P&A Retirement Plan Services breaks the ETF barrier that has long existed inside employer sponsored retirement plans by announcing a program that finally allows participants of defined contribution plans to buy and sell ETFs like mutual funds, without the performance drag associated with other ETF offerings. "For plan sponsors and advisors who have been searching for a clean, easy to use ETF solution, this is the perfect answer. We are extremely excited to roll this out at a time when there is so much attention being paid to reducing plan level fees and expenses," said Sean Zent, Vice President of Retirement Plan Sales.
P&A Retirement Plan Services, part of the Buffalo, NY based P&A Group, is an open-architecture defined contribution recordkeeper and Third-Party Administrator, providing services to employer sponsored retirement plans.
ETFs have long been attractive to fee-based financial advisors due to their low costs, diverse selection and their ability to trade like stocks but until now, they have been administratively difficult to utilize in retirement plans. P&A401(k), P&A403(b) and P&A457, working with Mid Atlantic Trust Company's ETFxChange platform, offer advisors the opportunity to access over 800 ETFs that trade just like mutual funds. In fact, advisors can now utilize any combination of ETFs and mutual funds seamlessly in the same plan, including the ability to create model portfolios.
Related Information
Full Story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/PampA-Retirement-Plan-prnews-15279538.html?.v=1 P&A Retirement Plan Services Breaks the ETF Barrier
P&A Retirement Plan Services breaks the ETF barrier that has long existed inside employer sponsored retirement plans by announcing a program that finally allows participants of defined contribution plans to buy and sell ETFs like mutual funds, without the performance drag associated with other ETF offerings. "For plan sponsors and advisors who have been searching for a clean, easy to use ETF solution, this is the perfect answer. We are extremely excited to roll this out at a time when there is so much attention being paid to reducing plan level fees and expenses," said Sean Zent, Vice President of Retirement Plan Sales.
P&A Retirement Plan Services, part of the Buffalo, NY based P&A Group, is an open-architecture defined contribution recordkeeper and Third-Party Administrator, providing services to employer sponsored retirement plans.
ETFs have long been attractive to fee-based financial advisors due to their low costs, diverse selection and their ability to trade like stocks but until now, they have been administratively difficult to utilize in retirement plans. P&A401(k), P&A403(b) and P&A457, working with Mid Atlantic Trust Company's ETFxChange platform, offer advisors the opportunity to access over 800 ETFs that trade just like mutual funds. In fact, advisors can now utilize any combination of ETFs and mutual funds seamlessly in the same plan, including the ability to create model portfolios.
Related Information
Full Story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/PampA-Retirement-Plan-prnews-15279538.html?.v=1 iShares Files For Active Leveraged Currency ETF; the Shares will be listed on NYSE Arca under the symbol “ALT.”
Investment Objective; Strategies
The investment objective of the Trust will be to maximize absolute returns from its portfolio of foreign currency forward contracts and exchange-traded futures contracts that may involve commodities, currencies, interest rates and certain eligible stock or bond indices while seeking to reduce the risks and volatility inherent in those investments by taking long and short positions in historically correlated assets. The Trust also expects to earn interest on the assets used to collateralize its trading positions. The return on assets in the Portfolio, if any, will not be intended to track the performance of any index or other benchmark. There is no assurance that the Trust will achieve its investment objectives.
Forward Contracts
A forward contract is an agreement between two parties, one of which undertakes to purchase from or sell to the other, on a specified future date, a specified quantity of a specified asset at a specified location in exchange for a specified purchase price. At the discretion of the Advisor, the Trust may enter into foreign currency forward contracts. See “Business of the Trust—Investment Objective; Strategies—Forward Contracts.” Would I Rather Invest In China ETFs or U.S. ETFs?
"Warren Buffett recently said that American ingenuity will spark an impressive recovery here in the United States. And I remember that you used to discuss ETFs that might benefit from Mr. Buffett's investment allocation. But lately, you've been talking about large and small China ETFs, even China real estate ETFs. If you had to invest in one or the other, would you rather invest in China ETFs or U.S. ETFs?"
My first reaction was to defensively explain the value of diversifying. After all, I am not exclusively investing in foreign markets alone.
But if I had to chose? What if I had to chose only one country? That's a "Sophie's Choice" ultimatum for a U.S. citizen who has also lived in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In spite of all the knockdowns to the canvas, it's hard to dismiss the entrepreneurial spirit of American citizens. And I don't find myself sharing Jackie Chan's feelings about the benefits of restraining freedom. The U.S. may still boast more freedoms than anywhere on Planet Earth.
On the flip side, in the late 80s, with the 87 stock crash, the Savings and Loan blow-up, and the ensuing tax increases, I found myself gravitating towards Asia. Indeed, I even looked at the protests in Tianmen Square as a sign that China was clearly going to be the next great economic superpower. Stocks Rally On Building Data
Improved builder sentiment, Lowe's earnings re-start U.S. markets. Analyst Bove thinks bank could triple; .
Bank stocks jumped ahead of the market on Monday but you haven't missed the real rally yet, according to one well-known analyst. Richard Bove, of Rochdale Research, thinks bank stocks could triple from current levels as the industry, bolstered by government aid and flush with new capital, returns to basic lending practices in time for an economic rebound.
First quarter profits fell by nearly a quarter at Lowe's but investors cheered an improved forecast for the year. The second-largest home improvement chain in the U.S. earned 32 cents a share, down from 41 cents last year, while analysts had expected 25 cents. Lowe's shares gained $1.49, or 8.1%, to $19.94. New home construction figures are due out tomorrow
The SPDR KBW Bank ETF advanced $1.21, or 6.6%, to $19.51 on Monday.
Rising stocks sank the SPDR Gold Trust, an ETF that buys gold, by $1.19, or 1.3%, to $90.36.
Full Story: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/18/briefing-americas-closer-markets-equities-lowes.html Gold Trust ETF (GLD) Looking to Rally
Gold – it is the yellow precious metal once used as a primary form of currency for thousands of years. It is durable, liquid and almost indestructible. Historically, investors have fled unstable markets in search of reliable sources of value and stability, which can generally be achieved by investing in this precious metal. For those who want cost efficient access to the gold market, investing in the SPDR Gold Trust Exchange Traded Fund (GLD) is one of the easiest means of doing so. It is the world’s largest gold-backed ETF that offers risk takers a chance to profit by establishing a position in an investment vehicle that has somewhat of an inverse relationship to the equity markets.. Buy-and-Hold Investing – For Better or for Worse?
The recent bear market has rendered many investment strategies – like “buy and hold” – obsolete, while the latest 30% rally has rekindled the hope that investors may be able to buy-and-hold their way back to profits after all. Before you make a decision, here are a few must-know facts to consider.
Are you married to your buy-and-hold strategy? If so, you may want to consider a divorce (metaphorically speaking). From October 2007 to March 2009, many got to experience firsthand the “for worse” part of buy-and-hold investing. The Dow Jones (NYSEArca: DIA) lost 7.839 points or 54.90%.
Just before being snuffed out entirely, hope returned to Wall Street. Since the March lows, the Dow has rallied as much as 2.217 points. Patiently waiting for portfolios to recover all their losses has once again become a viable option. See sobering facts below:
Despite the recent rally, which lifted the Dow by as much as 34.43% and the S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SPY) by as much as 28.31%, there is a long road ahead to reach the break-even point. Based on Dow 8,200, the stock market would have to rally another 72% just to reach October 2007 levels.
Even at an optimistic 12% annual return, it would take nearly five years for the broad market to recover to previous bull market levels. Chances are that the Financial Select Sector SPDRs (NYSEArca: XLF) won’t even come close to their high watermark within the next 10-20 years. This may sound absurd, but we’ve seen what happened to tech stocks after the dot.com bubble.
After briefly poking above 5,000 in March 2000, the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: QQQQ) hasn’t even come within 2,000 points of its all-time high. When the S&P and Dow reached all-time highs in 2007, the Nasdaq still traded 44% below its lofty 2000 high. The same is true for the Technology Select Sector SPDRs (NYSEArca: XLK).
Full Story: http://www.etfguide.com/research/173/8/Buy-and-Hold-Investing-%E2%80%93-For-Better-or-for-Worse?/ US Financial Stocks Up After Bank Of America Upgrade (ETF: XLF, KBE, KRE)
A bullish research note from Goldman Sachs urging clients to buy Bank of America Corp. (BAC) shares with conviction boosted the Charlotte bank's stock 10% and helped the financial sector in general.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund (XLF) rose 40 cents, or 3.6%, to $11.94. The KBW Bank ETF (KBE) rose 96 cents, or 5.3%, to $19.26 while the KBW Regional Banking ETF (KRE) rose 80 cents, or 3.9%, to $21.36.
Full Story: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090518-708480.html How To Construct A Portfolio With ETFs
When you are constructing or re-organizing your portfolio, exchange traded funds (ETFs) are easy to use and offer much more than a traditional mutual fund. In general, individual investors are often ill-equipped to evaluate the prospective success of an actively managed fund, because of the lack of transparency in most mutual funds. Holdings are required to be disclosed only once a quarter, and by the time you receive these statements, the information could be out of date.
ETFs can be a valuable tool to individual investors when constructing a fully diversified portfolio. They offer relatively inexpensive access to areas of the market such as the various United States and international equity asset classes as well fixed-income investments, according to Investopedia.
Here are three areas ETFs can help in :
- Portfolio Construction
- Many Choices With ETF Asset Classes
- Time Horizon
- Trend Following
Don’t Let Dying ETFs Snare You
The popularity of exchange-traded funds has hardly wavered, even through the depths of the bear market. As a result, you can seemingly find a new fund anywhere you look. But in a sign of the times, some ETFs have decided to pull the plug after failing to attract a big following from investors.
A major provider of exchange-traded financial products, Invesco PowerShares, announced earlier this month that it would liquidate 19 of its ETFs.
As you can see, although the funds span across the spectrum of market sectors, none of the ETFs has a huge amount of assets under management. Although the 19 liquidating ETFs make up nearly one-seventh of the fund company's 135 ETF offerings, their combined assets add up to less than 1% of the amount that the company manages.
What's going on?
The closing of these funds isn't as bad as it sounds. Once a closing fund stops trading -- today is the last day for the 19 PowerShares funds -- the fund liquidates its assets, and shareholders eventually receive the value of their proportional share of those assets in cash. So while a shareholder may realize a gain or a loss -- along with any tax implications that go with it -- it's not as if investors lose everything just because the fund closes.
In fact, in many ways, it's heartening to see fund companies starting to pull the plug on some of their less successful funds. Like any other business, fund companies have to evaluate the potential market for a given ETF before they release it. With a significant amount of fixed costs involved in establishing and maintaining a fund, fund companies only earn significant profits once funds grow beyond a certain point.
Full Story: http://www.fool.com/investing/etf/2009/05/18/dont-let-dying-etfs-snare-you.aspx BlackRock, BNY Mellon Vie for World No. 1 Spot; in talks to buy Barclays Plc’s fund unit
BlackRock Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. are competing to become the world’s biggest money manager as stock markets show signs of recovery.
Each company is in talks to buy Barclays Plc’s fund unit, whose $1.5 trillion in client assets ranks highest in the industry, people familiar with the matter said last week. Each covets Barclays Global Investors’ exchanged-traded funds, quantitative index investments and securities-lending business, analysts said.
“This will change the landscape, whether Bank of New York or BlackRock gets it,” said Geoff Bobroff, president of Bobroff Consulting Inc., an East Greenwich, Rhode Island, firm that advises mutual-fund companies.
BGI, based in San Francisco, would vault BlackRock, the largest publicly traded money manager in the U.S., to $2.81 trillion in assets. BNY Mellon, the world’s biggest custody bank, would rise to $2.38 trillion, surpassing firms including Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group Inc. The New York-based companies would gain more customers outside of the U.S. and put pressure on their main rivals -- Pacific Investment Management Co. for BlackRock, and State Street Corp. for BNY Mellon -- to catch up.
Full Story: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aNPslfXDhBYE&refer=europe IndexIQ Adds Two Industry Veterans to Its Distribution Team
NEW YORK, May 18, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- IndexIQ, a leading developer of index-based alternative investment solutions, continues to build out its distribution team with the addition of Kevin D. DiSano and Andrew M. Cook, as Vice Presidents and regional directors, it was announced today.
Both DiSano and Cook are long-time industry veterans, with extensive experience in marketing alternative investment products. DiSano joins IndexIQ from Lazard Asset Management, where he was Senior Vice President in the Capital Advisory Group, responsible for marketing hedge funds, separately managed accounts, and other financial products to independent financial advisors, family offices, foundations and endowments, and other institutions. Before that, he was Vice President, Intermediary Sales at Man Investments. DiSano has more than 17 years of experience in the financial services industry, and will be responsible for overseeing IndexIQ's sales efforts in the Midwest region. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication, Psychology and Business from the University of Minnesota.
Cook brings more than 16 years of investment industry experience to IndexIQ.
Full Story: http://www.cnbc.com/id/30806624/site/14081545
ETF “PIN” Surges Because Of India’s Election Results!
It is rare that you see an election have this large of an impact, but the Indian stock market surged on the new election results. The Congress party won a decisive victory in India and this sent Indian stocks up 17% on average. The move was so large that the Bombay Stock Exchange had to close after already seeing one halt. This had a huge impact on the stocks, which you can see reflected in the share prices here in the high pre-market indications of the major ETF’s, closed-end funds, and active ADR’s.
Full Story: http://247wallst.com/2009/05/18/india-elction-winners-by-etf-shares-pin-epi-iif-ifn-inp-infy-ibn-redf-say-slt-ttm-wit/#more-34748 Global Gold Trends (ETF: GLD, IAU, GDX, DGL, DBP)
Stock Market Symmetry Scenario Gives S&P 500 Decline More Room to Run
Let's say that the symmetry exhibited by the March-May rally with the January-March decline continues into the future. What would the next leg of the S&P 500 look like?
Looking at the e-mini futures chart (which gives us a view ahead of Monday¹s open on the cash markets), if we decide to take the May high at 929.50 as the end of the upleg from the March low at 662.50 -- which is symmetrical with the January-March decline -- then the current weakness into the 880-878 area represents THE START of a much larger downleg that will mimic the inverse of the November-January price move from 735.25 to 939.50.
That would mean that the e-mini S&P 500 has embarked on a decline into the vicinity of 735 to achieve symmetry within a much larger developing pattern -- after which another massively powerful bull leg will emerge that will leave behind a much larger base pattern from where an extended period of very positive price action could (will) emerge.
If the e-mini S&P opens weaker on Sunday-Monday and sustains beneath the 20 DMA (now at 879.20), then the 'symmetry scenario' will begin to gain added significance in my work. ETF traders might want to keep an eye on the ProShares Ultrashort SPY (NYSE: SDS).
Full Story: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article10712.html The “Silent Rally” In Gold
It was a typical options expiration week with markets showing a lassitude that normally accompanies this event. Trading volume was relatively low and action was lacking for the most part across the board as traders seemed to be on a mental vacation this week.
The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) was up for the week to finish at 91.55. This is our main proxy for the gold price and we have a trading position in GLD after we got a buy signal back in April when GLD broke out above the dominant immediate-term 15-day moving average.
The gain in GLD in recent days has been very gradual but steady and reflects the building of buying interest in gold as a “safe haven” as fears linger over the sustainability of the huge equity market gains since March. Institutional interest has seen gold and the gold ETFs turn into temporary vehicles to park gains from profitable equity trades during broad market corrections.
How much of gold’s rally is a function of future inflation expectations? That’s difficult to assess and we’re still too early in the financial recovery process to be able to answer this. The consensus among financial pundits is that gold is a “sure shot” to take off from here and eventually reach $1,000/oz. based on the multi-trillion dollar stimulus package. Some commentators are calling for even more liberal upside targets. It’s a common assumption that the stimulus will inflate commodities and spark another round of global inflation for hard assets. I would caution that this is far from a foregone conclusion, however.
The closest parallel, in purely financial terms, to what we’re seeing this year is the financial market recovery of 1975. That followed a severe pounding in equity prices that began in January 1973 and continued until the Kress 10-year and 40-year cycles bottomed in October 1974. Following this the Dow gained 100% off its’74 low and continued to rally into 1976. As we discussed in a recent report, the 10-year cycle low in 1974 coincided with the 6-year cycle peak in 1975 to form a bullish cyclical pattern that allowed share prices to rally vigorously for the single best percentage gain of our lifetime.
This year there is a somewhat similar cyclical pattern with the Kress 6-year cycle having bottomed last fall and is now ascending while the 10-year cycle is peaking. This is the reverse of what happened in 1975 but still the two key yearly cycles are in a bullish configuration, which partly explains the sizable gains that have already been made in equities this year.
So how did the gold price fare in 1975? After a parabolic type uptrend from 1971 through the early part of 1975, the yellow metal began a downtrend that lasted until the later part of 1976.
Full Story: http://news.goldseek.com/ClifDroke/1242583200.php
