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We Talk Gold with Juan Carlos Artigas from The World Gold Council

Listen to The ETF Store Show every Tuesday at 9am on ESPN 1510 as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.

On our most recent radio broadcast, we talked gold with Juan Carlos Artigas, Global Head of Investment Research at The World Gold Council, discussing what’s currently driving gold demand and the investment case for holding gold in a portfolio.  The World Gold Council is the global authority on gold and they work to provide investors with up-to-date information to help them better understand the gold market.  In a wide-ranging interview, Juan Carlos touched on central bank purchases of gold, consumer gold demand in China and India, and the role gold can play as a diversifier in an investment portfolio.

We also discussed gold ETFs such as the iShares Gold Trust (ticker IAU) and the SPDR Gold Shares (ticker GLD) and explained why holding a physically backed gold ETF might be a better option for investors than actually holding physical gold bars or coins.  Plus, in our weekly market update, we examined some of the longer-term market factors to consider as you determine your portfolio’s allocation – including how gold and other alternative assets fit into your asset allocation strategy.  Finally, we delved into an interesting gold miner ETF (ticker GDX) in our ETF Spotlight segment and explained why gold mining shares may perform differently than physical gold.  Listen to the full show here.

Mutual Fund Companies See Writing on the Wall

Listen to The ETF Store Show every Tuesday at 9am on ESPN 1510 as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.

On our most recent radio broadcast, we discussed how John Hancock, one of the more popular mutual fund companies, recently announced that they’re making the jump into Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).  This comes on the heels of mutual fund behemoth Fidelity announcing an aggressive move into the ETF space with a lineup of actively managed ETFs.  Large, traditional mutual fund providers like Vanguard and PIMCO have already made big moves into ETFs.  Vanguard is one of the largest ETF providers and PIMCO just launched an ETF in March, the PIMCO Total Return ETF (ticker BOND), that has already gathered well over $2 billion in assets.  We explained how the largest players in the mutual fund space are now seeing the writing on the wall – investors are shunning expensive mutual funds and moving to lower cost ETFs.  Consider that developed market equity mutual funds have lost $52 billion in assets so far in 2012 after $491 billion in redemptions the previous four years!  Meanwhile, ETFs continue to see record inflows.

Listen to the full show here and also catch our weekly market update and ETF Spotlight (ticker DEM).

Why Your Mutual Fund Advisor Needs a Magic Crystal Ball

Listen to The ETF Store Show every Tuesday at 9am on ESPN 1510 as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.

On our most recent radio broadcast, we discussed the underperformance of actively managed mutual funds and how fund fees play a major role in why mutual funds tend to come up short.  A recent article from InvestorPlace provided yet another in a long line of analyses showing how passively managed ETFs tend to outperform actively managed mutual funds over time.  The article adeptly pointed out that several iShares ETFs had outperformed mutual funds in six out of seven equity categories over the past ten years and three out of three fixed income categories over the past five years.  We explained why we think ETFs are the best way to go for investors and why advisors pushing mutual funds should invest in magic crystal balls.

Plus, we answered your questions on investing and ETFs including the ProShares UltraShort Euro ETF (EUO) and several dividend paying ETFs such as the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY) and Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG).  Listen to the full show here and also catch our weekly market update and ETF Spotlight (ticker DEM).

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