China A-shares companies, based on market capitalization.

ETFs tracking A shares are already dominant in the Asian market. The Hong Kong-listed iShares Asia Trust, which also tracks the FTSE Xinhua A50 Index, is the largest Asian ETF, with $6.7

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Unique expiring funds would track recently launched S&P indexes.

 

Recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that Barclays Global Investors (soon to come under ownership by BlackRock) is looking to launch a family of municipal bond exchange-traded funds targeting certain maturity dates.

Each fund would hold the underlying securities from its respective index to full maturity, at which point the fund would simply retain a cash position. When the last holding of each fund reaches maturity, presumably on or about Aug. 31 of the targeted year, the fund’s assets will be distributed to shareholders, much like the underlying bonds themselves.

The funds would track indexes in the recently launched S&P AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index Series. The indexes target investment-grade muni bonds that mature between June 1 and Aug. 31 of a specific year. Eight individual indexes cover the years 2012 through 2019, though the fund filings so far only

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Leading academics and index experts examine how investors should handle the falling dollar.

 

The Death Of The Dollar?, the November/December 2009 issue of the Journal Of Indexes, focuses on currency and related strategies, with contributions from Invesco PowerShares' Bruce Bond, the International Securities Exchange's Steve Meizinger and Marc Chandler and Jeffrey McCarthy of Brown Brothers Harriman, not to mention a currency primer by Index Publications' own Dave Nadig, Matt Hougan and Lara Crigger.

Other articles in the publication include a look at how EMH weathered the financial crisis of 2008 by David Blitzer, the first installment of a three-part series on improving fund evaluation techniques by Gary Gastineau and a study from David Blanchett on how to figure out the "passive" portion of an actively managed portfolio. And let's not forget the ETF crossword puzzle on the back page!

You can view the entire issue

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Is currency truly an asset class? On the back of their recent Journal of Indexes article, Dave Nadig and Lara Crigger explore the numbers.

Target date ETF families are wildly different and seemingly unpredictable. So why do both Matt Hougan and Dave Nadig use them?

MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe highlights the new AdvisorShares Dent Tactical ETF (NYSEArca: DENT) as his "stupid investment of the week." Jaffe reviews portfolio manager Harry Dent's track record and finds it lacking.

Read the full column here.

 

 

 

Some people never fail to surprise you.

John Prestbo, editor of Dow Jones Indexes and the original founder of the Journal of Indexes, presents investors with a novel sector rotation strategy today in a new column on MarketWatch. Arguing that the current economic recovery could be muted, he suggests that one way for investors to potentially beat the market is to buy equal portions of each sector of the market and rebalance at the beginning of the year.

You can read John Prestbo's full column here.

 

 

Investors are increasingly favoring bonds over stocks, according to a new article from Sam Mamudi in the Wall Street Journal. The old adage that long-term investors should pile into equities is fading from view.

In addition, Mamudi says, many investors now want to incorporate alternative assets such as commodities into their portfolios.

"The whole 60-40 idea is almost like Betamax videotapes; it's now passe," says Andrew Silverberg, co-manager of Alger Balanced Fund, in the article. "It gained popularity while we were still in a bull market ... [Asset allocation should be] more dynamic."

Read the full article here.