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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The full transcript of John Bogle’s recent webinar examining exchange-traded funds and the outlook for America’s investors.

 

As part of the festivities surrounding the 2009 Journal of Indexes editorial board meeting, IndexUniverse.com hosted a live webinar with Vanguard founder and index industry legend John Bogle.

During the one-hour presentation, Mr. Bogle unveiled new research regarding how successful (or not) investors are when trading exchange-traded funds, and took a big picture look at the state of American finance.

Moderated by JoI editor and IndexUniverse.com publisher Jim Wiandt, the webinar features an extensive audience Q&A session. A full transcript follows below.

Jim Wiandt, editor, Journal of Indexes (Wiandt): Good morning everyone, and welcome to a very special event that we have here today. We are actually at the NASDAQ market site and we have the Journal of Indexes editorial board meeting today.

We have

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There you go again, Jim, with that same ole 'gold bug' stuff again. 

But before I get to that, let me poke away at your thoughts that buying the yuan is a “no-brainer.” 

It’s a no-brainer in that eventually the yuan will be revalued against the U.S. dollar. But it’s hardly anything like a no-brainer for an investor facing the opportunity cost of locking up assets in a security that might not move at all for years.

While I totally agree with you on the direction of the yuan/dollar trade, I don’t have any idea on the time frame or the magnitude of that move. Where would a free-floating yuan trade against the dollar? And when will it go there?

The only honest answer to those questions is twofold: “higher” and “eventually.” 

But that doesn’t mean the yuan's a good buy. It could be

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Think building an exchange-traded funds portfolio is complicated? It turns out you could do a lot worse than just buying the 10 biggest ETFs.

Sounds too easy, right? But take a look. Using data as of March 31, the 10 largest ETFs by assets were:

 

Top 10 ETFs By Assets Fund

Ticker

Assets

SPDR Index 500 SPY $57,952 SPDR Equity Gold GLD $33,500 iShares MSCI-EAFE EFA $24,099 iShares MSCI-Emerging Markets EEM $21,266 iShares S&P 500 IVV $14,743 PowerShares QQQ QQQQ $12,339 iShares Barclays TIPS TIP $11,588 iShares Barclays Aggregate AGG $9,740 iShares iBoxx Corp Bond LQD $9,395 iShares Russell 1000 Growth IWF $8,426 Source: NSX. Data as of 3/31/09. Assets are in $US millions.

 

If you took an equal position in

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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 news reversed the strong trend seen in January 2009 and December 2008, 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

13,986

Jun-08

9,350

May-08

2,947

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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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September was a disaster for the stock market in general, but not necessarily ETFs.

Exchange-traded funds continued to grow in prominence as part of the overall U.S. equities market in September, reaching 35% of all trading, up from the previous record-level of 31%, just reached in August, according to National Stock Exchange data. The biggest part of that trading story has been State Street Global Advisors' SPDRs family of ETFs, which for the month of September represented approximately 50% of all ETF trading volume, with close to $1.4 trillion of the nearly $2.8 trillion in ETF trading volume. Year-to-date, the SPDRs also represent approximately 50% of ETF trading volume ($8.8 trillion), with Barclays Global Investors' iShares family a distant-second at $3.75 trillion.

But in a month of massive market turmoil, the news was not all good for ETFs. The iShares lost ground

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List below shows the biggest five ETFs traded on US stock exchanges in terms of total assets. For the full report of ETFs and assets held please visit my related post. ETF ticker assets mil $ SPDR Index 500 SPY $79,105 iShares MSCI-EAFE EFA $38,624 iShares MSCI-Em. Mkts EEM $20,306 ...

The table presented above compares and contrasts the two healthcare ETFs, based on Yahoo! Finance statistics as of the market close on July, 2, 2008.

Despite concerns over the health of the domestic economy along with surging food and energy prices, the healthcare sector has failed to garner investor interest as a safe haven. Most healthcare exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and drug stocks continue to languish near multi-year lows, despite an aging Baby Boomer population and ever-increasing proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) accounted for by healthcare spending. Last year, total health expenses grew at twice the inflation rate (6.9%), accounting for 16% of the GDP at $2.3 trillion. This growth rate is expected to continue over the next decade to a level of $4.2 trillion in 2016, accounting for 20% of the GDP, based on statistics provided by the National Coalition for …

At the end of April I informed you about new ETF focused on emerging stock markets in Central and Eastern Europe. iShares released MSCI Eastern Europe (IEER.L). ETF is listed on London Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana, Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Paris, Xetra Frankfurt and SWX Swiss exchange.After SPDR S&P Emerging Europe (GUR) and Central Europe & Russia Fund CEF (CEE) it's third fund with exposure on CEE markets.As you can energy sector dominates followed by financial. Both make up more that half of ETF structure.ETF constituents: Lukoil (LUKOY) 9,8%, Gazprom (OGZPY) 9,3%, Surgutneftegaz (SGTZY) 5,6%, Unified Energy System (USERY) 5%, MMC Norilsk Nickel (NILSY) 4,9%, OTP Bank (OTPGF) 4,5%, CEZ 4,2 %.http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml