Tag Archives: etf

An Unexpected Reason Behind This Strategy’s Outperformance

One of the great anomalies of investing: the historical long-term outperformance of certain smart beta or factor-based strategies relative to the broader equity market (think choosing stocks based on their valuations, momentum, low volatility or quality metrics such as profitability). For example, according to data from MSCI, the MSCI USA Minimum Volatility (USD) index’s Sharpe ratio, a common way to measure risk-adjusted returns, was 0.61 for the last ten years, above the benchmark MSCI USA Index’s 0.44 ratio. The persistence of smart beta strategies’ outperformance relative to the broader market is surprising, because it doesn’t line up with the idea of an efficient market, one in which investors shouldn’t be able to simultaneously buy and sell securities for a profit without taking extra risk (the so-called “no arbitrage” principle ). In other words, in an efficient market, equity portfolios exhibiting low volatility, for instance, shouldn’t be able to earn comparable returns to their higher-risk counterparts. It’s no wonder, then, that numerous academic and financial industry research papers have been written on this topic, and there are various explanations for factor strategies’ outperformance. According to BlackRock’s smart beta experts, including my fellow Blog contributor Sara Shores, this outperformance can generally be attributed to a risk premium, structural impediment or behavioral anomaly. In other words, the outperformance is to compensate investors for taking on what’s actually a higher level of risk, a reflection of market supply-and-demand dynamics or the result of common decision-making biases. Personally, no shocker for my regular readers, I think explanations for this return performance anomaly rooted in behavioral finance add valuable insights to the discussion. In today’s highly connected world, where we can follow each other’s every move via social media, where we’re bombarded by data from every angle – including information on other investors’ positioning and trades – and where it can be hard to tune out the noise, human behavior may be a stronger performance driver than ever. Put another way, I believe investor behavior likely has a lot to do with the strategies’ outperformance. Behavioral explanations focus on investors’ cognitive biases, and the human tendency to use simple rules of thumb to make quick intuitive decisions, with individuals’ collective decision-making mistakes translating into security price distortions. Here’s a look at explanations for the outperformance of four commonly used equity factors. Value: Value stocks are ones that appear cheap in light of their sales, earnings and cash flow trends. Their returns, according to proponents of the efficient market hypothesis, have to do with investors rationally requiring extra compensation for investing in value firms, which tend to be procyclical, have high leverage and have uncertain cash flows. From a behavioral finance perspective, the outperformance of the value factor may have to do with a common decision-making mistake: people’s tendency to look at recent data trends and believe those trends will continue . If investors extrapolate past positive sales or earnings growth data into the future, they may overpay for growth stocks and underpay for value stocks. As a result, the prices of growth stocks may become too high relative to their fundamentals, predicting future reversal and the outperformance of value stocks. Alternatively, some researchers believe people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses over achieving gains (known as loss aversion) can help explain this anomaly . They hypothesize that loss-averse investors may perceive value stocks as riskier than they truly are, given the stocks’ recent underperformance, and may therefore require a higher future return from these investments. Momentum: This factor focuses on stocks that have strong price momentum , i.e., they have performed well over the past 6-12 months, and strong fundamental momentum, i.e. their earnings have recently been revised upward by security analysts. One explanation for this factor’s outperformance: Investors rationally demanding a higher return for investing in momentum stocks, which tend to be highly correlated and are perceived to perform poorly in times of distress. The behavioral finance explanation for this equity factor’s outperformance, on the other hand, has to do with analysts and investors putting too much weight on their prior beliefs at the expense of new information, leading to slow dissemination of firm-specific information , delayed price reactions to news and price continuation. For example, if investors like a stock and believe it has high earnings growth potential, they tend not to immediately adjust their beliefs sufficiently in light of new negative information – an investing mistake arising in behavioral finance from ” the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic .” In other words, investors frequently drive price trends by projecting past wins onto future investments, creating a ” herding effect .” Quality: Quality generally describes financially healthy firms with high return on equity, with stable earnings growth and low financial leverage. They can effectively be characterized as having less risk based on their fundamentals . Behaviorally, people may ignore these potentially profitable, yet also perhaps more boring, companies, and instead, veer toward potentially more exciting, yet also less stable, growth and lottery-like stocks (for example, because the more exciting stocks tend to be featured in colorful news stories). As a result, they may end up overpaying for the less-stable stocks, which quality strategies seek to avoid. This predicts future reversal and potential outperformance of quality stocks. Low volatility: The low, or minimum volatility, factor loads up on stocks with low volatility. Low volatility stocks’ excess returns may be rationally explained by leverage constraints. In the absence of access to leverage, investors may overpay for high-volatility stocks in an attempt to increase risk in their portfolios, potentially leading lower-volatility stocks to become more attractively valued and outperform in the future. From a behavioral perspective, these stocks’ outperformance may be due people’s tendency to overestimate small, and underestimate, large probabilities . The idea is that this tendency leads to a preference for lottery-like stocks with a small chance of a very high payoff, and this preference, in turn, drives up the prices of high-volatility stocks disproportionately, suggesting future underperformance. Further, overconfident individuals may veer toward riskier securities in expressing their outsized faith in their own investing and stock-picking abilities, exacerbating the anomaly. To be sure, while focusing on factor and smart beta strategies has historically, over longer periods of time, earned higher risk-adjusted returns relative to the broader market, there have been stretches, even long ones, when factor-based approaches underperformed (think value during the 1990s), according to data accessible via Bloomberg . Finally, while in an efficient market, these anomalies should diminish in size and ultimately disappear, a widespread belief in the factors’ outperformance may also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This post originally appeared on the BlackRock Blog.

How High Is High? How Low Is Low?

How high is high? When asking this question it would also be wise to ponder the following, how low is low? Markets are capable of making extreme moves and we should remember trees don’t grow to the sky and markets don’t go up forever. As someone who has traded commodities for decades I would strongly recommend anyone considering jumping into the super high risk snake pit of commodity trading to steer clear of it. While I have had victories I have also gone through a slew of painful losses and been bludgeoned by markets and price swings that have defied all logic. Adding to a trader’s pain and woes is that when you are caught on the bad side of an ugly trade the speed that a vicious market can dish out its brutal assault is usually extremely underestimated. After over 30 years of trading commodities I will flat out state without any reservations that lies and manipulation run rampant. If you think anyone is looking out for the small independent trader in the stock market or commodity market you are wrong. A recent article caught my interest; it said: It is always darkest before the dawn. In other words, the energy market could see crude-oil prices tumble further in the coming days after closing near seven-year lows. January West Texas Intermediate crude tumbled $2.32, or 5.8%, to settle at $37.65 a barrel. At least one chart pattern followed by technical analysts is pointing to more pain for the WTI contract as oil tilted below $37 a barrel in early Tuesday’s trade. Talk has surfaced of 20 dollar oil at the same time some analyst said it is time for investors to jump in and “pick a bottom” pointing out energy stocks are now a bargain. History has shown that markets defy logic and our opinions are often wrong. Five years ago few market gurus predicted oil would trade at such low prices today. It is difficult to say where the price of oil will be next month. After asking the question of how high is high I must also ask, how low is low? Markets can make extreme or wild moves that charts often are unable to predict. This means it is both dangerous and difficult to pick a market top or bottom. Various technical trading systems while indicating an overbought or oversold market fail when asked to answer these two questions that would make us infallible and legendary investors. Today markets have added a couple new dimensions that will play an interesting role in just how violent and savage price swings are going forward. One of those is that computers now do a great deal of the trading and they are programmed to prey on the weaknesses of human trader using computing programs that exploit where stops are placed, this improves their ability to wash the weak out of their positions. Another factor is many people have grown far to complacent. The “buy the dip” mentality and the idea that the central banks coupled with the too big to fail financial institutions will keep these distorted markets elevated has become entrenched in the minds of many investors. This has lessened the importance of economic fundamentals and the question of how sustainable this market is. It has also put on the back-burner the question and issue of, how high is high. I have seen and heard far too many comments by those bullish on higher equity prices and ever higher markets basing their strategy on a policy of “don’t fight the Fed” and “buy the dips.” While this has worked since 2009 it is no guarantee that it will continue to produce positive results in the future. The “buy the dip mantra” will prove very costly when a real drop in the market does occur. A saying often used cautions traders they should never try to catch a falling knife. One problem we face in the current stock market is a lack of traders holding short positions. Several of the stocks that were recently on strong uptrends appear at heart to be fundamentally unstable and may have been driven higher by bears capitulating and buying back their positions rather than market fundamentals. We have witnessed massive moves in several speculative stocks like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ), and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) that are hard to defend by any other reasoning than shorts being squeezed out of the market. It is logical to think the higher a market goes the more vulnerable it becomes to a major violent decline or sudden savage downward price moves. A lack of short positions will bode poorly for the market if it falls rapidly because in such a situation as shorts take profit and buy back their positions they act as a floor under the market giving it support. The floor under this market is questionable and with contagion a growing concern it is understandable that junk bonds have begun to take a beating. The point of this post is to remind all of us the world of investing is a dangerous place and that much of how people react to events depends on how things are set up or how the cards are stacked when things happen, develop, and unfold. We often see that market reaction has more to do with timing and perception rather than being driven by reality. The economy tends to develop loops that feed back upon themselves, to this market driver we must add cross border money flows, central bank intervention, currency manipulation, and derivatives. This is only part of the list of pitfalls we face when we develop expectations that drive prices. To top things off we should recognize that at any time an unexpected black swan crisis is always lurking in the wings. This reinforces the idea that we should remain humble in trying to answer the questions of, how high is high, and how low is low. I have learned some valuable lessons over the years: markets don’t go in just one direction, values constantly shift, and after you lose your money it is to late.

ETF Stats For November 2015: Fund-Of-Funds Count At 76

Twenty-one launches and two closures brought the quantity of U.S.-listed exchange traded products to 1,824 (1,623 ETFs and 201 ETNs) at the end of November. Overall assets climbed 1.0% for the month to $2.14 trillion, with actively managed funds garnering a 1.7% increase. Trading activity plunged 20.7% to $1.3 trillion, as fewer products changed hands in the holiday-shortened month. Fund-of-funds products accounted for nine of November’s launches, and their quantity now stands at 76. As their name implies, these are ETFs that own other ETFs (and ETNs) instead of directly owning the underlying stocks and bonds. Assets in fund-of-funds ETFs surpassed $13 billion in November. However, these assets are not included in the overall industry asset statistics, because doing so would amount to double counting. It is important to take note of the growth in this category, though, as their quantity has jumped from 43 to 76 this year, and assets have surged 191%. Although you don’t hear too much about these products, their asset levels are on a path to overtake ETNs next year and actively managed ETFs in 2017. The popularity of currency hedging is one of the reasons for the recent rapid growth in the fund-of-funds segment. Eight of the nine new fund-of-funds ETFs launched in November are currency-hedged versions of existing products. Rather than buying and holding the 356 stocks of iShares MSCI All Country World Minimum Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA: ACWV ), the new iShares Currency Hedged MSCI ACWI Minimum Volatility ETF (BATS: HACV ) just buys ACWV along with a currency overlay to hedge the currency exposure. Every dollar invested in HACV results in a one-dollar increase in ACWV’s reported assets. Industry-wide assets in the U.S. are now at $2.14 trillion, and represent a 7.1% increase for the year. Splitting out the two major groupings, ETFs have seen a 7.4% increase in 2015, while ETNs have experienced a 16.5% decline. Actively managed ETFs have jumped 28.7%, and, as mentioned previously, the fund-of-funds segment has seen a whopping 191% surge. The quantity of funds with more than $10 billion in assets held steady at 52, and they represent 60% of U.S. industry assets. The quantity of products with at least $1 billion in assets slipped by one to 254, and they account for 89.7% of the assets. The average product has $1.2 billion in assets, yet the median asset level is just $70.2 million, making for a very lopsided market. Trading activity remains concentrated in relatively few ETFs. Only seven averaged more than $1 billion a day in activity, but these seven grabbed a 47.5% market share. The quantity of ETFs and ETNs with more than $100 million in average daily dollar volume decreased from 94 to 90, and accounted for 86.5% of the action. A whopping 266 products (14.6%) did not trade on the last day of November, and 21 went the entire month without a trade. November 2015 Month End ETFs ETNs Total Currently Listed U.S. 1,623 201 1,824 Listed as of 12/31/2014 1,451 211 1,662 New Introductions for Month 21 0 21 Delistings/Closures for Month 2 0 2 Net Change for Month +19 0 +19 New Introductions 6 Months 160 8 168 New Introductions YTD 249 12 261 Delistings/Closures YTD 77 22 99 Net Change YTD +172 -10 +162 Assets Under Mgmt ($ billion) $2,119 $22.5 $2,141 % Change in Assets for Month +1.1% -4.8% +1.0% % Change in Assets YTD +7.4% -16.5% +7.1% Qty AUM > $10 Billion 52 0 52 Qty AUM > $1 Billion 249 5 254 Qty AUM > $100 Million 784 34 818 % with AUM > $100 Million 48.3% 16.9% 44.9% Monthly $ Volume ($ billion) $1,287 $52.3 $1,339 % Change in Monthly $ Volume -20.6% -22.9% -20.7% Avg. Daily $ Volume > $1 Billion 6 1 7 Avg. Daily $ Volume > $100 Million 85 5 90 Avg. Daily $ Volume > $10 Million 302 11 313 Actively Managed ETF Count (w/ change) 135 +2 mth. +10 ytd Actively Managed AUM ($ billion) $22.2 +1.7% mth. +28.7% ytd Data sources: Daily prices and volume of individual ETPs from Norgate Premium Data. Fund counts and all other information compiled by Invest With An Edge. New products launched in November (sorted by launch date): The iShares Currency Hedged MSCI ACWI Minimum Volatility ETF ( HACV ), launched on 11/2/15, is a fund-of-funds designed to track the investment results of a global index composed of developed and emerging market equities that have relatively low volatility characteristics, while mitigating exposure to fluctuations between the value of the component currencies and the U.S. dollar. The ETF holds the unhedged iShares MSCI All Country World Minimum Volatility ETF ( ACWV ), and then adds forwards to manage the currency risk. Twenty-four countries or regions are represented, and most holdings are consumer staples, financials, and healthcare companies. Its expense ratio is 0.23%. The iShares Currency Hedged MSCI EAFE Minimum Volatility ETF (BATS: HEFV ), launched on 11/2/15, is a fund-of-funds investing in equities of all capitalizations from Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Far East that display low volatility compared to other equities in the regions, while reducing the impact of changes between the value of the underlying currencies and the U.S. dollar. The ETF holds the unhedged iShares MSCI EAFE Minimum Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA: EFAV ), and manages the currency risk with forwards. Japan and the U.K. combine to hold over 50% of the allocations, and the majority of holdings come the from consumer staples, financials, and healthcare sectors. Investors will pay 0.23% annually to own this fund. The iShares Currency Hedged MSCI EM Minimum Volatility ETF (BATS: HEMV ), launched on 11/2/15, is a fund-of-funds aiming to track the investment results of a global index of emerging market equities that have relatively low volatility characteristics, while mitigating exposure to fluctuations between the value of the component currencies and the U.S. dollar. The ETF holds the unhedged iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Minimum Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA: EEMV ) and adds forwards to manage the currency risk. China, Taiwan, and South Korea each have over a 10% allocation, and the financials sector represents about 28% of the portfolio. The ETF has an expense ratio of 0.28%. The iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Europe Minimum Volatility ETF (BATS: HEUV ), launched on 11/2/15, is a fund-of-funds investing in large- or mid-capitalization companies in developed European countries that display low volatility compared to other European equities, while reducing the impact of changes between the value of the underlying currencies and the U.S. dollar. The ETF holds the unhedged iShares MSCI Europe Minimum Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA: EUMV ), and then adds currency forwards to offset value changes in the relevant currencies. The U.K. leads the geographic allocation at 35%, and the majority of holdings come from the consumer staples, financials, and healthcare sectors. The ETF sports a 0.28% expense ratio. The iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Europe Small-Cap ETF (BATS: HEUS ), launched on 11/2/15, is a fund-of-funds holding small-capitalization companies in developed European countries, while mitigating exposure to fluctuations between the value of the component currencies and the U.S. dollar. The ETF holds the unhedged iShares MSCI Europe Small-Cap ETF (NASDAQ: IEUS ), and then adds forwards to manage the currency risk. The largest country representation goes to the U.K. at 36%. Financials and industrials lead the sector allocations at around 23% each. The ETF has a 0.43% expense ratio. The BlueStar TA-BIGTech Israel Technology ETF (NASDAQ: ITEQ ), launched on 11/3/15, provides exposure to Israeli technology companies listed on global stock exchanges. The companies are not required to be domiciled in Israel to be included, but they must have significant ties to the country, such as a domicile, a strong presence of research, development, primary management, tax status, source of revenue, or location of employees. The companies represent a wide range of technological areas, including information, biotechnology, sustainable agriculture, and defense technologies. The ETF holds 65 positions, with just three representing 30% of the fund. Investors will pay 0.75% annually to own this ETF. The First Trust SSI Strategic Convertible Securities ETF (NASDAQ: FCVT ), launched on 11/4/15, is an actively managed ETF investing in global convertible securities. Convertible securities are considered hybrid securities because they offer upside potential through participation in equity returns, but also have a degree of downside protection through their bond-like attributes. They usually consist of debt or preferred securities that may be exchanged into a certain amount stock or other equity security. No yield information is provided. FCVT’s expense ratio is 0.95%. The PowerShares FTSE International Low Beta Equal Weight Portfolio (NASDAQ: IDLB ), launched on 11/5/15, provides investors with exposure to large- and mid-capitalization companies from developed markets (except the U.S.) that show less price sensitivity (low beta) compared to the overall market of the country in which the company is based. IDLB currently has 783 holdings, which are equally weighted upon rebalancing. The ETF sports a 0.45% expense ratio. The PowerShares Russell 1000 Low Beta Equal Weight Portfolio (NASDAQ: USLB ), launched on 11/5/15, selects its holdings by starting with the 1,000 U.S. companies that have the largest market capitalizations and then analyzing their price sensitivity. Those that show less price sensitivity (low beta) to market movements are eligible for inclusion. Currently, there are 418 equally weighted holdings, and the fund’s expense ratio is 0.35%. The AlphaClone International ETF (NYSEARCA: ALFI ), launched on 11/10/15, aims to provide value to investors by evaluating the performance of large hedge funds and institutional investors and purchasing select international companies via American Depository Receipts (ADRs) held by those entities. The strategy of the underlying index is to rank each manager’s performance by calculating the return of their publicly disclosed positions, such as from the Form 13F filings, and then select the 40-50 ADRs held by those with the highest rankings. The ETF can vary between being long-only and market-hedged based on a 200-day simple moving average of the S&P 500 Index. Investors will pay 0.95% annually to own this ETF. The FlexShares Currency Hedged Morningstar DM ex-US Factor Tilt Index Fund (NYSEARCA: TLDH ), launched on 11/10/15, is a fund-of-funds designed to provide broad exposure to developed equity markets outside the U.S. with enhanced weightings to small capitalization and value stocks, while mitigating the effects of currency fluctuations. The ETF holds the FlexShares Morningstar Developed Markets ex-US Factor Tilt Index Fund (NYSEARCA: TLTD ), and then uses forward contracts to hedge the currency exposure. The expense ratio will be capped at 0.47% until November 4, 2016. The FlexShares Currency Hedged Morningstar EM Factor Tilt Index Fund (NYSEARCA: TLEH ), launched on 11/10/15, is a fund-of-funds focusing on emerging markets, but adjusts standard market-cap weighting to provide additional weights to small-capitalization and value stocks. It then hedges against changes in value between the U.S. dollar and constituent currencies. Its main holding is the FlexShares Morningstar Emerging Markets Factor Tilt Index Fund (NYSEARCA: TLTE ), and the currency exposure is mitigated using forward contracts. The expense ratio will be capped at 0.70% until November 4, 2016. The Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta International Equity ETF (NYSEARCA: GSIE ), launched on 11/10/15, uses an index-based strategy that gives all constituents in the MSCI World ex-USA Index a score based on measures of value, momentum, quality, and low volatility. Security scores higher than a fixed “cut-off score” are overweighted, while securities with a score below are underweighted. The expense ratio will be capped at 0.35% until September 14, 2016. The First Trust Heitman Global Prime Real Estate ETF (NYSEARCA: PRME ), launched on 11/12/15, is an actively managed ETF investing globally in shares of public real estate companies that own top-tier properties in the world’s prime markets and cities. “Prime” is defined by the managers as those “that benefit from global physical and/or financial trade, have high barriers to entry, dominate their regions or countries, or provide high-value niche goods and services.” The U.S. has the largest geographic allocation at 31%, and Japan comes in second at 14%. PRME has an expense ratio of 0.95%. The iShares Core International Aggregate Bond Fund (NYSEARCA: IAGG ), launched on 11/12/15, selects global non-U.S. dollar denominated, investment-grade bonds and then uses currency forward contracts to hedge against fluctuations in the relative value of the component currencies to the U.S. dollar. There are currently 534 holdings in 55 countries. The ETF sports a 0.15% expense ratio. The WisdomTree Global SmallCap Dividend Fund (BATS: GSD ), launched on 11/12/15, provides exposure to small-capitalization companies in developed countries and emerging markets that pay dividends. The underlying index selects the largest 1,000 companies in the bottom 5% of the WisdomTree Global Dividend Index that have a market capitalization of at least $200 million and average daily dollar volume of at least $100,000. Holdings are weighted based on dividends. The expense ratio is 0.43%. The Etho Climate Leadership U.S. ETF (NYSEARCA: ETHO ), launched on 11/19/15, invests in a broad range of U.S. companies that display the smallest carbon footprints in their respective industries. The strategy takes into account items such as greenhouse gas emissions from operations, fuel use, supply chain, and performance on environmental issues. It holds about 400 securities, but none in the energy, tobacco, aerospace and defense, gambling, gold, or silver industries. Investors will pay 0.75% annually to own this ETF. The WisdomTree Global Hedged SmallCap Dividend Fund (BATS: HGSD ), launched on 11/19/15, is a fund-of-funds providing exposure to 1,000 dividend-paying, small-capitalization companies in the bottom 5% of the WisdomTree Global Dividend Index, while hedging against currency risk. The ETF holds WisdomTree Global SmallCap Dividend Fund ( GSD ) and then uses forward contracts to mitigate the effects of changes in the relative value of foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar. The expense ratio will be capped at 0.43% until July 31, 2018. The Deutsche X-trackers FTSE Developed ex US Enhanced Beta ETF (NYSE: DEEF ), launched on 11/24/15, selects securities in developed countries outside the U.S. based on five investment factors. The factors are valuation ratios (value), 11-month cumulative return (momentum), leverage and profitability (quality), standard deviation of returns (volatility), and market capitalization (size). There are currently 828 holdings, with 31.8% in Japan and 20% each in financials and industrials. DEEF has an expense ratio of 0.35%. The Deutsche X-trackers Russell 1000 Enhanced Beta ETF (NYSE: DEUS ), launched on 11/24/15, selects a diversified group of US securities based on quality, value, momentum, low volatility, and size factors. The underlying index currently holds nearly 850 companies that were chosen based on these factors. The expense ratio is 0.25%. The FlexShares Real Assets Allocation Index Fund (NASDAQ: ASET ), launched on 11/24/15, is a fund-of-funds offering access to physical or tangible assets (examples of which are commodities, precious metals, oil, and real estate) by investing in three other FlexShares ETFs. The underlying ETFs and current allocations are the FlexShares STOXX Global Broad Infrastructure Index ETF (NYSEARCA: NFRA ) 49.8%, the FlexShares Global Quality Real Estate Index ETF (NYSEARCA: GQRE ) 40.5%, and the FlexShares Global Upstream Natural Resources Index ETF (NYSEARCA: GUNR ) 9.8%. The expense ratio will be capped at 0.57% until November 8, 2016. Product closures in November and last day of listing: EGShares Blue Chip ETF (NYSEARCA: BCHP ) – 10/30/2015 EGShares Brazil Infrastructure ETF (NYSEARCA: BRXX ) – 10/30/2015 Note: These two ETFs had their last day of listed trading on October 30. However, since they were still officially listed at the end of that month, their assets are included in the October statistics and their closures are included in the November statistics. Product changes in November: The AdvisorShares Sunrise Global Multi-Strategy ETF (NASDAQ: MULT ) underwent an extreme makeover on November 4, becoming the AdvisorShares Market Adaptive Unconstrained Income ETF (MAUI), with a new manager and subadvisor. The ProShares 3x Leveraged and 3x Inverse Financial Sector ETFs ( FINU and FINZ ) changed their underlying indexes to S&P Select Sector Indexes effective November 4. ProShares executed forward splits on two ETFs ( BZQ and ZSL ) and reverse splits on five ETFs ( GDXX , GDJJ , UOP , UBR , and UBIO ) effective November 13 . Global X had reverse splits on five ETFs ( COPX , GLDX , LIT , SIL , and URA ) effective November 18. The SPDR Barclays Aggregate Bond ETF changed its ticker symbol from LAG to BNDS effective November 20. Announced product changes for coming months: Van Eck Global plans to acquire Yorkville MLP ETFs and hopes to close the transaction in the fourth quarter, but it’s running out of time. Both ETFs ( YMLP and YMLI ) have lost more than 35% of their value since the August 3 announcement. The Guggenheim BulletShares 2015 Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA: BSCF ) and the Guggenheim BulletShares 2015 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA: BSJF ) are scheduled to mature and liquidate on December 31 , with December 30 being the last day of trading. The Guggenheim Russell 1000 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA: EWRI ) will cease to exist on January 27, 2016. At that time, any remaining assets in the fund will be merged into the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA: RSP ). Guggenheim will change the name and underlying indexes for three of its ETFs effective January 27, 2016. The Guggenheim Russell 2000 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA: EWRS ) will become the Guggenheim S&P SmallCap 600 Equal Weight ETF (EWSC), the Guggenheim Russell MidCap Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA: EWRM ) will become the Guggenheim S&P MidCap 400 Equal Weight ETF (EWMC), and the Guggenheim Russell Top 50 Mega Cap ETF (NYSEARCA: XLG ) will become the Guggenheim S&P 500 Top 50 ETF ( XLG ). Previous monthly ETF statistics reports are available here . Disclosure: Author has no positions in any of the securities, companies, or ETF sponsors mentioned. No income, revenue, or other compensation (either directly or indirectly) is received from, or on behalf of, any of the companies or ETF sponsors mentioned.