First Trust

After spending a good part of this year as the best performing sector, utilities have been sapped by concerns that the Federal Reserve is finally nearing its first interest rate hike of 2016 and that defensive stocks are richly valued. Many good things come to an end, and while it is still in the...

It has been said throughout much of this year that the financial services sector, the second-largest sector weight in the S&P 500, has been a disappointment as the Federal Reserve has held off on raising interest rates. Still, traditional, diversified financial services exchange traded funds...

The technology sector, the largest sector weight in the S&P 500, is an increasingly important part of the dividend conversation. That is especially true at a time of piddly yields on U.S. Treasurys and slowing dividend growth. In addition to being one of the biggest contributors to the buyback...

Long/short is a popular strategy in the hedge fund community and one made accessible to investors of all stripes by the exchange-traded funds industry. Typically, long/short ETFs are equity-based, but investors can now take both sides of the commodities trade with the First Trust Alternative...

In what was a dreadful year for equity-based energy exchange-traded funds, the First Trust ISE Revere Natural Gas (ETF) (NYSE: FCG) was a particularly poor performer in 2015, plunging 59.1 percent. Although it has a long way to go even after last year's tumble, FCG is higher by more than 23...

Thanks in large part to rebounding energy commodities, namely oil, the once downtrodden and maligned First Trust ISE Revere Natural Gas (ETF) (NYSE: FCG) is up 5.7 percent year-to-date. That is an especially performance showing when noting the United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (NYSE: UNG) is off...

First Trust, the seventh largest U.S. issuer of exchange-traded funds, added three actively managed currency hedged ETFs to its lineup last week. Launched in partnership with RiverFront Investment Group, which will manage the new funds, the new ETFs are the First Trust RiverFront Dynamic Europe ETF...

The First Trust Dorsey Wright Focus 5 ETF (First Trust Exchange Traded Fund VI (NASDAQ: FV)), one of the stars of 2014's crop of rookie exchange-traded funds, now has a dynamic counterpart with last week's launch of the First Trust Dorsey Wright Dynamic Focus 5 ETF (NASDAQ: FVC). Like FV,...

During the go-go days of the Federal Reserve's various versions of quantitative easing, a slew of high-yield sector and asset classes became investor favorites. That includes multi-asset exchange-traded funds, such as the First Trust Multi-Asset Diversified Income Index Fund (First Trust...

The First Trust Dorsey Wright Focus 5 ETF (First Trust Exchange Traded Fund VI (NASDAQ: FV)) is reportedly dumping some of its riskier holdings in favor of more conservative fare as the S&P 500 has tumbled 8 percent year to date. FV Is An ETF Of ETFs Since coming to market in March 2014, FV...

Coming into 2016, it was widely expected that S&P 500 dividend growth would slow relative to the breakneck pace seen over the past several years. Some of that trend was evident in the first month of the year. “For the 12-month period ended January 2016, payers were down 7.31 percent, vs....

Shares of Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE: KMI), one of the largest U.S. energy companies, are down nearly 46 percent over the past month; that spells bad news for the approximately 70 exchange-traded funds that hold stakes in the Houston-based pipeline giant. While the Energy Select Sector SPDR (ETF) (...

On Tuesday, approximately 30 exchange-traded funds hit all-time highs. Many of those were ETFs that have come to market this year, but there were seasoned veterans among the group as well, with one of the notables being the PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1 (ETF) (NASDAQ: QQQ), the NASDAQ-100...

On Tuesday, First Trust Portfolios LP announced the debut of a new exchange-traded fund designed to capitalize on the red-hot cyber security industry. The First Trust Nasdaq CEA Cybersecurity ETF (NASDAQ: CIBR) is designed to track an index of companies engaged in building, implementing and...

If there is one theme in the market that has been red-hot this year, it’s cybersecurity stocks. The rash of online security breaches has shined a bright spotlight on the need for increased attention to Internet data theft and one ETF has been cashing in. A Closer Look At HACK The PureFunds...