By Samuel Taube
Transcript:
Samuel Taube: Joining us today by phone is The Oxford Club’s new ETF Strategist, Nicholas Vardy, and he’s are answering some common questions about ETFs. Nick, thanks for joining us.
Nicholas Vardy: Thanks for having me, Sam.
ST: So let’s start really simple here. For listeners who may not be in the know, what are ETFs and how do they differ from mutual funds?
NV: Well, that’s a very broad question. Let me start off with telling you what ETFs are. Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are pools of investments organized around a certain asset class, a specific investment strategy or a particular investment theme.
All ETFs are essentially index funds in that they track an underlying specialized index, and what distinguishes them in particular from mutual funds is that you can buy and sell them like a stock at the click of a mouse.
Now, ETFs have exploded in popularity over the past few years. Since 2000, the peak of the dot-com boom, ETF assets have grown at an average annual rate of a pretty remarkable 142%. The same number for mutual funds is about only 8%. There’s been a huge divergence in the development of ETFs versus mutual funds.
Today, there are more than 2,100 ETFs in the U.S. More than $4 trillion is managed in ETFs globally. In 2017, ETFs attracted more than $600 million. What’s interesting about that figure is that it is actually approximately twice as much as the peak value bitcoin reached in 2017.
ST: Huh.
NV: So it’s actually a very popular asset class or a very popular way of investing.
It’s not a new one; ETFs have been around for a while. In fact, just in the past month, one of the biggest ETFs, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY), celebrated its 25th anniversary.
This has become a huge investment vehicle in the U.S. It’s the single most- traded ETF on U.S. stock markets. It’s got an average trading volume of 73 million shares, and it has a market cap of $285 billion.
Now, if it were a company, it would be one of the top 15 largest companies in the U.S. by market cap. So ETFs have been around and they have gotten quite big.
ST: Interesting. I see. Now what are some advantages offered by ETF investing over investing in individual securities? And as a follow-up, what are some advantages that they offer over mutual funds?
NV: Sure. Well exchange-traded funds actually offer the best of both worlds with respect to stocks and mutual funds. On the one hand, as I mentioned, ETFs trade like stocks on stock exchanges. On the other hand, they’re investment funds in the fact that they track an underlying index that’s linked to a diversified portfolio.
So specifically, an ETF’s advantage over stocks is that it’s less risky because it invests in this diversified portfolio.
If you think about it, when you invest in a single stock, you’re taking on – what in finance is called – specific risk or company risk. With ETFs, that single stock risk dissipates …read more
Source:: Investment You
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