ETFs and Index Products Win Huge Favor Among Investors

摘要

These increasingly popular investment vehicles, which aim to tie their returns to various investment indexes, now make up a dynamic universe of 5,200 exchange traded funds and products, according to statistics provided by ETFGI, an independent research and consulting firm in London. At the end of April 2014, there were 5,241 exchange traded funds (ETFs) and exchange traded products (ETPs) with nearly 10240 listings from 221 providers trading on 59 exchanges around the globe, ETFGI reports. "It is difficult to measure their exact growth. But ETFs continue to offer solutions to investors and are being used more and more frequently ,"says Deborah Fuhr, a partner and co-founder of ETFGI. Retail investors and financial advisors are increasingly joining the ranks of institutional investors buying ETFs, which can be bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange. Investors are lured by the ability to gain access not only to traditional investments like equities and bonds, but to much riskier ventures in emerging and frontier markets or expensive assets like gold and real estate.