In no particular order...
Cement ETF; I wrote about this a couple of months ago and think it could be a good way to get broad country exposure (many countries have a big cement company) and a narrow slice of the infrastructure theme.
Fishery ETF; This has been one of my favorite ideas to write about. While GlobalX has filed for one I am a little concerned about whether it would have exposure to Japanese fisheries after watching the documentary The Cove. Per the movie there are fish companies selling dolphin meat labeled as whale meat that is loaded with mercury (not intentionally loaded with mercury). This was a huge problem for the country in the 1950s and threatens now. If the fund is heavily weighted to Japan that would be a big risk factor.
Bond ETFs from individual countries; The indexes for these have existed for a long time so a fund provider just needs to license them. Logical choice to me would be Canada and Australia for the stability and diversification but as far as I am concerned the more the merrier.
Chilean peso ETF; As long time readers will know WisdomTree filed for this one ages ago but it is pretty clear they have no plan to list it. The bigger idea here is more choice for the cash portion of the stocks/bonds/cash allocation.
A publicly traded exchanges ETF; Part of the thinking here is that the financial sector is going to be a mess for a long time (look at how many big cap tech stocks are still a fraction of the price they were ten years ago) but there will be some very narrow niches than can still do well and I think this is one of them.
Airports and toll road ETFs; As separate funds, they are considered transportation stocks and so part of the industrial sector but I believe most of them are more like utilities in terms of how they trade and their yields. Like cement above these would create broad country diversification in one industry and deliver pretty specific effects to a portfolio.Plantation/farmland ETF; This would be expensive as a lot of the stocks are small and thin but if the agriculture/diet story is for real then these stocks would seem poised to benefit. I would note that these stocks have been very cyclical, more so than I would have thought when I first started looking at them. GlobalX has filed for a food ETF but I don't have info on the proposed index and don't know whether the fund will list or not.
More generally for equity funds I would like to continued development of the foreign sector space. EG Shares, GlobalX, SPDR and iShares have done a lot here and PowerShares has a lot of interesting niche funds as does Market Vectors but consistent with my opinion of the importance of foreign investing more choice here will be a plus.
If you are interested in ETFs then you know that many funds don't have much volume or reasonable assets for profitability which makes new fund creation a risk for the issuers. I do believe that individual investors can safely use thinly traded ETFs provided trades are done with limit orders, a few hundred shares coming or going should be easy to execute but I realize this will not be the case with every single fund.
The industry will continue to evolve with new funds offering access to "new" parts of the market. Fund executives to read this sort of content, I'm not sure how much heed they take of the ideas but they do read so hopefully you'll share some ideas you have.
6 comments:
How about an "All Things Apple" etf? Any company directly supporting or involved in projects with AAPL. I can think of a dozen or more names that benefit from the public perception of Apple. Just a thought...
Morning, Roger--
I see that Vanguard went live today with several etfs that undercut pricing on the IShares indices, including SPY. Good news for indexers.
To your question, you often mention the appeal of countries on a sounder fiscal footing than the U.S. A fund of funds etf that weighted countries on the appropriate fiscal metrics would be interesting to me--a one and done purchase.
Congrats on your anniversary!
a few ideas:
1. All-World Equal-Weighted Country ETF. You could ignore frontier markets for this -- just developed and say top 10-15 emerging markets.
2. U.S. Sector Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETFs --- the equivalent of the Sector SPDRs for corporate bonds. All targeting the 3-7 year duration range to pick up yield vs treasuries.
3. I second the idea of foreign country bond ETFs. Not just sovereign but mix corporates in there too.
Longshot idea: some type of ETF series that have a binary payoff given a major event such as S&P 500 closing below X on January 1st. Details to be worked out by the PHd's at Blackrock. Ticker Symbol: SWAN
I think an etf index based upon suppliers to a large, successful corporation may be interesting:
WalMart, McDonalds, etc. The possibilities are endless.
I also think etf's based upon international corporate bonds rated investment grade, region by region, would be interesting.
ETF of off-shore health care providers. Hospitals like the Bumrungrad Hospital (BUGDF) in Thailand.
I'd like to see a "protection" or insurance ETF of some sort. One that you could use to protect against draw downs of certain size. Selling call spreads on the SPX or OEX and using the proceeds to buy put spreads against the same index could be one way to accomplish this. Any strategy would ideally be structured to be lose a little or no money in a bull market, break even in a sideways market and be positive in a down trend.
Post a Comment