Tag: iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)

This ETF King Continues To Lose Funds

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Year-to-date, the largest exchange-traded fund by assets under management, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), has seen an astonishingly large amount of money flow out of the fund.

Remind you; this is also when the S&P 500, and thus SPY itself, is up 7.09% year-to-date. That is important to note because it highlights that the fund does not necessarily see money leave the fund when the market is getting hit.

The SPY has over $372 billion in assets under management, making it the single largest ETF. SPY also holds the crown of being the most liquid, which may not mean much to the average investor, but that is very important to Wall Street professionals and prominent investment managers.

Liquidity is important because it means these investment managers can get in and out of positions with no genuine concern about whether or not there is a buyer or seller on the other side of their trade.

So how much money has SPY seen leave since the start of 2023? $9.43 billion!

Let that sink in and think about the fact that only about 150 Exchange-traded funds in the US have more than $9 billion in assets under management. That is 150 out of the 3,126 ETFs that investors have to pick from.

SPY lost more assets in three and a half months than nearly 3,000 funds have period.

Why is the money flowing out of SPY?

Unlike during other times when we see significant outflows of ETFs, so far in 2023, it has not been because the market is declining. Typically when the market is in a downturn, we see outflows occur as investors pull their money from risk assets and put it into reduced-risk assets. Think about pulling money out of stocks and putting it into bonds. Continue reading "This ETF King Continues To Lose Funds" →

The Thanksgiving Rally Should Not Be Trusted

Posted on by Matt Thalman

The market rally during the shortened holiday trading week of November 21st-25th should not be trusted just yet.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.78% during the week, the S&P 500 increased by 1.53%, and the technology-heavy NASDAQ grew by 0.72%.

The move higher came for several reasons, but none materially changed the economy's outlook over the coming six to twelve months.

The biggest news was from the Federal Reserve. The Fed's meeting minutes from their November 1st and 2nd meeting pushed prices higher after several Fed members expressed interest in slowing the pace of rate hikes during future meetings.

Just the fact that the Fed is talking about reducing the amount of their rate increases is significant, and many economists applaud this move. Economists are happy with this because the Feds policy changes have a lag, meaning it takes time for rate increases to show in economic data reports.

The concern has been the Fed is raising rates too quickly, and by the time the lag sets in, the economy will be in the dumps. So, slowing the pace today is a possible way the Fed can avoid running the economy into the ground. Not running the economy into the ground is the "soft landing" we often hear about when people refer to the Fed and its current policies.

Another catalyst for the recent move higher was the Consumer Price Index in October, which was up 7.7% from a year ago. This was the lowest CPI reading increase since January of this year. But, let's be honest, a 7.7% increase year-over-year is still ridiculously high inflation.

However, many economists are actually saying they are seeing inflation leveling out. We aren't yet seeing that happen with the CPI numbers because we are still looking at year-over-year comparables before inflation got out of control.

The true sign that inflation has slowed, or is still climbing, will be in 2023 when we see year-over-year comps comparing current inflation measures with the elevated inflation we began seeing in early 2022. Continue reading "The Thanksgiving Rally Should Not Be Trusted" →

The Most Important Step When Saving for Retirement

Posted on by Matt Thalman

A recent survey from Vanguard showed the median account balance for Americans 65 and older was just $87,700. The median amount saved by Americans aged 55 to 64 was just $89,700. The average for both age groups was much higher at $256 thousand for 55 to 64-year-olds and $280 thousand for those 65 and older.

However, these numbers are very concerning, considering these individuals are either in retirement or near retirement age and don't have enough saved up to retire.

The reality is that while the amount of money those in their 50s, 60s, and older have saved for retirement is not likely enough to give them the retirement that many of us dream about, there is not much we can do to help them at this point.

Many of the greatest investors of our time have all used the power of compounding returns to grow their vast fortunes. Warren Buffet, one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, while an outstanding investor in his own right, acquired the vast majority of his wealth late in life because of the power of compounding returns, not extraordinary investment picks.

Unfortunately, those in their 50s or older just don't have as much time on their side as is required to realize the power of compounding investment returns.

While the younger generations have more time and opportunities to grow their investment wealth, the issue is that many young people don't understand the importance of investing when young. A recent report from Morning Consult showed that half of Americans aged 18 to 34 were not yet saving for retirement, and only 39% of those who were, started in their 20s.

We often hear the same old lines from those who now wish they had saved or even just started investing earlier in life. "I was never told/taught about investing." "No one explained why investing young was crucial to growing a large investment account." "I just didn't have enough money to save when I was young/younger." There are obviously more excuses, but in my experience, these are the top three.

If you are reading this article, you care about your investments. Therefore, you either had someone explain to you the importance of investing, or you taught yourself after realizing why investing was so important. Continue reading "The Most Important Step When Saving for Retirement" →

SPY Set To Lose Its Crown

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Since 2017, the King of the Exchange Traded Fund world has slowly been losing ground to its closest competitors.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), the undisputed ETF King since ETFs became popular, is set to lose its crown within the next few years. Well, perhaps it would be better to say that it will lose one of its crowns or maybe one of its world titles while still holding a few others. Let me explain...

The SPY ETF is and has been, with the exception of just a handful of months over the last 20-plus years, the largest Exchange Traded Fund in terms of assets under management. Currently, SPY has $365 billion under management.

In contrast, the next closest competitor, iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), has $298 billion, and then there is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) at $264 billion in assets.

The SPDR ETF has more than $65 billion in assets compared to the second largest ETF and more than $100 billion compared to the third largest ETF. So why are there predictions that its competitors will overtake it in the coming years?

First and foremost, since 2017, it has been losing ground to IVV and VOO, and based on results from the first half of 2022, the trend doesn't appear to be changing. VOO has added $29.2 billion in assets year-to-date, while IVV has added $15.7 billion. On the other hand, SPY has lost $22.7 billion. Continue reading "SPY Set To Lose Its Crown" →

Thankful For Another Great Year On Wall Street

Posted on by Matt Thalman

This past Thanksgiving, millions of Americans sat at the dinner table and proclaimed what they were thankful for. For some, it was loved ones, new family members, a promotion at work or a new job altogether, but at the very least, the food that was about to be eaten was mentioned. The success of the stock market in 2019 was undoubtedly one of mine, but I may be in the minority when it comes to people who said such out loud.

However, with the major indexes again trading at new all-time highs, something we have now had occur more than 20 times in 2019, 18 times in 2018, 62 times in 2017 and another 126 times from the start of 2013 until the end of 2016, its hard not to think about how much further this bull market can run.

Adding new money to the market seems very risky today based on how far the market has come the past few years and considering we have seen so many new all-time highs over the past few years.

However, new all-time highs is a very normal thing for the market. Since 1928, the U.S. stock market has seen new all-time highs on 5% of the trading days. Think about that! That’s on average, one in every 20 trading days, the U.S. stock market is hitting an all-time high. From that perspective, a new all-time high sort of seems like not that big of a deal.

Another crazy thought is that since World War II, the U.S. stock market has spent nearly 40% of its time within 5% of all-time highs. Ok, so almost half the time stocks are trading within reach of an all-time high. Furthermore, 54% of the time stocks are trading within 10% of all-time highs.

However, that means 46% of the time stocks were more than double digits below their highs. Continue reading "Thankful For Another Great Year On Wall Street" →