To say the market for exchange traded funds—ETFs, as we all know them—has virtually exploded in recent years would hardly be an understatement. Well regarded for a number of positive attributes, not least of which are transparency, lower costs, ease of trading and even a degree of tax efficiency, the exchange traded universe has expanded to include something on the order of 4,700 products representing around $1.75 trillion in assets. But amid the steady stream of new ETFs coming to market, wealth managers and their clients need to recognize that not all offerings are, or have been, created equal. In fact, there are a number of considerations to make before choosing an ETF for investment.
While ETFs are typically built to track a specific index or asset class, to expect them to fully replicate return or yield results of those indexes or classes would be a mistake. Why? Because every ETF has a measurable degree of tracking error. And some have more than others—funds that utilize 'representative sampling' in particular. These strategies invest only a portion of the fund's holdings in the underlying index and use optimization to supplement the rest. Predictably, when the index is made up of holdings with low trade volume, like many foreign markets, large tracking error can occur. Witness, for example, the performance of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM). The fund lagged its index by 4.8% in 2007, outpaced it by 3.3% in 2008, then trailed again in 2009 by 6.71%.
Price and NAV; Lack of Liquidity
There's also the occasional issue of an ETF's price in relation to its NAV. Typically, a fund's valuation difference is moderated by design through an underlying arbitrage opportunity, but in turbulent markets this mechanism tends to break down. In June, for example, the market whirlwind surrounding Greece's financial position accelerated the volume of the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK) to the point it was trading at nearly a 10% premium to its NAV.
Similarly, a lack of liquidity, i.e., when the creation of new shares of a fund cannot keep pace with inflows, can cause pricing issues. The high-yield bond ETF space, where underlying securities can be difficult to find due to over-the-counter trading, often sees investors overpaying for the underlying holdings. This was the case for the iShares High Yield ETF (HYG) at the end of 2011. Finding a representative basket of bonds was so tough at the time that shares of the fund traded above their NAV. Ultimately, as liquidity improved, the creation of new shares wiped out the premium and caused a discount to NAV. Investors who sold in early 2012 actually received less than the value of the underlying holdings.
Not Everything's Simple
In the meantime, a bevy of more exotic ETFs have come along to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for indexing products. Some deal in futures, some in swaps, some in commodities. Whatever they deal in, these ETFs can be risky if misunderstood and investors should not confuse them with plain vanilla ETF offerings. Gaining exposure to commodities through an ETF does not mean that fund returns will be commensurate with movements in commodities prices. An oil ETF, for example, will not necessarily track the market price of oil because of term structure.
