ETF.com Analysis

I was perusing the vanguard diehards discussion board last week and over the weekend. I'd forgotten how much fun that can be. For those of you who are not "in the know", there was a schism so there are now two Diehards discussion boards.

The invaluable Fund Action reports that Dow Jones is considering adding REITs to its target date indexes. It's about time. The old-school split of bonds and stocks seems almost archaic in an age of easy, low-cost access to gold, commodities, broader ranges of international exposure, etc.

Chalk one up for ET...somethings I guess: ETN's - in this case (BWV). Lower cost exchange-traded index products have opened up another space to low cost index investors. This time it's the buy-write strategy.

These ETNs just get more interesting all the time. Commodities, India, currency, buywrite … BGI just picks off one inaccessible or tax-inefficient part of the market after another. You have to wonder what’s next.

There have been a lot of rumblings this week & YTD about the Vanguard launches. Lets not forget that iShares still has more in one fund (EFA at $45 billion) than Vanguard has in ETF assets altogether ($30 billion).

The Vanguard EAFE story is big news, as Jim suggests. So was the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (AMEX: VWO). And let’s not forget bonds: Vanguard’s four bond ETFs, launched on April 11th, have already pulled in over $200 million in assets.

THIS story just has BIG written all over it. The iShares EAFE fund (EFA) is one of the most successful ETFs in history (and the SECOND largest currently, and has pulled in $45 Billion in assets. At 35 basis points. Good lord.

There are a lot of things I love about the redesign of IndexUniverse.com: the great look and feel, the improved functionality, the expanded content possibilities. But one of the things I’m most excited about is this blog.