Are ETFs safer than stocks?
Are ETFs Safer Than Stocks? ETFs are baskets of stocks or securities, but although this means that they are generally well diversified, some ETFs invest in very risky sectors or employ higher-risk strategies, such as leverage.
Are ETFs Safer Than Stocks? ETFs are baskets of stocks or securities, but although this means that they are generally well diversified, some ETFs invest in very risky sectors or employ higher-risk strategies, such as leverage.
ETFs can be safe investments if used correctly, offering diversification and flexibility. Indexed ETFs, tracking specific indexes like the S&P 500, are generally safe and tend to gain value over time. Leveraged ETFs can be used to amplify returns, but they can be riskier due to increased volatility.
Diversification. One ETF can give investors exposure to many stocks from a particular industry, investment category, country, or a broad market index. ETFs can also provide exposure to asset classes other than equities, including bonds, currencies, and commodities. Portfolio diversification reduces an investor's risk.
These assets generally have a low-to-negative correlation with stocks and volatility, making them possible diversifiers in trying times. We rounded up a list of five exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that are built with these features and a degree of crash protection in mind.
Stock-picking offers an advantage over exchange-traded funds (ETFs) when there is a wide dispersion of returns from the mean. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer advantages over stocks when the return from stocks in the sector has a narrow dispersion around the mean.
Both stocks and ETFs provide investors with dividends, and each is traded during the day on stock exchanges. Individual stocks are much riskier but can yield higher returns. ETFs are relatively low risk and provide stable, if less profitable, returns.
For most standard, unleveraged ETFs that track an index, the maximum you can theoretically lose is the amount you invested, driving your investment value to zero. However, it's rare for broad-market ETFs to go to zero unless the entire market or sector it tracks collapses entirely.
The single biggest risk in ETFs is market risk. Like a mutual fund or a closed-end fund, ETFs are only an investment vehicle—a wrapper for their underlying investment. So if you buy an S&P 500 ETF and the S&P 500 goes down 50%, nothing about how cheap, tax efficient, or transparent an ETF is will help you.
At any given time, the spread on an ETF may be high, and the market price of shares may not correspond to the intraday value of the underlying securities. Those are not good times to transact business. Make sure you know what an ETF's current intraday value is as well as the market price of the shares before you buy.
Can ETFs go to zero?
Leveraged ETF prices tend to decay over time, and triple leverage will tend to decay at a faster rate than 2x leverage. As a result, they can tend toward zero.
In terms of safety, neither the mutual fund nor the ETF is safer than the other due to its structure. Safety is determined by what the fund itself owns. Stocks are usually riskier than bonds, and corporate bonds come with somewhat more risk than U.S. government bonds.
If the market falls, a passively managed ETF will generally follow it down. You can find actively managed ETFs, in which fund managers actively buy and sell securities in the hope of beating an index benchmark (though most aren't able to do so consistently). But such funds aren't as common.
"Leveraged and inverse funds generally aren't meant to be held for longer than a day, and some types of leveraged and inverse ETFs tend to lose the majority of their value over time," Emily says.
The securities that underlie the funds are held by a custodian, not by Vanguard. Vanguard is paid by the funds to provide administration and other services. If Vanguard ever did go bankrupt, the funds would not be affected and would simply hire another firm to provide these services.
Some fees are a percentage of the amount traded but some fees are fixed, which can become a drag if you do numerous small trades over a high number of ETFs. In order to have a cost-efficient portfolio, you should seek an optimal degree of diversification while limiting the number of ETFs in your portfolio.
Nearly all leveraged ETFs come with a prominent warning in their prospectus: they are not designed for long-term holding. The combination of leverage, market volatility, and an unfavorable sequence of returns can lead to disastrous outcomes.
Hold ETFs throughout your working life. Hold ETFs as long as you can, give compound interest time to work for you. Sell ETFs to fund your retirement. Don't sell ETFs during a market crash.
You can hold ETFs as long as you want. Allow compound interest to work for you over time. However, you should avoid selling ETFs when the market is down since you can miss out on the potential to gain money when the market recovers.
Should you invest in ETFs? Since ETFs offer built-in diversification and don't require large amounts of capital in order to invest in a range of stocks, they are a good way to get started. You can trade them like stocks while also enjoying a diversified portfolio.
What are the pros and cons of ETFs?
ETFs can offer lower operating costs than traditional open-end funds, flexible trading, greater transparency, and better tax efficiency in taxable accounts. There are drawbacks, however, including trading costs and learning complexities of the product.
| ETF | Assets Under Management | Expense Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Invesco QQQ Trust (ticker: QQQ) | $240 billion | 0.2% |
| Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) | $71.7 billion | 0.1% |
| Invesco AI and Next Gen Software ETF (IGPT) | $254 million | 0.6% |
| MicroSectors FANG+ Index 3X Leveraged ETN (FNGU) | $3.3 billion | 0.95% |
ETFs. Investment funds are a strategic option during a recession because they have built-in diversification, minimizing volatility compared to individual stocks. However, the fees can get expensive for certain types of actively managed funds.
The largest Aggressive ETF is the iShares Core Aggressive Allocation ETF AOA with $1.82B in assets. In the last trailing year, the best-performing Aggressive ETF was AOA at 18.26%. The most recent ETF launched in the Aggressive space was the iShares ESG Aware Aggressive Allocation ETF EAOA on 06/12/20.
Disadvantages include high fees, tax inefficiency, poor trade execution, and the potential for management abuses.
