By Brandon Rakszawski, Senior ETF Product Manager, VanEck.
September was a strong month for the Morningstar Wide Moat Focus Index (Moat Index). It outperformed the S&P 500 Index by nearly two percent (3.79% vs. 1.87%, respectively), driven almost entirely by impressive stock selection.
VanEck has cross-listed nine Think ETFs onto SIX Swiss Exchange. The expansion into Switzerland follows VanEck’s acquisition of Netherlands-based ThinkCapital at the beginning of 2018. The funds, which maintain primary listings on Euronext Amsterdam, offer a mix of equity, fixed income, and real estate exposure.
Thematic strategies need to be underpinned by a sound understanding of the impact of long-term political, economic, and social trends if they are to be successful, according to Cerulli Associates. The research firm found that being able to distinguish between long-term secular trends and short-term hype is vital to success, as well as sufficient patience to let investment themes play out.
The ETF inspired by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has been overhauled, ditching oil producers and intensive energy users in favour of clean energy renewables. Toby Loftin, Managing Member of Boone Pickens Capital Fund Advisors, said, “For more than a decade, Boone has been an advocate of the importance of renewable energy’s role in an energy plan for America. We believe renewable energy demand will grow dramatically in the years ahead, and [the revamped fund] is a better way to invest in the theme.”
Tax efficiency has been a key selling point of ETFs, especially for tax-sensitive investors who prefer greater control over the timing and magnitude of capital gains bills. ETFs’ tax efficiency arises primarily from fewer and smaller capital gains distributions compared to mutual funds. In a bid to provide greater clarity around this benefit, investment research house Morningstar has released a new report which measures the tax efficiency of ETFs against both actively managed and index mutual funds.
By Holly Framsted, Head of US Factor ETFs within BlackRock’s ETF and Index Investment Group.
For good reason, dividend investing not only has become increasingly popular in recent years but also has become more efficient through the use of ETFs. With over 300 equity income-oriented mutual funds and ETFs available, identifying and investing in an appropriate dividend fund can be difficult and confusing for even the most sophisticated investor.
In a further bid to shake up the indexing space, Morningstar has introduced a comprehensive suite of fixed income indices that track the performance of all major global bond market asset classes. The indices, which have been designed for use as performance benchmarks or as bases for investable index products such as ETFs, cover Treasury, inflation-protected, government-related, corporate, securitized/covered, mortgage-backed, and asset-backed exposures. “We have constructed a comprehensive global family of bond indexes that represent discrete asset class exposures, without any gaps or overlap,” said Sanjay Arya, Head of Indexes at Morningstar.
The European ETF industry is expected to experience robust growth in the coming years, with assets hitting €2 trillion by 2024, spurred by favourable regulatory changes, innovation, and an increasing acknowledgement of the benefits of low-cost investing. That’s according to analysis from investment research firm Morningstar. Hortense Bioy, Director, Passive Strategies and Sustainability Research, Morningstar, commented, “The well-entrenched trend of investor preference for low-cost investment solutions continues to support our positive outlook for the European ETF industry.”
Investors saved approximately $5.5 billion during 2018 due to fee cuts in the US asset management industry, according to a report by investment research house Morningstar. Morningstar found that the asset-weighted average expense ratio of US open-end mutual funds and ETFs dropped by three basis points over the year, from 0.51% to 0.48%.
JP Morgan Asset Management has launched a new ETF in Europe with the expansion of its ‘BetaBuilders’ range – low-cost, passively managed ETFs marketed as portfolio building blocks. The JPM BetaBuilders US Equity UCITS ETF, which offers exposure to large- and mid-cap US equities, matches the cost of Europe’s lowest priced ETF with a TER of just 0.04%. Bryon Lake, Head of International ETFs at JP Morgan Asset Management, said, “We believe our US equity ETF offers investors and asset allocators more efficient access to US equities in what is an increasingly noisy market place.”