Exchange-traded notes are like the forgotten stepchildren of the ETF industry: unloved and overlooked. Investors (particularly taxable investors) are missing out.

According to the National Stock Exchange, U.S. ETNs had $6.9 billion in assets at the end of September. ETFs were literally 100 times more prevalent, with $697 billion in assets. That included $62 billion just in long commodity ETFs.

That’s just crazy. And it highlights investors’ irrational fear of the ETN product structure.

I remember when ETNs first came to market in 2006: Investors couldn’t get enough of them. Barclays Capital launched the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index ETN (NYSEArca: DJP) and it quickly gathered assets.

The reason was simple: ETNs offered two huge advantages over commodity ETFs.

First, they promised perfect tracking. If you bought an ETN, you would receive the full return of the benchmark, minus the fund’s expenses. Period. That’s handy, since commodity ETFs have been more prone to tracking error

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Except for Japan, the growth in ETF assets is looking a little stale compared to the rest of the world. But on the plus side, U.S. investors still enjoy some of the best bargains to be found.

At least that’s what a new Barclays Global Investors study reveals. The research team led by Deborah Fuhr found that total U.S. assets in the ETF market hit an all-time high of $582 billion at the end of the second quarter, its highest mark since December 2007.

Interestingly, however, the number of U.S. ETFs, pegged at 706 from some 22 providers on three exchanges, is smaller than its European counterparts, which account for 753 ETFs for assets estimated at $183 billion.

According to Barclays, U.S. ETF assets have risen by more than 17 percent on the year – which is more than the 10 percent rise seen in the MSCI U.S. Index in dollar terms in

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Today, Clenergen Corporation announced that it will acquire 100% controlling interest of UK-based Clenergen Corporation Limited, intending to establish the corporation as a global leader of Biomass Power Generation Companies.

CCL currently retains 100% controlling interest in Clenergen India Private Limited, a subsidiary company based in Chennai, designed to implement a 80MW per hour Biomass Power Plant. Recently, Clenergen India signed a 15 year Power Purchase Agreement with the Power Trading Corporation of India Limited, valued at $87,000,000 per year. The company has secured leases on 4000 acres of land in Tamilnadu and is in the process of obtaining land leases from the Government of Karnataka to cultivate 25,000 acres for the production of biomass from bamboo cultivation. Clenergen India is projected to float on the National Stock Exchange in India in December 2009 and intends to have engaged Ernst and Young to raise its debt and private equity requirements.

In

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There has been a lot of chatter lately—since John Bogle dropped his "investors are getting fleeced in ETFs" bomb two weeks ago—that the average Joe just isn't going to do very well in ETFs because he'll be getting in when he should get out, and vice versa.

Well, let's see how the "average" ETF investor did in the month of June. We don't have numbers on how asset flows changed during the last 30 days yet, although our friends at the National Stock Exchange are sure to get us that soon. But what we do know is the bets investors, as a mass of men and women leading lives of quiet desperation, made at the beginning of the month.

As a refresher, here were the assets of leading ETFs at the end of May (in billions of dollars):

 

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I spent part of this morning sorting through the May fund flow numbers to see if any new patterns showed up in terms of where investors were putting their new money to work.

You can access the full report here. The data is from the National Stock Exchange.

There’s a lot of interesting information in the latest report, including a complete table showing assets and inflows by ETF provider. Of all the data points covered, however, one in particular caught my eye.

So far this year, the Direxion Financial Bear 3x ETF (NYSE: FAZ) has attracted the second-greatest inflow of any ETF on the market, at $4.6 billion. Only the SPDR Equity Gold (NYSE: GLD) has done better, pulling in $11.8 billion.

Despite the massive inflows, FAZ ended May with just $1.6 billion in assets. Such a gap suggests that investors in the fund have experienced terrible returns.

And they have.

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Reports surfaced Sunday in London that the biggest U.S.-based index mutual fund company is tossing its hat into the ring to purchase the leading sponsor of exchange-traded funds.

The Sunday Telegraph is reporting that the Vanguard Group, which virtually created the modern indexing marketplace for individual investors, has made a bid in the neighborhood of $5 billion to buy Barclays Global Investors’ iShares business.

The combination would create an ETF industry juggernaut with some $311.9 billion in total assets. Such a figure is based on estimated ETF asset levels for both Vanguard and BGI’s iShares lineup at the end of April. It would easily bolt Vanguard, now No. 3, past current No. 2 State Street Global Advisors.

Perhaps more importantly, such a huge combined war chest would represent more than half of the U.S. ETF market’s total asset level of $535.3 billion, according

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Investors pulled nearly $6 billion out of exchange-traded funds in February, the first time ETF fund flows have been negative in nearly a year.

 

Investors pulled nearly $6 billion out of exchange-traded funds in February, the first time ETF fund flows have been negative in nearly a year.

The new data, compiled by the National Stock Exchange and published on Wednesday, reversed the strong trend seen in January 2009 and December 2008. That's when investors poured more than $80 billion into ETFs.

 

Month

ETF Fund Flows

Feb-09

(5,794)

Jan-09

41,989

Dec-08

42,841

Nov-08

26,375

Oct-08

7,303

Sep-08

57,662

Aug-08

11,336

Jul-08

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It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing.

 

Net cash flow into exchange-traded funds in November blew away October levels, with more than $26.3 billion coming into ETFs, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.

In October, during the worst of the investor panic, net cash flow into ETFs was only $7.3 billion. There were 271 ETFs and 26 exchange-traded notes with net outflows in October, and 179 ETFs and 16 ETNs with outflows in November.

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing. While the iShares, SPDRs, Vanguard and ProShares had their usual big flows, most notable was the arrival of Direxion Funds as a serious competitor, which took in $511 million in net new cash in November.

Though ProShares itself did not slow down while its new competitor made its face known to the ETF world. ProShares took in $4.6

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November wasn't so bad for some of the biggest ETFs.

 

The picture was relatively bright for the performance of the ten-largest exchange-traded funds in November. After the two-month market rout of September and October, even among volatile conditions, seven of the 10 largest ETFs had positive performance in November, according to Morningstar data through Nov. 26. At end of day Friday, the S&P had posted its best week since 1974, so the numbers should improve even a little more once the last day of the month is added, at least for the majority of equit yportfolios among the Top Ten.

Leading the way among equity ETFs was the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (NYSE Arca: EEM), up 12.70% for the month.The Thanksgiving week was also kind to EEM, when the ETF surged 10.24%, through Wednesday the 26th. 

The best performer overall was the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE Arca: GLD) up

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ETFs using fundamental rankings to weigth portfolios will cut expense ratios to 0.39% per year on Nov. 1. 

 

PowerShares announced late Friday that it plans to slash expense ratios on its 11 exchange-traded funds that use Research Affiliates' fundamental indexing approach.

The ETFs now have expense ratios capped at 0.60%, according to a PowerShares spokesman. Those fees will be reduced to a uniform 0.39% on Nov. 1.

The moves come after similar moves by a range of ETF providers this year, including the Vanguard Group and XShares Advisors with its consolidated line-up of HealthShares funds. The price cuts also come as total assets in ETFs continue to grow -- in September, those levels reached $587.8 billion, up from last September's $562.6 billion, according to data from the National Stock Exchange. (See story here.)

But consolidation is showing up in the industry. With that comes pressure on smaller providers. A general rule-of-thumb used by industry

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