Michael Johnston

Schwab ETFs Picking Up Steam

@ ComplianceCop: You make a good point, but the Schwab ads running on ETF Database are coming through an ad network - meaning that we have so direct relationship with Schwab and are not receiving revenue from them directly.

July's ETF Winners and Losers

I incorrectly attributed MDY to PowerShares. MDY is a State Street fund (SPDR MidCap Trust), meaning that PowerShares total assets are correctly stated at $36.5 billion.

More ETF Regulation Is Not the Answer

You're absolutely right - these leveraged ETFs are only for speculating only, not even overnight buy-and-holding. Some evidence:
BGU has 7.4 million shares outstanding but an average daily volume of almost 16 million, indicating its entire holdings turn over more than 2x per day!

Is the Time REIT for Real Estate ETFs?

@ Alan Young
Alan - you make a good point but I think you misinterpreted this article as a ringing endorsement for buying real estate ETFs. As I pointed out, there's still a lot of bad news out there, particularly with respect to the commercial sector. I'm trying to lay out some of the arguments on both sides of the aisle.

I also respectfully disagree that consumer confidence is irrelevant. Given that retail REITs comprise a large portion of real estate ETFs, increased spending (which results from increased confidence) is definitely meaningful.

The Grail Fund: The Market's First True Actively-Managed ETF

@ Ed Hynes
You make an excellent point. Unfortunately, this data is a little harder to track down. Given the short time period between the two dates, the prices of these stocks changed very little. JPM actually rose since the inception of its fund, but its weighting in the fund declined significantly, which is perhaps a better argument for the statement I made.