Jan. ETF assets fall to $222.9B

"The combined assets under management of U.S. exchange-traded funds were down $3.3 billion to $222.9 billion in January, the Investment Company Institute, the fund industry's main trade group, reported Friday."

Jan. ETF assets fall to $222.9B

Green Energy ETF To Spring Soon

A new energy ETF should benefit from rising oil prices, but it wonÂ't contain the typical oil refiners. ThatÂ's because it will follow an index of renewable or "greener" energy companies.

PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio (AMEX:PBW - News) is a bet on the emergence of green energy as a major economic force beyond its current niche markets. Component firms have gathered much of the knowledge of how to produce, sell and maintain state-of-the-art alternative energy systems including solar, wind and fuel cells. The fund is expected to trade in February or March 2005.



Green Energy ETF To Spring Soon

Rydex RSP - An ETF With A Balanced Approach To The S&P 500

You may already know that the S&P 500 index is a market capitalization weighted index. That means the largest capitalization companies, make up the largest percentage of the index. It also means that "booming" sectors can become overweighted in the S&P 500 as well. In 1999-2000 for example both Telecom and Internet sectors became heavily overweighted in the index. Both have since fallen back to more reasonable levels, but that caused severe downward pressure on the S&P during the correction.

The Rydex RSP fund is different, it purchases an equal weighting of each of the stocks in the S&P 500. So .2% of the assets are invested in each of the S&P 500 stocks. At the end of each quarter, the fund is rebalanced to bring the equal weights back to .2% for each stock. This means the fund naturally buys under performing sectors and sells sectors that have outperformed the index at the end of each quarter. This in itself is a type of mechanical approach to "profit taking / bargain hunting". Also, by having .2% in each stock there is a greater emphasis on smaller stocks than there is in the traditional S&P 500 index.

These factors have lead to a steady RSP outperformance since it's inception when compared to the S&P 500 index. For more information please consult the fact sheet below and always remember to read the prospectus before making any investment decisions!

Rydex RSP Fund Fact Sheet

Rydex RSP Fund Prospectus

TIPS ETF offers solid hedge against inflation's bite

Article Excerpt:

"'TIPS investors benefit from a rise in inflation because their value changes in line with the Consumer Price Index,' said Matthew Tucker, head of enhanced and index fixed-income strategy at San Francisco-based Barclays Global Investors, which oversees the TIPS ETF.

TIPS can reduce overall portfolio risk because their prices tend not to move in lockstep with stocks and conventional bonds.

For example, buying a 10-year inflation-protected bond with a 2 percent coupon locks in a yield 2 percent above inflation. If inflation averages 3 percent over that decade, the bond's yield equates to a 5 percent 10-year Treasury - absent a portion of the risk."

A Link To The Complete Article:

ETF Investing: TIPS ETF offers solid hedge against inflation's bite - Financial - Financial Services - Bond Market - Economy - Markets/Exchanges - Mutual Funds - Market News:

Energy ETF ( XLE ) Continues To Sizzle!

With crude oil prices stubbornly holding above $40 per barrel one of the hottest etf sectors is energy. As you look at the XLE top 10 holdings, you see a mixture of Big Oil and Oil Services companies that will continue to benefit from sustained high prices.

EXXON MOBIL CP XOM 20.89% ( Now rivals GE for the largest market cap )
CHEVRONTEXACO CP CVX 14.33%
CONOCOPHILLIPS COP 8.18%
OCCIDENTAL PET OXY 3.87%
SCHLUMBERGER LTD SLB 3.68%
DEVON ENERGY CP (OK) DVN 3.46%
BURLINGTON RESOURCES BR 3.2%
HALLIBURTON HLDG CO HAL 3.19%
APACHE CP APA 2.97%
ANADARKO PETROLEUM APC 2.94%


A quick look at the short term chart shows a continuous march into 52 week and all time highs for XLE

Semiconductor ETF ( SMH ) clears 200 day moving average

The weakest ETF of 2004 has finally managed to blast through it's 200 day moving average on heavy volume. The action in the semiconductors contributed directly to the strong performance of the Nasdaq on Friday. This could be the turn in semis that we have been waiting for.

Cash piles into real estate ETF

"Roughly $660 million of the $830 million that flowed into sector ETFs last week went to the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate (IYR: news, chart, profile) fund, according to research released Monday by TrimTabs Investment Research.
The real estate ETF gained 3.1 percent last week. "

ETF Focus: Cash piles into real estate ETF

Clean Energy ETF Launches Feb 4th

"An ETF based on an index of publicly-traded energy companies that focus on environmentally-friendly sources of energy and technologies is set to begin trading on the American Stock Exchange later this month.

The ETF, which will be managed by PowerShares Capital Management, will track the WilderHill Clean Energy Index, a benchmark calculated by the Amex that was launched in August. The Amex collaborated with index provider WilderShares, LLC in developing the index.

The index contains 37 companies that use greener and renewable energy alternatives such as wind, solar, and hydrogen fuel cells."


ETF Focus:

New ETFs Focus on Social Responsibility

Socially responsible mutual funds have been around for years, not it's an ETF option also.
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"On Monday, the iShares KLD Select Social Index Fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The ETF's tracking index, maintained by Boston-based research firm Kinder, Lyndenberg, Domini & Co., contains 250 to 350 large-cap non-tobacco companies taken from the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 indexes.
The stocks are then overweighted or underweighted based on how they score on social and environmental factors. "

Yahoo! News - New ETFs Focus on Social Responsibility