Treasury

Many exchange-traded funds do not alter their positions throughout the year, thus freeing them from the tax burden of capital gains. However, when investors of many popular bond ETFs are preparing their 2009 tax returns, they could be in for a surprise. BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street all have at least one bond fund that [...]

Exchange-traded funds are playing a role in the stage of arbitraging interest rates. One popular strategy uses fixed-income ETFs to profit on a steepening or flattening US Treasury yield curve. The trade has come into the spotlight as the current Treasury yield curve (the difference between short-term and long term bonds) grows extremely steep, Marketwatch [...]

PIMCO, known for its experience and expertise in bond funds, continues its quest to diversify its offerings in the ETF industry. New appointments to senior positions at PIMCO have opened the door for actively-managed stock ETFs. In a note to its clients, PIMCO announced the addition of three executive positions, which are to be filled [...]

Vanguard’s popular mutual fund, the Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX), could be released on the stock exchange as an ETF, pending an exemption from the SEC. The fund would be the first actively managed Vanguard fund. The new fund would track the Barclays Capital U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities Index. Unlike plain vanilla funds, however, [...]

PIMCO may hold the leads on the Treasury market, but Market Vector’s line of municipal bonds is proving to be a favorite among investors. Market Vectors has released its monthly distributions for its line of five municipal ETFs.  The distributions, as reported by Reuters, are as follows: Intermediate Municipal Index ETF (ITM: Quote, Profile, Advanced [...]

PIMCO took another step to solidify its exchange-traded fund business by pushing two recent filings to the market. Its newest two funds launched on October 22. The first of the two funds is the PIMCO 20+ Year Zero Coupon U.S. Treasury Index Fund (ZROZ), which will track the B of A Merrill Lynch Long Treasury [...]

Close inspection into September’s ETF inflows suggests that investors are concerned about inflation. The top exchange-traded funds were anti-dollar and anti-US stocks. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) raked in an astounding $2 billion, followed by iShares Barclay TIPS fund (TIP: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) at $847 million. Emerging market funds [...]

The first casualty of the new CTFC regulations appears to be Deutsche Bank’s popular double leveraged oil ETN. The company alleges the new regulations have affected its ability to buy and sell swaps to back the value of the note. The PowerShares DB Crude Oil Double Long Exchange-Traded Notes (DXO: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) [...]

ProShares has announced an immediate launch of a new reverse Treasury ETF designed to track the inverse return of long dated Treasuries. The new fund launches just before the Fed halts its Treasury purchase program, which many analysts believe will send the price of Treasuries lower. The new fund, named ProShares Short 20+ Year Treasury [...]

How long can mutual funds maintain a foothold against ETFs? Research indicates that mutual funds typically increase their fees by 5% per year, while simultaneously, exchange-traded fund expenses have decreased as competition in the industry intensifies. Economics of scale have worked poorly for mutual funds, which can cut fees without affecting profit margins as assets [...]