SeeTheLight

Joining the Chorus Against the ETF Explosion

No one forces people to buy poor ETFs. If the ETF is not valuable to investors it will become illiquid and likely be redeemed and shut down. This argues that (retail) investors should have less selection in ETFs and/or are incapable of making informed decisions and need to be protected from their own naivety. But if you believe the latter then perhaps we have to remove the ability for them to invest at all since they can make equally bad decisions by buying penny stocks, bankrupt company stocks and stock options.

Presumably, they could previously buy Mr. Dent's (or similarly created) mutual funds albeit through an intermediary, so what if they can now buy it ETF form. We had literally thousands of crummy mutual funds for years (which often had early redemption fees) and no one complained about that, how is having more ETFs as an alternative (a more liquid one I might add) a bad thing? No question, the example ETF provided above sounds like a poor investment, but to that I say caveat emptor.

Good Luck all.