What Are ETFs?
June 27th, 2009
Learn penny stock trading. Ever thought of trading ETFs? ETFs stand for Exchange Traded Funds. ETFs represent an ownership stake in a basket of underlying assets or securities. This basket can represent a specific index like the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100. It could be a segment of market like the small cap, large growth stocks. It can also be a sector like semiconductor, energy, travel. There are even ETFs on foreign currencies like Euro, Yen, and USD.
Join sector hunter service.The value of the ETF is determined by the underlying securities. It can also comprise of bonds, gold, silver or other commodities. So you may be thinking this sound like investing in a mutual fund. Discover a revolutionary new forex robot.
ETFs are different from the Mutual Funds in a number of ways. ETFs can be brought and sold throughout the trading day like ordinary stocks. The unit price of ETF changes instantaneously unlike the Mutual Funds that are priced at the end of the trading day.
There is no minimum for ETF purchases. ETFs can be traded using the market, limit and stop loss orders. ETFs can be shorted, traded with a margin account and many trade options. So ETFs offer the diversification advantages of mutual funds and the flexibility of stocks.
One of the main advantages of ETFs is that they offer diversification. Suppose you have a bullish opinion on the oil sector. You will have to analyze dozens of companies in the oil sector and spend hours to select the one that you think is the strongest.
ETFs provide you the benefit of diversification in the same way that mutual funds do to the small retail investors. Instead of investing in a few stocks you can now invest in a particular sector just like investing in a mutual fund. You could choose the Oil Sector ETF that would give you the advantage of mimicking some oil sector index.
The key advantage that ETFs hold over mutual funds is that they can be sold or bought at anytime of the day. ETF prices keep on changing in relation to the underlying assets. However, mutual funds are priced only once at the end of each trading day.
A mutual fund charges management fees and can also charge upfront, backend or other sales loads. Expense ratios for ETFs on average are not more than 0.4%. Another main advantage of ETFs over mutual funds is the fees charged by each. ETF expenses are low because they are passively managed and generally follow an established index.
Currency trading has become extremely popular among the institutional investors, big companies and hedge funds. Foreign currency trading is not just for gamblers or commodity traders.
Foreign currency has become a respected asset classification and is so hot that now you can trade Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on currencies. As with any other product there are advantages and disadvantages of trading ETFs.