Do financial advisors sell ETFs?
Financial advisors continue to embrace ETFs, and they're proud of it. “Follow the money; the answer is fees,” said Thomas Balcom, founder of 1650 Wealth Management.
As the above table shows, 90% of advisors use ETFs, and almost half reported they plan to increase their usage in the 12 months ahead. Cash and equivalents, such as money market funds, were also widely used.
Unlike with mutual fund shares, retail investors can only purchase and sell ETF shares in market transactions. That is, unlike mutual funds, ETFs do not sell individual shares directly to, or redeem their individual shares directly from, retail investors.
Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street dominate the ETF market with the most offerings.
3 (Education, Training and Experience) and National Instrument 31-103 Registration Requirements, Exemptions and Ongoing Obligations (“NI 31-103”). While MFDA Members and Approved Persons may sell ETFs that meet the definition of a mutual fund, there are important differences between ETFs and conventional mutual funds.
“As long-term investors, we don't place much value on the ability to trade ETFs intraday. In fact, it can encourage short-term trading which can increase risk.” Performance, of course, matters too.
You need a brokerage account to invest in ETFs (exchange-traded funds). If you have any questions along the way, we're happy to help.
ETFs trade on a stock exchange just like a stock, so investors may pay a flat commission fee every time they buy or sell shares in a fund. Also known as ETF transaction fees or ETF transaction costs, these may range from $8 to $30 at brokerage firms.
Market risk
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.
Investors who hold ETFs that are not liquid may have trouble selling them at the price they want or in the time frame necessary. Moreover, if an ETF invests in illiquid shares or uses leverage, the market price of the ETF may fall dramatically below the fund's NAV.
Does Warren Buffett hold ETFs?
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Owns 2 ETFs: SPY and VOO
Regardless of what Berkshire buys or sells, one of the cheapest ways for an investor to diversify is with an exchange-traded fund. If you want to buy what Buffett has at Berkshire, he has two ETFs listed on the 13F: SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY. Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO.
The reigning king
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) remains at the forefront of S&P 500 ETFs, boasting an impressive $478 billion in assets under management (AUM). Remarkably, this ETF celebrated its 31st anniversary on January 22, 2024, coinciding with the day the S&P 500 index reached its recent all-time high.
Symbol | Name | AUM |
---|---|---|
SPY | SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust | $533,453,000.00 |
IVV | iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | $439,738,000.00 |
VOO | Vanguard S&P 500 ETF | $432,244,000.00 |
VTI | Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF | $388,015,000.00 |
An investment adviser cannot sell securities but acts more like a consultant, giving advice on what securities a person should invest in.
The Series 7—officially, the General Securities Representative Qualification Examination—allows you to sell everything covered under the Series 6, plus stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and options.
Commission-Based Financial Advisors
1 Products sold by commission-based advisors include financial instruments, such as insurance packages and mutual funds. The more transactions they complete or the more accounts they open, the more they get paid.
Constantly Trading
One of the biggest reasons Ramsey cautions investors about ETFs is that they are so easy to move in and out of. Unlike traditional mutual funds, which can only be bought or sold once per day, you can buy or sell an ETF on the open market just like an individual stock at any time the market is open.
- Trading fees.
- Operating expenses.
- Low trading volume.
- Tracking errors.
- The possibility of less diversification.
- Hidden risks.
- Lack of liquidity.
- Capital gains distributions.
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.
ETFs have two distinct differences from mutual funds: They trade like stocks on a stock exchange, which means they can be bought and sold during regular trading hours through a broker or a brokerage app. That makes them highly liquid assets.
What's the best ETF to buy right now?
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% |
"A newer investor with a modest portfolio may like the ease at which to acquire ETFs (trades like an equity) and the low-cost aspect of the investment. ETFs can provide an easy way to be diversified and as such, the investor may want to have 75% or more of the portfolio in ETFs."
1. $0.00 commission applies to online U.S. equity trades, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and options (+ $ 0.65 per contract fee) in a Fidelity retail account only for Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC retail clients. Sell orders are subject to an activity assessment fee (from $0.01 to $0.03 per $1,000 of principal).
$0.00 commission applies to online U.S. equity trades, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and options (+ $ 0.65 per contract fee) in a Fidelity retail account only for Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC retail clients.
ETFs are bought and sold through major exchanges at any time during a trading day. An ETF trades like a stock in that there is a bid price (the price an investor is offering to pay for a share) and an ask price (the share price an investor is offering to sell a share).
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