Fun with ETFs

Last Thursday, Ian Salisbury's "Fund Track" item in the Journal included the following nugget:

There are 721 ETFs with about $478 billion in assets, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade group.

That's a lot of ETFs.

So as we flipped through (i.e., recycled) some recently-arrived industry mags, we ran across the quarterly "ETF Reference Guide" put together by Research. That rapidly-expanding insert always seems to provide a few laughs. Here are our nominations for the funniest* ETFs in the marketplace, with award categories in bold and ticker symbols, expense ratios, and average daily trading volumes in parentheses. Data are through November 25, 2008.

Shameless Name-Dropping
ELEMENTS Benjamin Graham Total Market Value (BVT; 0.75%; 164)

Cynical Exploitation of Something Genuinely Important (Unnecessarily Long Name Subcategory)
ELEMENTS Credit Suisse Global Warming Index ETN (GWO; 0.75%; 1,673)

Provocatively Indeterminate Fund Name
First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge U.S. Liquid (QCLN; 0.60%; 26,452)

Obligatory HealthShares Nominee
HealthShares Diagnostics (HHD; 0.60%; 6,562)

Better Than Regressive Transportation
PowerShares Global Progressive Transportation Portfolio (PTRP; 0.75%; 445)

Not Necessarily Clinging to the Efficient Frontier
Claymore/AlphaShares China Small Cap Index (HAO; 0.70%; 54,856)

Taking a Bad Idea and Making It Worse
Claymore/Zacks Country Rotation (CRO; 0.65% 4,644)

Country-Specific Chocolate Yes, Country-Specific ETF No
iShares MSCI Belgium (EWK; 0.51%; 88,770)

Ticker Symbol Onomatopoeia (multiple winners)
First Trust Multi Cap AlphaDEX Fund (FAD; 0.70%; 4,818)
WisdomTree International Dividend Top 100 Fund (DOO; 0.58%; 41,933)
PowerShares DWA Developed Market Technical Leaders (PIZ; 0.80%; 27,030)

Dubious Ticker Symbol Expropriation of Ancient Cultural Concepts
Claymore/AlphaShares China Real Estate (TAO; 0.65%; 13,874)

Name That Will Not End
E-TRACS UBS Bloomberg CMCI Short Platinum ETN (PTD; 0.65%; 2,161)

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
PowerShares Listed Private Equity (PSP; 0.60%; 99,265)

Pure Esoteric Delightfulness
Barclays Asian and Gulf Currency Revaluation ETN (PGD; 0.89%; 13,855)

We're written before on the silliness manifested in certain corners of the ETF universe (here, here, here, and here for example). That absurdity will continue, no doubt, but you might want to get your giggles in now. Given their trading volume, some of the winners listed above might not be around much longer.

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* On their investment merits, some of these are not irredeemably ridiculous. Some are. But for one reason or another, all of these struck us as funny. And in the midst of financial markets like these, we'll take funny where we can find it.

Source

Ian Salisbury, "New ETFs Bank On Social Themes," Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2009

Comments

[bigmoney:]

what happens if you have money deployed into an ETF, and it stops trading?

Jan 14 12:22 PM

[Gambit:]

I can't belive you missed PQY - PowerShares Active AlphaQ Fund - just say the 3rd word out loud a few times!

Jan 14 02:24 PM

[xom-only:]

you are in for a hassle and probably a loss after they deduct expenses

Jan 14 02:43 PM

[Urbane Gori...:]

That's great 'Gambit'!!! ROLF! .. Too bad they didn't pick the ticker 'SIN' rather than 'PQ|Y' though....

jegan ;-)

Jan 15 12:45 AM

[donzelion:]

Great concept, but MOO was robbed in the "ticker symbol onomatopoeia" category - they should have run away with it!

And I humbly submit the following new categories:

"ETF Pairs Intended to Exploit a Video Game"
DIG DUG (wasn't he drilling for oil anyway?)

"ETFs with dumb mnemonic tickers"
DOG, COW, and WOOD (honorable mention: MOO) (COW also shares "endless name" prize)

"ETF Name Most Likely to be Confused with Creepy Government Agency"
DHS (Department of Homeland Security) (honorable mention: DOL, but honestly, who's afraid)

"Edison 'Lightbulb Award' for Bright Ideas in ETF Ticker Names"
DIM

"Tropicana Award for ETF Names
TAN (Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy Index ETF)

"ETF Ticker Selected for Impending Obsolescence"
VCR

"The Godfather's Favorite ETF Ticker"
DON

Any more?

Jan 15 03:32 AM