Goldman Sachs has a piece of research out today on ETFs, billed as sort of “ETFs for dummy portfolio managers who need to start understanding them.” It’s worth a read if you can get it, with a decent overview of questions that it is probably possible to think too hard about, like whether 400% short interest in many big ETFs is worth freaking out about (short answer: nah).
Particularly useful is a cautious but intelligent stab at the question of whether increased correlations are being driven by increased ETF use:
A substantial debate exists among investors about the cause of increased correlation. Namely, are correlations high simply because the environment is dominated by the macro? Or, are they due to the increasing use of index-level products, such as ETFs and futures? And most importantly, how do these forces interact? Given the nature of the cause-and-effect relationship of the two sides of this debate, we find our highest value in becoming more granular in our approach to these questions by specifically focusing our work on sector-based observations rather than index-level ones.
For those who like charts, here are two charts: Continue reading »
Today’s all-the-things-are-the-same-thing news, sort of, is Bloomberg’s report of the tiff between BlackRock’s Larry Fink and a guy at “Lyxor,” which is the name of SocGen’s ETF business and also a good way to make me think of the words “pyramid,” “casino,” “typo” and now “SocGen” all at the same time, which does not make me want to invest with them. Anyway, the crux of it is this:
So-called synthetic ETFs, offered by firms including Societe Generale’s Lyxor Asset Management and Deutsche Bank AG, introduce a layer of complexity and counterparty risk that investors may not be aware of, Fink said yesterday. Synthetic funds generate returns through derivatives contracts rather than owning underlying securities as traditional ETFs do.
“If you buy a Lyxor product, you’re an unsecured creditor of SocGen,” Fink, who heads the world’s largest asset manager, said at a conference held in New York by Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit. Providers of synthetic ETFs should “tell the investor what they actually are. You’re getting a swap. You’re counterparty to the issuer.”
Lyxor says au contraire mon Fink, physical ETFs are just as bad:
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The SEC’s administrative action against Spencer Mindlin & Dad yesterday had me scratching my head, and not just because TD Ameritrade managed to record a conversation between Mindlins père and fils when they had Ameritrade on hold. That should not be possible.
From what I’ve seen of this case it really doesn’t look like insider trading to me, though I’m always less willing to see insider trading than, say, the SEC is. But more interesting to me is what the case shows about the ETF market.
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It shall be called the PIMCO Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund. Continue reading »
Earlier this afternoon, a link to a story about exchange traded funds landed in our inbox. The headline for the story was, “What did you do in the ETF war, daddy?” After feeling vaguely uncomfortable, we clicked over to see what kind of sexual undertones had been weaved into the article but found none. While some have pointed out there’s another reference at play here, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. This was a deliberate attempt to get people turned on about ETF’s. Which is a good idea, but if you’re going to do something, why not really do it? Why not… Continue reading »
Before another New Jersey health care worker gets thrown for a loop and tries to cover their losses from yet another structured product by suing everyone involved, Finra sent out a little reminder to brokers and investment advisers that leveraged ETFs are not for everyone. They cautioned that these “highly complex financial instruments” are typically unsuitable for retail investors. For those who might selectively confuse the safety of products labeled ultra short/ultra long for the cash stuffed under their mattress, the Finra communication is bad news. Now they might have to freely admit that they were simply greedy and didn’t know what they were doing.
Finra Urges Caution on Leveraged Funds [WSJ]
