ETFs – too many, not enough?
They keep coming and coming and coming. Firms are creating ETFs, seemingly as fast as rabbits multiply. When reading about another new ETF, I think about my few trips to Vegas.
[Disclaimer: About to travel into Anu’s brain.]
I really dislike casinos. Not for ethical or religious reasons. I simply find them overwhelming.
Overwhelming because there are more ways to lose your money in a casino that I can believe. I struggle to comprehend all of it, especially the sportsbooks. I think, who needs to bet on the total points scored by the end of the 3rd quarter of some random game.
ETFs overwhelm me like casinos. I don’t equate investing in ETFs to gambling. Not at all. It’s the variety that’s overwhelming. But when I give it a little thought, the only good reason to be overwhelmed is the break-neck growth. Similar to the casino floor – it may not be the total number of games, but the experience of going a few steps from a sidewalk into the main hall with the thousands of choices.
Think about tilted ETFs, like the three coming online from SSgA shortly. The momentum tilted ETF may amplify the returns (or losses) from the S&P 1500. If an advisor has reason to believe that’s in the best interest of his/her client, this ETF has three advantages:
- Easy to explain
- Low cost
- Provided by a big, reputable firm
The advisor’s alternatives have issues:
- hedge fund – probably difficult to sell client on; requires minimum; has long lock-up; difficult to find a reputable one
- structured products – also difficult to sell client on; requires understand of derivatives; brings a level of credit risk most investors avoid
- long/short mutual funds – difficult to understand the overall strategy and perceived to be high cost
- stock/bond portfolio – difficult and time consuming to monitor and re-balance.
So it may be that there aren’t enough ETFs, but for investors and FAs, the proliferation is difficult to assimilate.