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Thursday, May 9, 3:24 PM "Our enthusiasm is clearly a notch below where we were at the beginning of the year," write Credit Suisse analysts, starting to see a bit of froth creep into small caps. At 16.4x earnings, the Russell 2000 (IWM) "has admittedly lost its valuation appeal." For now, they're buyers on dips, but should the index near the 1,000 level, valuation pressure will really start to be felt. 3 Comments
Wednesday, May 1, 2:23 PM "The canaries in the market coal mine are gasping for air," says CNBC's Melissa Lee, as mild declines in the Dow (DIA -0.5%) and Nasdaq (QQQ -0.2%) belie sharp drops in small caps (IWM -1.8%) and mid caps (MDY -1.1%). The S&P 500 has widened its lead over the Russell 2000 to about 200 basis points YTD. 1 Comment
Friday, April 26, 9:26 AM Small-caps have a fan in Goldman Sachs which is out with a report today forecasting a 14% gain in the Russell 2000 (IWM) over the next 12 months vs. just 6% for the S&P 500 (SPY). The S&P is outperforming YTD by about 50 bps. 2 Comments
Monday, April 15, 12:38 PM The S&P (SPY) and Dow (DIA) have continued to notch record highs, but small caps (IWM -3%) - which led the way higher for much of the year - rolled over a few weeks ago and are falling especially sharply today. Technicians fret. 1 Comment
Sunday, April 14, 8:25 AM The reconstitution of the Russell indexes coming up in June, Credit Suisse aims to anticipate who's in and who's out. The rules-based approach of the Russell 2000 has allowed arbitragers to profit each summer by front-running the moves, making the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) a poorer play for small cap fans than IJR . Expected among the top 25 adds are ARCP, SRPT, PBYI, ACAD, and WSTC. Among the top 25 deletes: CPST, FCEL, CHKE, OMER, and EML. Comment! [Quick Ideas]
Wednesday, April 3, 8:00 AM Something for the technicians to have a look at is this chart from ukarlewitz noting small-caps (IWM) have joined the industrials (XLI) and semiconductors (SMH) in slipping below their long-term uptrend line. Oversold in an uptrend tends to get bought, he says. It's a key time. 3 Comments
Monday, April 1, 1:32 PM Technicians spot a troubling divergence, with the Russell 2000 (IWM) falling 1.3% to start the new quarter while the DJIA (DIA) remains flat. Some believe small-caps lead - both on the way up as with the current bull run, and on the way down - and today's relative decline continues a pattern begun last week. 2 Comments
Tuesday, March 26, 1:27 PM Small-cap stocks are set to outperform, according to Goldman research showing the IWM outperforms the SPY by an annualized 8.1% in quarters following a steep drop in the VIX. The "acute" decline in the VIX YTD "provides a tailwind to small-cap performance in 2Q13." A must-read for small cap index fans is SA author Ploutos' piece suggesting IJR is your best bet. 3 Comments [Quick Ideas]
Friday, March 22, 12:29 PM Lagging the solid rise in stocks today are small caps, the Russell 2000 (IWM) up 0.1% while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq post better than 0.5% gains. Thus far in 2013, IWM is about level with the S&P, but is about 300 bps better on a Y/Y basis. IJR - maybe better for small cap fans - has outperformed both. Comment!
Monday, March 18, 4:57 AM Ron Rowland offers additional highlights on the recently expanded lineup of commission-free ETFs over at Fidelity including the following caveat: Funds not held for 30 days by retail investors or 60 days by RIAs using Fidelity as a custodian will be subject to a $7.95 per-trade commission. Some RIAs have complained that the longer holding period directed at them is unfair. Rowland spells out the full list of affected ETFs here. Comment!
Thursday, March 14, 12:48 PM The VIX is low, but it's not at an all-time low. Small cap volatility, however, hits what looks like a record low with the Russell 2000 (IWM, IJR) VIX declining to 13.97, says Stifel's Dave Lutz. For the year, the IWM is up 12%, outpacing the SPY by more than 200 basis points. Comment!
Thursday, March 14, 8:44 AM Guggenheim increases expense ratios on 4 ETFs on account of "higher acquired fund fees associated with the S&P benchmarks these ETFs track". The affected funds (with new expense ratio in parentheses) are: RFV (0.40%), RZV (0.38), EWMD and EWSM (0.43%). Two Russell and MSCI ETFs seeing a decline in fees are: EWRS (0.43%) and EWEM (0.70%). 1 Comment
Tuesday, March 12, 2:38 PM The fee wars continue to heat up with Schwab lowering the expense ratio on its U.S. Small Cap ETF (SCHA) by 20%, to 0.08% (prospectus). Vanguard's VB charges 10 basis points while iShares' IJR charges 0.16%. Round-trip transaction costs even the playing field somewhat with the average bid-ask cheapest for IJR (0.02%) followed by VB (0.03%) and SCHA (0.04%). Comment!
Thursday, February 21, 3:18 PM Fidelity is closing its Small Cap Value Fund ($3.5B AUM) to new accounts as of March 1. "We believe closing the fund will give (the managers) an opportunity to build upon the fund's long-term performance." The fund has outperformed IWM and IJR over any number of time frames. Comment!
Tuesday, February 19, 9:10 AM Owners of the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) may be able to declare arbitragers as dependents on their tax returns. Sharp traders have been gaming the rules-based rebalancing of the popular small-cap index for sweet profits each summer. Small-cap fans should instead take a look at IJR - it's performed better thanks to inclusion rules that may make more sense and are less likely to be arbitraged. Comment! [Quick Ideas]
Friday, February 15, 3:41 AM PowerShares expands its Low Volatility ETF suite with 2 new ETFs: S&P MidCap Low Volatility (XMLV) and S&P SmallCap Low Volatility (XSLV). The ETFs come with a 0.25% expense ratios, in line with counterpart IDLV (0.25%) and SPLV (0.25%), and slightly less than EELV (0.29%). Over the recent 1-year period, SPLV returned 16.36%, 68 basis points better than SPY, with an SD of just 8.6% vs. 12.8% for SPY. (pdf) 1 Comment

IJR iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF

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iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF