ishares

After trailing growth and momentum fare last year, value stocks continue to confound investors in 2018. For example, the iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (NYSE: IWD), one of the largest exchange traded funds dedicated to value stocks, is off nearly 1 percent year-to-date. "To start 2018, U.S....

Doctors advise some patients to increase their daily intake of fiber. Fixed income investors may want to do the same with “FIBR” instead. “FIBR” as in the iShares Edge U.S. Fixed Income Balanced Risk ETF (CBOE: FIBR). FIBR, which recently turned three years old, follows the...

An increasing number of exchange-traded funds offer investors exposure to multiple investment factors under the roof of one fund. Known as multi-factor funds, these ETFs help investors ease the burden of identifying when a specific investment factor will work or fall out of favor. The iShares Edge...

The Federal Open Market Committee meets this week, and many bond market participants expect the Fed to raise interest rates after having done so three times in 2017. Expectations of higher borrowing costs have previously been seen as detrimental to dividend stocks and exchange traded funds, but...

Technology was the best-performing sector in the S&P 500 last year and is doing its part to prop U.S. stocks in 2018. The iShares U.S. Technology ETF (NYSE: IYW) is up about 11 percent year-to-date. Technology is the largest sector weight in the S&P 500 and as a result of that status, is a...

The iShares MSCI Chile ETF (CBOE: ECH) is up a lackluster 3 percent year-to-date — "lackluster" because the lone exchange traded fund dedicated to Chilean equities is trailing the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by more than 200 basis points. That is after ECH gained 41.8 percent in...

Digital currencies are a rapidly growing asset class and bitcoin is the primary driver of that growth. Bitcoin has been compared to gold during its meteoric rise, but some market participants believe the cryptocurrency has a long way to go before comparisons to bullion are relevant. One of the...

Globally, exchange traded funds have about $5 trillion in combined assets under management, but the ETF industry is expected to continue growing at a rapid rate over the next several years. BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the parent company of iShares, the world's largest ETF issuer, views ETFs as...

Most fixed income assets have struggled in the new year. For example, the iShares Core US Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSE: AGG), the largest bond exchange traded fund in the U.S., is lower by 2.7 percent. Corporate bonds, both investment-grade and junk, are not offering much shelter from the storm....

The iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF (NYSE: IYR), one of the largest exchange traded funds dedicated to real estate stocks and real estate investment trusts, is lower by more than 9 percent year-to-date. Some of that laggard performance can be attributed to expectations that the Federal Reserve will...

As sovereign debt yields in developed markets plummeted and, in some cases, turned negative, income investors turned to emerging market debt for higher yields. Plenty of emerging markets bond exchange traded funds are listed in the U.S., but the iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (...

On a historical basis, Italy is politically volatile relative to other developed markets. Since 2001, Italy has had seven prime ministers, more than double the number of presidents the U.S. had over the same span. Italian equity markets and the related exchange traded funds, such as the iShares...

In the world of factor investing, the quality factor does not always grab the headlines that the growth and value factors do, but quality stocks can deliver impressive returns over the long term. “MSCI research finds that a company’s quality can be evaluated along five key dimensions:...

Recent turbulence in equities made its way to the corporate bond space. Last week, spreads on the Morningstar Corporate Bond Index, an investment-grade corporate bond gauge, and the BofA Merrill Lynch High Yield Master Index, shot higher. While traditional investment-grade and junk bond funds were...

Major European equity benchmarks are on multiday losing skids after catching the downdraft affecting U.S. stocks, but that does not mean investors should give up on Europe exchange traded funds. Some market observers believe Europe is retaining its hero status among developed market stocks. That...