Fidelity says it's not interested in expanding more into ETFs.

Fidelity Investments already has its toe into the exchange-traded funds market. Apparently, that's about as far as it's willing to go, at least for now.

The president of the Boston-based mutual funds giant, known for its star manager system, let it be known last week that he was seeking a replacement. In the course of giving interviews to papers and news wires, the executive -- Rodger Lawson -- also made it clear that the firm was never interested in ETF's dominant player, Barclays Global Investors, when it was put on the market.

That led Sue Asci of InvestmentNews to ask Fidelity representative directly if the company wasn't going to pursue expanding its ETF presence. “We have no current plans to expand proprietary ETFs,” Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio told the magazine. (You can read the full story here.)

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For more than a decade, author and academic Dr. Jeremy Siegel had the Midas touch.  His book “Stocks For the Long Run,” first published in October 1996, surveyed more than 200 years of stock market history both in the United States and abroad and made a compelling case that common stocks are the very best long-term investment vehicle. Better than cash. Better than bonds. Better than real estate. Better than gold.

In the roaring bull market of the 90s - and since - his book was required reading. Millions of investors were strongly influenced by his research.

In the process, Siegel became a celebrity, appearing regularly on network and cable investment shows. He is also now an advisor to WisdomTree Investments, a sponsor of exchange-traded funds.

But while history once buttressed Siegel’s grand conclusions, current events haven’t been so kind…

More specifically, as of June 30, U.S. stocks have underperformed long-term Treasury bonds over

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Dr. Jeremy Siegel: Are Stocks Still The Best Long-Term Investment Vehicle?

by Alexander Green, Advisory Panelist

For more than a decade, author and academic Dr. Jeremy Siegel had the Midas touch.

His book “Stocks For the Long Run,” first published in October 1996, surveyed more than 200 years of stock market history both in the United States and abroad and made a compelling case that common stocks are the very best long-term investment vehicle. Better than cash. Better than bonds. Better than real estate. Better than gold.

In the roaring bull market of the 90s - and since - his book was required reading. Millions of investors were strongly influenced by his research.

In the process, Siegel became a celebrity, appearing regularly on network and cable investment shows. He is also now an advisor to WisdomTree Investments, a sponsor of exchange-traded funds.

But while history once buttressed Siegel’s grand conclusions, current

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WisdomTree changing pair of dividend-focused ETFs to exclude Financial stocks. 

 

WisdomTree Investments is changing the investment strategy of two of its dividend-focused exchange-traded funds so that they exclude exposure to the Financials sector.

Beginning in late April, the WisdomTree Dividend Top 100 (NYSE Arca: DTN) will be renamed the WisdomTree Dividend ex-Financials Fund; its international counterpart, the WisdomTree International Dividend Top 100 (NYSE Arca: DOO), will be renamed the WisdomTree International Dividend Ex-Financials Fund.

The funds will become the first dividend-focused ETFs to exclude Financials.

"There are quite a few dividend-focused ETFs on the market today, many of which have significant exposure to Financials," said Luciano Siracusano, director of sales for WisdomTree. "We wanted to provide clients with a choice, to give them the option to get yield without getting exposure to Financials."

The Financials sector tends to be one of the higher-yielding sectors in the market, and dividend-focused ETFs

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Known for its focus on valuation figures to weight portfolios, the ETF provider is shifting gears by launching a new large-cap growth fund.

Since first jumping into the exchange-traded funds market two-plus years ago with 20 dividend-weighted exchange-traded funds, WisdomTree Investments has firmly been cast as a value-styled management shop.

That focus on weighting index-based ETF portfolios on business fundamentals -- rather than traditional  market-cap size figures -- hasn't changed. But the New York-based firm launched Thursday an ETF focused squarely on large-cap growth stocks.  

By itself, that wouldn't seem to be a major introduction. Diversified large-cap growth funds, after all, aren't exactly out of the ordinary.

But two items stand to separate the WisdomTree LargeCap Growth ETF (NYSEArca: ROI) from the pack.

For one, the new fund focuses on corporate earnings, otherwise known as net income or profit, to weight stocks in its portfolio. That's different from rivals such as

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State Street Global Advisors' SDPRs offer the only two Japanese equity ETFs based on this index series. The annual rebalancing of the Russell/Nomura Japanese stock indexes just concluded, resulting in more than 30% turnover rates for each series in the benchmarking family. The Russell/Nomura Total Value Index had 212 deletions and 176 additions, while the Russell/Nomura Total Growth Index had 270 deletions and 136 additions. Those changes represented capitalization turnover ratios of 30.9% for value, and 33.3% for growth, among the highest-ever index rebalancing for the Russell Investments and Nomura Securities' Japanese equity benchmarks since their launch in 1981. There are Japanese stock exchange-traded funds from Barclays Global Investors' iShares family, Northern Trust's NETS and from WisdomTree Investments. However, State Street Global Advisors' SDPRs offers the only two Japanese equity ETFs based on this index series: the SPDR Russell/Nomura PRIME Japan ETF (NYSE Arca: JPP) and the Russell/Nomura Small Cap Japan ETF (NYSE Arca: JSC). JPP ...

NYSE exec provides update on everything from AMEX's 'black box' technologies for more actively managed ETFs to progress on merging platforms.

 

Earlier this month, NYSE Euronext completed its acquisition of the American Stock Exchange. With the addition of AMEX's 416 ETF listings and 13 ETNs, the exchange-traded product listings at NYSE Euronext now number 680, excluding overseas ETFs, and a total of $595 billion in exchange-traded product assets.

IU.com's Eric Rosenbaum recently spoke with NYSE Euronext Senior Vice President Lisa Dallmer about the specific benefits of the completed acquisition for the ETF industry, and the current outlook for ETFs given the tough markets. 

 

IndexUniverse (IU): With the Amex deal completed, what are the major benefits to the NYSE as a competitor for ETF listings and ETF servicing business, beyond the bragging rights that are always a part of the battle among exchanges for market share?

Lisa Dallmer (Dallmer): At the broadest

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