4 Companies You Can Own That Operate Your Favorite ETFs

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), Schwab U.S Broad Market ETF (SCHB), State Street Corporation (STT), Invesco (IVZ), Wisdom Tree (WETF), BlackRock (BLK), ETF investing, ETF's, benefits of etfs,

But first, maybe you are wondering what an ETF operator does and how do they make money?

Plan and simply an ETF operator sponsors and runs an exchange traded fund. ETF's are either managed or unmanaged. Managed would mean someone is actually deciding which investments to hold in the ETF in order to gain the highest return. Unmanaged ETF's are ones that simply track a corresponding index; such is the case with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) which tracks S&P 500.

An ETF operator makes its money by charging a fee to manage the ETF. These fees are usually displayed as a percentage. These fees or the annual expense ratio, as it is often called, can range in amounts from as little as 0.04% which is the case with the Schwab U.S Broad Market ETF (SCHB), up to more than 3% with some of the exotic funds. Managed funds always carry a higher expense ratio as they require daily monitoring by the managers. Whereas with unmanaged funds a manager only has to make changes when the index the fund tracks changes, which is not usually very often. Think of it this way, managed means constant attention baby-sitting while unmanaged means no to little baby-sitting and the more baby-sitting, the higher the price.

So now that we know how they operate and were the revenue comes from let's take a look at a few ETF operators. Continue reading "4 Companies You Can Own That Operate Your Favorite ETFs"

3 ETF's To Buy If You Believe Oil Is Heading Higher

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


In August of 2014 West Texas Intermediate Crude was trading around the $98 range. That was lower than the $105 range it traded in during June of 2014. Today it is trading below $40 a barrel and as oil continues to fall to new multi-year lows, some investors are wondering when the commodity will stop declining and begin once again moving higher. I recently published a piece pointing out a few ways investors can profit from oil continuing to decline. But, if you are like me, believing that the price of oil will eventually move higher from today's levels there are a few different ETF's you can buy to play a move higher in oil.

But first, let's discuss why I believe oil will move higher, sooner rather than later. Currently, West Texas Intermediate crude is trading below $40 a barrel and at that price most, of the oil producers are losing money. The average cost per barrel in the Canadian Oil Sands is somewhere in-between $50-$100 a barrel. In the North Dakota Bakken Shale, the average is around $40-$70 while in Texas it is somewhere around $40-$80 a barrel. In all of North America, only Alaska has a cost per barrel below $40. Continue reading "3 ETF's To Buy If You Believe Oil Is Heading Higher"

3 ETF's To Buy If You Think Oil Will Continue To Decline

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


Oil hit a six-and-half-year low on Wednesday after inventories numbers came in much higher than Wall Street analysts and investors were expecting. While many arguments can be made for why oil will continue to decline or rise in the coming months, the reality is, we just don’t know what is going to happen.

But regardless of how you fell the commodity will perform in the coming months; there is no shortage of ways to make money in the oil market. You could go long or short the commodity itself, go long or short exploration and production giants like Exxon Mobile (XOM) or Chevron (CVX), make a play with smaller oil and gas producers, invest in oil and gas MLP's, the pipelines company's, or even just the equipment suppliers.

In most of these instances though, you will be stuck cherry picking individual company's and trying to figure out which ones are best positioned to benefit from higher oil prices or attempting to determine which ones will be hurt the greatest if oil prices continue to decline. But one way to make this process easier, is to simply buy an ETF that bundles a number of those companies together and either takes a bullish or bearish position on them.

And since oil has recently been falling, let's take a look at a few ETF's that are built to help make you money from declining oil prices. Continue reading "3 ETF's To Buy If You Think Oil Will Continue To Decline"

3 ETF's That Focus on Share Buybacks

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


Some investors love large dividends. Some like to see strong revenue growth quarter over quarter. Others look for management teams they believe in. There are a hundred different metrics or indicators investors look for in a company or throughout the economy that makes them believe one stock will before better than another.

One that I haven't mentioned, but is very important to some investors, is share buybacks. While this form of returning capital to shareholders, the other being dividends, is questioned by many as whether it is the best use of company capital, in a lot of cases it’s a better use of capital than letting it just sit in the bank or even worse wasting it on risky acquisitions.

Regardless though of your stance on share buybacks, the fact remains they are a huge part of investing. They affect per share earnings, a company's ability to offer a higher dividend, and while, in most cases very small, they give investors a larger piece of the pie. Continue reading "3 ETF's That Focus on Share Buybacks"

Are You Really As Diversified As You Think?

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


A while back I pointed out that due to Apple's (AAPL) market capitalization, a large number of ETF's were massively over-weight the technology giant. In some cases, Apple represented more than 5%, 7% or even 10% of the total value of the ETF based on how many holdings the fund actually owns.

I recently came across an ETF that is not only overweight Apple by a massive amount, with maker of the iPhone representing more than 13%, but its top 5 companies (6 holdings since Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) has two stock classes) represent more than 37% of the fund, of which might I add has over 100 holdings. Furthermore though, what makes this so interesting is that the ETF I am talking about tracks a major index, which simply adds to the myth that the fund is helping investors diversify and is a safer way to invest. Continue reading "Are You Really As Diversified As You Think?"