Financial markets do enjoy news of quantitative easing. U.S.
equities proved as much last Thursday when the Federal Reserve
unveiled the latest version in what is now a trilogy of monetary
stimulus. Part of the rub with QE in any form is that it is good
for lifting near-term sentiment, but too much easing can have dour
long-term consequences.
First and foremost is the potential for increased inflation.
Inflation is not good because it diminishes the purchasing power of
the dollar. That could mean a dollar will not buy the same amount
of coffee, gold, oil, platinum, silver, etc. in five or ten years
as it does today.
It is an obvious trade. Hard assets rise in price, leading
investors to covet the shares of quality hard asset producers.
There is no dearth of materials ETFs on the market today with which
to play this trend, but there are some not-so-obvious candidates
that merit consideration.
FlexShares Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources Index
ETF (NYSE:
GUNR
)
The FlexShares Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources
Index ETF debuted a year ago and with almost $515 million in assets
under management, it is fair to say this is one of the most
successful ETFs that launched last year. Calling GUNR "obscure," is
clearly inaccurate and unfair, but it is fair to say the fund does
not receive the same notoriety as other materials-focused ETFs.
Popularity aside, GUNR merits consideration as an ETF that will
benefit from rising hard asset prices. The ETF is a plethora of
materials and natural resources equities. Agri-business and
integrated oil names combine for half of the fund's weight, but the
ETF also features a 16.7 weight to diversified mining firms and an
8.7 percent allocation to gold miners.
Exxon Mobil (NYSE:
XOM
), the largest U.S. oil company, is GUNR's largest individual
holding with a weight of almost 5.4 percent. GUNR is up 10.1
percent this year, easily outpacing the SPDR S&P Metals &
Mining ETF (NYSE:
XME
) in the process.
Market Vectors RVE Hard Assets Producers ETF (NYSE:
HAP
)
As is the case with GUNR, the Market Vectors RVE Hard Assets
Producers ETF is home to a robust AUM total ($146.2 million), but
HAP is also an example of a hard assets fund that does not draw
much acclaim.
HAP and GUNR are similar in that both offer broad-based exposure
to multiple materials and natural resources sub-sectors. For those
investors that think the 120 stocks held by GUNR is not enough, HAP
holds nearly triple that amount. However, HAP is not diverse as
GUNR as the former allocates a combined 82 percent of its weight to
energy and materials names.
Top-10 holdings include Exxon, Monsanto (NYSE:
MON
), Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE:
POT
) and BHP Billiton (NYSE:
BHP
), so there is some duplication with GUNR. HAP is also slightly
more expensive with fees of 0.49 percent compared to 0.48 percent
for GUNR.
First Trust Materials AlphaDEX Fund (NYSE:
FXZ
)
The First Trust Materials AlphaDEX Fund is proof positive that
index methodology can make a difference in an ETF's return. On the
surface, FXZ would appear to be an also ran next to the Materials
Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:
XLB
) and the Vanguard Materials ETF (NYSE:
VAW
), just to name a pair.
For starters, FXZ is not tiny with almost $176 million in assets
under management. There are some
moving parts to this ETF's index methodology
, but to describe it simple terms, the bottom 25 percent of the
Russell 1000 Materials and Processing Index are eliminated. The
"selected stocks are divided into quintiles based on their rankings
and the top ranked quintiles receive a higher weight within the
index. The stocks are equally-weighted within each quintile,"
according to First Trust.
That means FXZ features some of the same constituents as XLB and
VAW, but with vastly different weights. Asking why First Trust uses
this is methodology is not important. Asking about the result is.
Year-to-date, in the past year and over the past five years, XLB
and VAW come nowhere FXZ in terms of generating alpha.
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.
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