The ETF space has become crowded with product covering just about every con­ceivable nook and cranny of the investable universe.

It has become more and more apparent that Americans are being forced to be more self-reliant, especially when pro­viding for their retirements. And fund companies, happy to offer solutions, are launching target-date funds with impunity.

It's no question that exchanges are seeing indexes these days as profit centers. They are busily creating them and products based on them.

They are the smallest of the small trading on major US exchanges today, yet there are few managers who specialize in, and even fewer funds that offer exposure to microcaps.

Continued worries over oil prices, slowing economic growth and the Federal Reserve’s plans for raising interest rates have combined to hold stocks—and ETFs—back for most of this year through the end of June.

PowerShares has done it again. The prolific firm has just added eight custom-designed, industry ETFs to its line up.

Does the ETF industry really need another US large cap?

The international and emerging market corner of the ETF palette has long belonged to iShares.