Fund Insider

A Complete Guide to the Cheapest ETFs

Very useful summary of the ETF landscape from a cost and portfolio role perspective. Thanks.

How Rebalancing Added Over 2% to the Returns of a Simple ETF Portfolio

I reduce taxes and transaction costs doing this by sweeping
all dividends to cash/mmkt and take that plus new deposits
to buy whatever is down below target allocation.

With this method, you can not only reduce cap gains after sales,
but also perform some strategic changes in asset allocation targets.
So if you are very bearish on stocks, your next purchases are based on a new target. If you must sell, I still avoid taxes by doing most of my selling inside 401k and IRA accounts (move them back and forth between bonds and stocks as needed, but mostly just buy new assets in taxable accounts).

ETF Family Attributes: Vanguard

Why does it matter how complete a suite of offerings are available from one fund family for ETFs ? To me one of the many benefits of opening a brokerage acct vs just opening a regular mutual fund acct at Vanguard (or elsewhere) is so that you are not locked into one fund family's offerings. If you want to stick with just Vanguard, you can escape commissions and just invest directly @ vanguard.com into their funds. You do lose some other benefits of ETFs that way, but you gain some too. As a direct investor in a fund, you are serviced directly by that fund. If you have questions, you are somebody to them and get service. As an ETF customer you are anonymous to them, not even a customer as far as they know.

I personally would use Vanguard for buy and hold investing of core index type exposures (low expense in common indices), but anything you want to trade, other ETFs offer additional options
(sectors etc) or for indices more liquidity (better for day trading
where price rather than expense ratios are more important).

Articles focusing on the best of breed in each type of exposure would be a better way to present. Which S&P 500 ETF is best ?
Which commodity ETF ? Which Bond ETFs ?

ETFs: The End of Traditional Mutual Funds?

While ETFs are a great alternative, the concept is not really new.
They are very similar to closed end funds, which trade on the exchanges like ETFs, hold a basket of securities like ETFs.
There are some technical differences, including ability to issue more shares (easy in ETF, not common in CEFs but CEF issuers just open yet another CEF if there is sufficient interest unmet).
ETFs are great for index investors and CEFs for those who want active management. CEFs do not disclose holdings continuously like ETFs, and that's the only way an active manager would have it.

As far as the death of open end funds, CEFs have been around longer than open end funds, and it was just the opposite. open end funds almost killed CEFs, but CEFs are still here, and so will open end funds. The main difference between now and years ago is that commissions are lower so the cost of trading ETF/CEFs is lower, making it competitive with open end funds in transaction costs. Also easier for a fund manger to open a new open end fund than a new ETF or CEF, hence the relatively small # of CEFs vs OEFs historically. ETFs don't change that. The other problem with CEFs/ETFs is that fact that you need a brokerage account. Once you have a brokerage acct trading CEFs/ETFs, you can also trade individual stocks. Regulators have always treated brokerage accounts with more restrictions and governance than open end funds. You don't see "self directed" 401K or 529 plans do you ?
Then no, you wont see ETFs or CEFs in those either, unless brokerage firms come up with some new type of account that can only trade funds and no individual securites, and regulators accept that as "safe" for the little guy, and believe it avoids the potential
for insider trading/market manipulation (as with individual stocks).