All Things ETF

By Rick Walter An ETF , like any other type of investment company, will have a prospectus. All investors that purchase Creation Units receive a prospectus. Some ETFs also deliver a prospectus to secondary market purchasers. ETFs that do not deliver a prospectus are required to give investors a document known as a Product Description, which summarizes key information about the ETF and explains how to obtain a prospectus. All ETFs will deliver a prospectus upon request. Before purchasing ETF shares, you should carefully read all of an ETF ’s available information , including its prospectus. The websites of the New York Stock Exchange , American Stock Exchange and NASDAQ provide more information about different types of ETFs and how they work. An ETF will have annual operating expenses and may also impose certain shareholders fees that are disclosed in the prospectus. Currently, all ETFs seek to achieve the same return as a particular market indexes . Such an ETF is similar t...

By Rick Walter Investors who want to sell their ETF shares have two options: (1) they can sell individual shares to other investors on the secondary market, or (2) they can sell the Creation Units back to the ETF. In addition, ETFs generally redeem Creation Units by giving investors the securities that comprise the portfolio instead of cash. So, for example, an ETF invested in the stocks contained in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) would give a redeeming shareholder the actual securities that constitute the DJIA instead of cash. Because of the limited redeemability of ETF shares, ETFs are not considered to be—and may not call themselves— mutual funds ."

By Rick Walter "Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs , are investment companies that are legally classified as open-end companies or Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) , but that differ from traditional open-end companies and UITs in the following respects: ETFs do not sell individual shares directly to investors and only issue their shares in large blocks (blocks of 50,000 shares, for example) that are known as " Creation Units ." Investors generally do not purchase Creation Units with cash. Instead, they buy Creation Units with a basket of securities that generally mirrors the ETF ’s portfolio. Those who purchase Creation Units are frequently institutions. After purchasing a Creation Unit, an investor often splits it up and sells the individual shares on a secondary market. This permits other investors (You) to purchase individual shares (instead of Creation Units). I have had limited success buying and selling ETFs earlier this year. Many of them are way-y-y down. Many ETFs a...

Coming soon, I will be blogging on Exchange Trade Funds, what they are and how they can help you, the tax benefits of buying and selling these types of funds, current performance, and the largest dealers in this relatively new market. I think I botched the last blog on the importance of having general liability and business overhead insurance . I think I will pick that topic up again. Somewhere, I lost the importance of the topic in the blog. I will give it another try shortly.