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Friday, November 20, 2009

Exchange Traded Funds And ETF Trading

By Patrick Deaton

An exchange traded fund -- which is what an ETF is -- can be a great investment vehicle for those who are looking for solid rates of return on investment and who have the time to delve a little into the intricacies of ETF trading. Basically, ETFs are what are called "index funds" because they track one of the major market indexes out there, such as the S&P 500.

They sometimes are also what are called "trusts." Either way, they usually are constituted much like mutual funds in that they contain a basket of various securities. Also, they are listed on a stock exchange and can be traded all day long, which the industry refers to as "intraday." This means that trading activities in the fund are looked at on a trading day basis.

At present, there are more than 100 exchange traded funds operating on the American Stock Exchange. Most represent a variety of market sectors and indexes. ETFs are also carrying securities or bonds from many different industries, stock index funds, individual markets and international regions. They also are big players in Treasury and corporate bond indexes.

How it works for investors is that they purchase or sell shares in the overall performance (sometimes known as the collective performance) of an entire portfolio of stocks or bonds as a single, sole security. There are a great many benefits in this arrangement, including that there is a great deal of flexibility along with liquidity in stock investing with the benefits of traditional fund indexing.

There are a great many advantages to the investor, whether large institutional kinds or the small investor who will be getting into an ETF through a trading system. Generally speaking, an exchange traded fund has much lower annual expenses -- referred to as costs -- than many other investment vehicles. Because they are not index-based, their management fees are usually very reasonable.

This is particularly attractive, and is made possible because an ETF is not considered to be actively managed on a very close basis. In other words, there are not a lot of movements in the fund that require management to get involved on trades and such. This is supported by the fact that studies reveal that there is no advantage with actively managed funds over these kinds.

ETFs can operate in this way (meaning non-active management) because they tie their net asset value on each trading day to the assets that underlie the fund. This can make an ETF extremely transparent because it tends to replicate the holdings that are contained in the index that the ETF is tied to and which it tracks on a daily and intraday basis.

Many small investors of the non-institutional variety go one of two ways when trading in an ETF; they usually trade all day or they make their moves to single trades carried out at at the end of the day. There is really no restriction placed upon trading activities by the ETF when it comes to this, though. ETF trading, then, usually turns out to be very easy. - 23226

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