Complete List of ETFs On The Market

Here are the ETFs that trade in the U.S. Each list shows the ETF name, its symbol, and sector.

Lists are ordered by issuer's name in alphabetical order.

Please click on each image to enlarge.

List 1, Claymore to First Trust:


List 2: First Trust to iShares:


List 3, iShares to iShares:


List 4, iShares to PowerShares:


List 5, PowerShares to ProShares:


List 6, ProShares to Rydex:


List 7: S&P to Vanguard:


List 8, Vanguard to XShares:

Global ETF assets reach all-time high

Barclays Global Investors reports that the combined assets of the global exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, hit an all-time high of $891B in August 2009, with investors getting more confident about the industry as a low cost, transparent and liquid tool to access global equity and commodity markets,

ETFs assets rose 3.9% above the previous all time high of $858B set in July 2009, and 10.6% above the high set in April 2008, latest figures from Barclays show. The global ETF industry had 1,773 ETFs with 3,137 listings, assets of $891B from 95 providers on 41 exchanges at the end of August 2009. Year to date assets have risen by 25.3 per cent, said Deborah Fuhr, Global Head of ETF Research & Implementation Strategy at BGI.

“The net inflows of $49.0 bn in the past six months shows demand for ETFs is still growing as clients view ETFs as useful tools to help them implement many types of exposures,” said Fuhr in statement.

Emerging market equity ETFs have seen the largest increase in assets growing by $51.8 billion year-to-date to reach $378.1 billion at the end of August 2009. With 522 listings of which 259 are ETFs, the interest in equities in the emerging markets, are on the rise, leading by 13.8 per cent as of August 2009 and 3.8 per cent year to date, according to BGI.

The global growth in ETFs assets and volumes is partly being driven by professional investors in the Middle East, who are increasingly using ETFs as a low cost, transparent and liquid tool to access global equity, fixed income and commodity markets, said Robert Broadwell, iShares Regional Business Director GCC at BGI. “ We have seen a particular increase in the use of fixed income ETFs by Gulf-based family offices and their financial advisors.”

Globally, iShares is the largest ETF provider in terms of both number of products, 391 ETFs, and assets of $429.32 billion, reflecting 48.2% market share.

Index ETF options, plus natural gas and oil

Here are straddles and strangles for September 2009, December 2009, and January 2010 for IWM (my favourite), SPY, UNG, and UCO.

Maximum moves required for each are shown in the yellow-shaded line. If the underlying moves this much, the position will be profitable at expiration. Note that depending on the length of the time to expiry, the position can be profitable with much smaller moves.

For September 2009:

(please click to enlarge)

For December 2009 and January 2010:

Not advice.

The best ETFs in Canada, cheapest and most expensive

We looked at ETFs in Canada. While there aren't as many as in the US, there are more and more popping up every month. Here are the cheapest and most expensive ETFs in Canada by MER:

Cheapest:

Equity:

- BCA, BMO Canadians Titans 60, MER: 0.158%
- XIU, iShares Large Cap 60: 0.17%

Bonds:

- XSB: iShares Canadian Short Bonds: 0.25%
- XBB, iShares Canadian Bonds: 0.30%

Sector ETFs:

- XEG, iShares TSX Energy: 0.55%
- CLO, Claymore OilSands: 0.6%


Most expensive ETFs:

- Horizon BetaPro Bull+ and Bear+ ETFs: 1.15%

There it is, one more reason to stay away from those leveraged ETFs!

3X ETFs losses

FAS and FAZ are very popular leveraged, 3X, ETFs, the financial ETFs by Direxion.

This week there was an "eclipse" of FAS and FAZ. The "eclipse" was the moment in which both ETFs would have the same nominal price. This occurred at least three times this week, on Monday, around $9.55:



(Please click on images to enlarge).

While both ETFs were at $9.55, today one is at around $9.32, the other one at $9.01, i.e, declines of 5.6% and 2.4%! Both have lost even more value this week since the "eclipse". This is clearly seen on a combined comparison chart, where one is up 18% and the other down 32%:



Keep in mind that FAZ started its life at $120, and FAS at $20! Where has all this money gone?

These ETFs have been traded for 101 days (since inception), given them an average daily loss of 2.5% and 0.8%. If these rates of decline were to continue, FAZ will be trading below $1 in 88 days, and FAS in 280 days.

The combined losses in market valuation on FAS and FAZ is a staggering $4.4B since inception:



This can be seen live at the FAZ-FAS Loss-O-Meter tracking site.


The same fund manager has recently launched four new 3X leveraged ETFs, this time for leveraged income funds. They are certainly tremendous money making vehicles for someone, but certainly not for the mom & pop investors in them.

More on the performance of leveraged ETF options

We discussed the options on leveraged ETFs in an earlier post. Here is another study.

We looked at XLF versus SKF for the period March 3 to March 25. During this period, SKF dropped from around $260 to $90, while XLF went up approximately from $6 to $9.20.

Prices:



Move Percentages:



Picking a price in the middle of the range, SKF 150 puts went up 350%, while XLF 8 calls moved up 800%. The others are similar.

Volumes:

Now, if we look at the volumes, it is clear that XLF has signifcantly higher liquidity. This makes it much easier to buy and sell the options, and also reduces the spreads between bid and ask prices.


Once again, based on this study, it is much preferable to use options on the underlying stock, and not on the leveraged ETF. There is no corresponding leverage on the leveraged options. This, in addition to the immense risks of holding a leveraged ETF which have been discussed here so many times.

Oil and gasoline ETFs: USL, USO, or UGA?

U.S. unleaded gasoline prices has usually seasonal strength from January to the end of April. During this time refiners tend to convert from heating oil used in winter to gasoline used during the summer. Refiners also use this period to perform annual maintenance programs. Gasoline consumption goes up while inventories usually go down. This is why gasoline prices rise during this period, typically this trend lasts until May for retail prices.

In the USA, demand for gasoline is still higher in spite of the recession in the economy. A good chunk of U.S. refineries is old and need to undergo significant maintenance and repairs. If you remember, the hurricane season last year also was quite violent with many hurricanes entering the Gulf of Mexico and causing significant damage to oil and gas installations. Remember Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike,, Josephine, Kyle?

In addition, the spread between crude oil and refined product prices ("crack spreads") were below average late in 2008 and have not recovered much in 2009.

If you agree that gasoline prices will outperform oil, then UGA is a better investment vehicle. UGA invests in future gasoline contracts:

"United States Gasoline Fund is an exchange traded security that is designed
to track in percentage terms the movements of gasoline prices. UGA issues units
that may be purchased and sold on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Arca. The
Fund is managed and controlled by its general partner, United States Commodity
Funds LLC. USG pays the General Partner a management fee of 0.60% of net asset
value (NAV) on its average net assets. USG invests in a mixture of listed
gasoline futures contracts, other non-listed gasoline related investments,
Treasuries, cash and cash equivalents. "

Below is a chart comparing USO, USL, and UGA for the last 3 months. Clearly, UGA is the top performer of the three.



(please click to enlarge)

Keep in mind that UGA is a cousin of USO/USL and may suffer from same rollover issues, but at least it offers better odds for someone who wishes to invest in this area.

The dangers of the USO oil ETF

March contracts are up about 8.20%, from $34.62 to $37.70. These contracts expire tomorrow February 20. So what happens today with USO and UCO? Take a look:



USO is up 5.4% The reason is that USO just switched to April contracts.

In the process, by the way, USO sold at the March prices and bought at the April prices. So the same amount of money they had, now own fewer equivalent barrels of oil, about 20% fewer! If oil continues in contango, the same loss will happen in about 4 weeks.

So the poor investors who bought USO got to ride all the losses for the month and today do not rip the rewards.

How about UCO? That is a 2X ETF!

Buyer beware cannot be said loud enough.

Here are the contract calendars (please click to enlarge):




To avoid all these issues (you may have better chances at a casino), you may instead use straddles. We have been doing UCO straddles since UCO was at $12, which was just a few days ago.

Note: these were the 6-6 straddles published yesterday at 9:35AM at http://straddles.nexalogic.com:



This is currently breaking even, let's see how they do by tomorrow.