Welcome to the ETF Prime Podcast

We Discuss ETF Fee Cuts with Charles Schwab’s Eric Pollackov

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, Eric Pollackov, Director of ETF Capital Markets at Charles Schwab, joined us to discuss Schwab’s recent ETF fee cuts, their lineup of broad based ETFs, and his thoughts on why ETFs have become so popular with investors.  Schwab launched their first ETF in 2009 and has quickly grown assets to nearly $7.5 billion by positioning themselves as a low cost provider of many of the core building blocks of a well-diversified portfolio.  Schwab also offers commission-free trading of their proprietary ETFs through the Schwab platform.  In addition to our conversation with Eric, we also examined the wider industry implications of Schwab’s fee cuts and explained how investors are the clear winners in the blossoming ETF price war.

In our weekly market update, we delved into last week’s key economic data including GDP, durable goods, and jobless claims.  We also debated whether now is the right time to start getting more aggressive in your investment portfolio.  Finally, in our ETF Spotlight segment, given our focus on Schwab ETFs this week, we discussed the Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (ticker:  SCHE) and how it compares to some of the other high profile emerging market equity ETFs available to investors.  Listen to the full show here.

ETFs for Retiree Investment Portfolios

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 significant challenges that retirees are facing with their investment portfolios and how Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs, can help.  With record low interest rates and turbulent financial markets, not to mention that many retirees are still recovering from the 2008-2009 market declines, it can be extremely difficult for retirees to generate the income they need without taking excessive risk or even worse – running out of money.  Add in the specter of inflation and it’s easy to understand why retirees are concerned.

As if those challenges aren’t enough, according to AARP, less than half of people over age 55 have saved at least $50,000.  Plus, for a couple aged 65, there’s a 25% chance that one of them will live to age 96 – so a potential 31-year retirement time horizon.  Deficient retirement savings, the chance of outliving those savings, and elevated market and inflation risks can make for a nasty concoction.

We discussed some investment ideas that retirees might consider to combat these concerns and also explained how ETFs can serve as excellent investment tools to act on these ideas.  It’s been our experience that some retirees have been hesitant to use ETFs because they’ve simply become comfortable investing in mutual funds or individual stocks and bonds over the years.  We walked through what an ETF is and why retirees owe it to themselves to become educated on how to take advantage of ETFs in their retirement investment portfolios.

Our show also featured the usual weekly market update, where we talked more QE3 and why it may not be a good idea to “fight the Fed”.  In addition, we discussed the big iPhone5 release, what it means for Apple, and more importantly – it’s impact on the Powershares QQQ ETF (ticker:  QQQ).  Finally, in our weekly ETF Spotlight segment, we examined a developed international equity ETF (ticker:  VEA) which holds the stocks of 925 companies domiciled in European or Asian developed markets and costs a miniscule .12%.  Listen to the full show here.